Buying mutliple keyword rich domain names and directing them to one site
-
I've noticed some folks buying keyword rich domain names and pointing them to one site to try to rank for those keywords. An example of this is a plumbing business that buys domains like austinplumber.com, localaustinplumbingservice.com, bestplumberinaustin.com and then pointing these domains to their main website. Does this help the site rank for these key phrases? How does google see this?
Thanks mozzers!
Ron
-
Not only did the doorway page lose it's ranking for its keyword, but so did the main site.
This sounds like cloaking.
About those doorway domains and microsites. I used to run a lot of hotdog stand websites. I thought that was the way to go. Then I learned that a big kickass site was a lot easier to run, a lot easier to rank and performed better with visitors. So, now the company that I own works actively on just three websites - each in a different niche.
If I had a company like you describe. I would start putting all future work into a single site in each topic area. And work on that site until it defeats all of the doorways. Stop competing with yourself and diluting your brand.
-
Could you set up these microsites on the same server as your main website? Like, having a separate folder in your public html folder with its own index.htm and pages? This way, you wouldn't have to pay for a new hosting company.
-
Instead of building a site around that specific keyword on a domain like that. Just develop a piece of great content on your website around your keyword string. Its going to help in the longevity of things.
-
They might search like that but if you don't have a website on that domain you will not get the traffic. It is highly unlikely that significant numbers of people are typing in for word domain names for websites that do not exist.
-
What is the different way you're recommending? Thanks...
-
The average search on google is over 4 words long, so people actually search like that. Question is, if you redirect it, is there even a benefit, meaning, does Google associate the initial domain with the target page?
-
That's excactly right, for a domain name to be useful in ranking, it needs to be attached to a unique website with unique content.
It has been a sales trick of many internet companies to sell these high value domains to customers 'in case someone types that into Google'. It's nothing more than a sales trick.
That said, if you are looking to capture a localised search traffic like 'Plumbers Windsor', then maybe a set of microsites would be good for you, although it is usually cheaper to optimise your main site than setup micros.
-
Redirecting these names will bring you nothing more than the type-in traffic for those exact domains.
I am willing to bet a month's pay that very few people type localaustinplumbingservice.com or someotherridiculouslylonglocaldomain.com
-
For some reason on the local level, these domains are powerful. I am not sure about just buying a brand new domain and forwarding them, they will be next to useless. But developing microsites with these domains works quite well, I could see if you build one up and then redirected it, then it would help ranking for one site.
I would recommend doing it a different way as this method is currently on its way out. Its been a declining trend for the last couple of years.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I have a site that has a 302 redirect loop on the home page (www.oncologynurseadvisor.com) i
i am trying to do an audit on it using screaming frog and the 302 stops it. My dev team says it is to discourage Non Human Traffic and that the bots will not see it. Is there any way around this or what can I tell the dev team that shows them it is not working as they state.
Web Design | | HayMktVT0 -
Pulling old site-map and URL structure of a site
Hey guys how do I pull an old sitemap or URL structure of a site ! This company I am helping out . Build a new site without any 301 redirect ! It's been about 2 months and hosting company sent me. SQL database file said we basically need to build another site ! Wondering if there are any other ways to see what exact urls were existent before their change over
Web Design | | BizDetox0 -
How do I optimize a site designed to be one scrolling page of content?
Our website uses section ID's as its navigation so all the content is on one page. When you click About Us, the page scrolls down to About Us. Products, the page scrolls to Products section, and etc. I am getting crawl errors for meta descriptions but will this go away once the main domain has this info? We just added the meta keywords and description to the header and since the navigation sections use the same page, I assume it will correct the errors. Any other advice on optimizing for site designs like ours would be great. www.theicecubekit.com is the site. Thanks,
Web Design | | bangbang
Chris0 -
Site lost in Google
Recently I switched my from Joomla to WordPress. I did 301 re-directs ...and promptly fell from Google results after 5 YEARS at no. 1-3 Still ranking 1 in Bing and 3 in Yahoo...but nowhere near the traffic I previously had. Here is my site: http://selfdirectedira.org Any suggestions? TIA
Web Design | | tvegas0 -
International SEO issues for multiple sites
We currently have 3 websites: oursite.co.uk oursite.fr oursite.ch We also own Oursite.com, and that URL currently redirects to Oursite.fr. We are considering a complete site redesign and a possible merge of the 3 sites. Assumptions: ** the 3 sites currently receive organic search traffic to varying degrees
Web Design | | darkgreenguy
** Oursite.ch is almost identical to Oursite.fr in terms of the site content
** Our target market is NOT the USA for English-language searches. It is the UK. With a re-design, we see our options as follows: Merge the 3 sites and make Oursite.com the "main site" and then have subfolders as follows: /uk /fr /ch Keep the 3 sites as they are. We see Option 1 as the best in terms of saving time when updating the site, and saving money paid to the site developers (1 site vs 3 sites). We see Option 2 as the best in terms of ability of the site to rank, as well as confidence of searchers when seeing our site in the search results (in other words, a person searching in France would be more likely to buy and/or submit a form on our site if they saw Oursite.fr vs Oursite.com/fr). I guess we're looking for some suggestions/guidance here. Are we missing any big issues? Does anyone have experience with an issue such as this? Thank you in advance...
-Shawn0 -
Responsive Vs Mobile Sites
I know this is some cutting edge technology, but I think that this will be a very important topic in the coming months, as html5/css3 becomses more and more the standard, or at least standardized, I think the topic of this in relation to SEO will also arise much more. My question is simple, is it better to code a responsive site, or a completely mobile site for a small company with no special needs (mobile ordering, ecommerce, etc...) I obviously know the visuall differences, and, personally, I think respomsive websites look better. From an seo perspective, my big thing is for the resizing, for example, with WordPress, when you reach the tablet size you can set the sidebar to basically display:none, can that impact your website? I would really appreciate any feedback
Web Design | | ZacharyRussell0 -
Keyword rich footer links negative effect
Based on bits and pieces of information I've read on SEOmoz, am I correct to state that:
Web Design | | Partouter
"Keyword-rich footer links effect pages negatively in terms of the keyword referenced in the anchor text?" This means footer links in Thanks in advance fellow Mozzers!0