How do I fix a multiple domain mess?
-
I just picked up an account that is a franchisee and they have 6 exact match domains plus their main domain (all exact duplicates, not 301s). GA shows the main domain as getting the lion's share of hits, but for some important local keywords, the exact match domains rank higher. Some pages may have the exact match domain, primary domain and the franchise domain all ranking on the same SERP. Yuk!
My strategy is to work on the main domain and as the work progresses, the main site will surpass the exact match domains and main franchise domain for the important searches. For the exact match domains I plan on just leaving them alone. Is this a sound strategy? I could pull the exact match domains down, but since they rank well for their keywords, it seems most sensible to leave them up. What do you think?
-
Good point on owning the page! Phasing out the EMD's over time sounds like a good way to go.
-
3 domains ranking in the same SERP? Not necessarily a bad thing there, as you now own that page. Must help with the CTR.
My gut tells me that duplicate content is hurting your main site more than the traffic to the EMD justifies. Leaving the duplicate content up may continue to cripple your rankings over time.
Fortunately, you have a lot of tools at your disposal. If the backlinks aren't spammy, you shouldn't have much problem redirecting the domains to the main site. I'd experiment with redirecting a single EMD (exact match domain) and filing a change of address with Google Webmaster tools. (here's an excellent guide on site migration: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-site-migration-guide-tips-for-seos)
After this, look to see if the keywords sending traffic to the old domain now send traffic to the new. I'm not sure migrating one site out of 6 is going to make that big of difference, but it's much safer than migrating all six at once - which could be seen as somewhat suspicious by Google.
My guess is that combining your content into a single domain will give you a ranking/traffic boost that justifies the trouble.
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO
-
They are all .com extensions. [service[city].com withing the same county in a US metro area.
Kris
-
Hello,
What extensions are these domains? are they different country gilds?
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
-
Google is indexing our old domain
We changed our primary domain from vivitecsolutions.com to vivitec.net. Google is indexing our new domain, but still has our old domain indexed too. The problem is that the old site is timing out because of the https: Thought on how to make the old indexing go away or properly forward the https?
Technical SEO | | AdsposureDev0 -
Forwarding a .org domain to a .com domain: any negative impact to consider?
Hello! I have a question I've been unable to find a clear answer to. My client's primary domain is a .com with a satisfactorily high DA. My client owns the .org version of its domain (which has a very low DA, I suppose due to inactivity) but has never forwarded it on. For branding/visibility/traffic reasons, I'd like to recommend they set up the .org domain to forward to the .com domain, but I wanted to ask a few questions first: 1. Does forwarding low-value DA domains to high-value DA domains have any negative authority/SEO impact? 2. If the .org domain was to be forwarded, am I correct that an SSL cert is not necessary for it if the .com domain has an SSL cert? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | mollykathariner_ms1 -
301 a whole subdomain to main domain
Hello, we have our website in two languages. The subdomain cs. for czech and main domain for english. Somehow this has caused google not to rank our main domain in local CZ SERP for many english keywords and we have not found out a reason other than it might think of them as duplicates or that we at the start had put targeting for the cs. domain to CZECH. (Its been 4 months, english keywords in Czech serp are easier and still it ranks them on the very last place, yet for example.com ranks them in google.com co.uk, fr etc in top 10) We will close our cs.example.com subdomain and use only example.com hoping this will not cause google to display only one domain and raise it in CZECH rankings. **Can i 301 redirect cs.example.com to example.com and all the categories of cs.example.com to relevant english categories. This should be ok? **
Technical SEO | | advertisingtech0 -
Domain Change
What is the average organic traffic loss one can expect after switching to a new domain? We went from .com to .org and are seeing 50% decline in organic traffic and 25% in Google news traffic. 301s were implemented from site.com/some-page to site.org/some-page and change site was completed in WMT. This traffic drop seems excessive...
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Country Specific Domain
Guyz, we are new startups and have one very simple question regarding domain name. Should we use example.com or example.com.au ? Our Goal initially would be to target customer from Australia and gradually go global. So if we opt for .com.au we may have an edge in terms of local SEO in the beginning but lose out in the long run. What is the best way to tackle this? Thanks
Technical SEO | | WayneRooney0 -
301'ing domain to an addon domain
My googlefu failed me in finding this... How to 301 a domain to an addon domain? Domain structure is as follows: http://addondomain.maindomain.com/ http://www.maindomain.com/addondomain/ http://www.addondomain.com/ <--(addon domain has its own domain as well) I want main domain to all point to the addon domain like so: http://www.maindomain.com/ --> http://www.addondomain.com/
Technical SEO | | JasonJackson0 -
Beating a keyword Domain
Has anyone here managed to beat a keyword/exact match domain to top spot? I am currently second and wondering if it is worth the time and effort to knock it off the top spot. How hard is it to get these very annoyingly favoured domains off 1st? Any help and advice much appreciated.
Technical SEO | | pauledwards0 -
Keyword domains
Hi everyone. Two questions regarding keyword domains (e.g. "widgets.com") If we have to choose a domain with an extra word, does it make a difference to have the added word before or after? E.g. "my-widgets.com" vs "widgets-now.com" Does it make a difference if the extra word is a generic vs a 'real' word? E.g. "my-widgets.com" vs "japanese-widgets.com" Thanks a lot for your feedback!
Technical SEO | | hectorpn0