Google software engineer Matt Cutts answered a number of questions submitted online on February 26, 2009. Among the questions asked was a query about whether or not a large number of domain redirects constituted suspicious activity.
Is redirecting a large number of domains suspicious? –
As a necessary precursor to answering the actual query, Matt touched upon a number of reasons why someone might want to perform this sort of activity on a legitimate basis. One of the scenarios he outlined involved a company that owned a large number of closely related web sites, such as sites that were slight misspellings of the intended destination, or instances where they had previously operated a number of distinct sites now being aggregated under a single banner.
The questioner wanted to know whether Google regarded such multiple site redirects towards a single destination as suspicious. The tenor of the answer was, on the face of it, that these were not a problem. Matt did, however, admit that Google might take a look at them but would probably conclude that nothing fishy was taking place. To put it another way, the answer is actually yes, Google would examine such redirects but would not be alarmed once they understood the reason for such atypical procedures.
Stating that Google finds nothing wrong with such a practice is not the same as saying that Google does not occasionally take a look at such activities.