: SEO affect of a small sister site I have a client who is keen to add a small landing page style site, since he has had a very popular URL purchased for a number of years but never actually

@Gloria169

If the idea of a "sister" site is questionable to you, then it might be questionable to others too, including competitors who may view this as a webspam/spamdexing technique.

As this video by Matt Cutts indicates, the sister site, and your main site along with it, might be reported to Google via a spam report:

What should I do if my competitors are using webspam techniques?

Spam reports might result in Google removing your site. Google's Penguin update also specifically targets spamdexing techniques, including doorway pages, penalizing sites that make use of them.

So when considering adding thin sites just for the purpose of linking back to a main site, it's wise to also consider that you'll be increasing your risks for the above, and hence likely not worth the perceived benefit.

It might serve your client better to just do a 301 redirect to the main site if the older domain is generating traffic that it can benefit from.

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@Jessie594

I would say that the line between blackhat SEO and good practice was whether your proposed extra site added sufficient extra value by itself.

In that, the site would be a resource worth visiting whether or not it was linked to another site and the content within justified its existence.

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