Two Domains, which one should be used on Social Media platforms?
-
I have a client who changed from a Branded Domain (301 redirected this domain) to a Partial Match Domain, using the city in the domain for rich keyword. I take care of their Social Media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.). These social networks used the Branded Domain (with the company name in the domain) for years, now the new web designer is asking that we change Username and Domain to the new Partial Match Domain, which is very "generic" not mentioning the company name. I am reluctant to change for branding mention purposes. Does anyone have any advice?
-
Hi Denise,
You should be safe to redirect back to the original domain - two months is long enough for Google to have completely indexed the new site and assigned it rankings, but a 301 redirect generally takes care of this and reverses the situation back to its original state. It's not optimal - optimal would have been never doing this in the first place unfortunately - but you do need to complete the redirect back again because the original site is now thought of as the new site, as far as Google is concerned. You need the 301 to say "hey Google, we're not on pmd.com anymore, we're over on brand.com!" just as you did the first time, when you changed the pmd.com two months ago.
Again, it's not optimal because they fewer redirects a domain / site can go through the better, but I'd class this sort of redirect for keywords as damaging and not something you want to keep around.
I hope this helps!
Best,
Jane
-
Thank you Jane! I am so happy to have received two responses and also relieved to know I am advising my client correctly, with support from you and Casey Markee. It has been less than 2 months since they changed this domain. I asked Casey if the dentist goes back to the branded domain how it will effect SE and whether or not we should "redirect" the PMD. Your thoughts on this would be appreciated also.
Again, thank you!
-
Thank you so much for your response! You have no idea how helpful this is to me! Yes, the domain was recently changed for SEO ranking and/or geographic benefits; and this is not a law firm. This is a dentist. It was advised by Jane Copland to go back to the branded domain (which I am inclined to agree). If the dentist changes back to the branded domain, will this confuse SE? And, do we dare "redirect" the PMD?
Thank you, in advance, for any advice you have.
-
Hi Denise,
I have to say that the rebrand strategy worries me too. There was a good need to have a domain name like this in 2006 / 7 or so, but it's very unnecessary now and verges on dangerous if it is seen to be a spammy move. It also reflects quite poorly from a usability point of view - if a brand-name regional insurance company like Pemco (http://www.pemco.com/) for example, and you change your domain to www.seattlecarinsurance.com, it doesn't look particularly professional.
I would definitely avoid making this change across social media as well. Is there any other reason besides SEO that this domain change was made in the first place? If not, I strongly suggest changing this back to the original name because there is unlikely to be any SEO benefit in doing this at all.
-
Just my two-cents, but that sounds like a TERRIBLE idea. Further, it's going to look pretty disingenuous to your social followings.
If you have a brand, that you've built up social followings on over an extended period of time, it seems VERY short-term to change out different domains. And frankly, the days of partial or exact match domains having long-term, strong, SEO staying power, is really over. Branded sites with branded anchor texts are really the SAFE way to go in what is a clear war by Google on keyword-rich link building.
A domain change is never an easy decision but unless you've legally changed your name or are "rebranding" -- doing a domain change JUST to get some kind of "partial match" in your URL sounds like pretty piss-poor SEO advice. Clearly, I have limited facts here and it sounds like they are doing this for some perceived "local SEO" geographic benefit but in my experience, most of these changes don't end up being successful in the long-term.
Now, the above being said, it is very common in the legal industry to have a keyword-rich domain (ie. http://www.bestinjurylawyers.com/) but use the Firm or Brand Name for social accounts (ie. https://www.facebook.com/TheReevesLawGroup). You can find a ton of examples of firms doing this so it's not the end-of-the-world and you can easily use these examples to justify NOT making a uniform change at your end.
I hope this was helpful. Good luck with your client situation.
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
-
International SEO - Domains or Folders?
Hi, We have been approached by a potential client. They are a UK company whose website is hosted on a .com domain (the .co.uk forwards to the .com). They also have a German website hosted on a .de domain. Both the .com and the .de are hosted in the UK. We believe that the .de website should be hosted in Germany. You agree? Anyway, they now need to target the US market. They are planning on duplicating the UK (.com) website and creating a US version of the site on a .us domain. They would rewrite the content for the US site to avoid duplications, and add Href Lang attributes etc. They are also debating whether the new US site should be hosted in the US or the UK. We don't think this is the best strategy. Would it not be better to host both the UK and US website on the .com domain. using reginal folders? i.e. example.com/uk, and example.com/us. Obviously we would setup Href Lang accordingly and change the Google Search Console geo targeting options for each of the sub-sites (/uk and /us). Or we could suggest hosting the UK site on the .co.uk domain, and the US on the .com domain. So, what is the best strategy to target the US audience, whilst maintaining UK rankings? Many thanks for your time, hope to hear from you soon 🙂 Lee.
Branding | | Webpresence1 -
Viral Video :Best use - What to do with it?
So I was told that I have video that should be the next "viral video" in a particular vertical market. (It is an animal) Anyway I have 4 offers from different companies now that want to market it for me. Junkin Media, Rumble.com, Newsflare and Storyful. Junkin wants ownership in perpetuity the other groups want for 1 year to market to news agencies. They are offering 60/40 revenue split with me getting 60. plus an extra $1 per thousand hits on the video. Supposedly they will market it to for me to news agencies etc. Anyway I was wondering if it would work best for me to market it myself and embed my business website link in the video for link juice on my home page. Then I can post the video in various places and the link strength might help my domain or page authority. Any suggestions about viral video use? Boo
Branding | | Boodreaux0 -
Should we use one domain with product-specific sub-domains or separate domains per product?
We are resellers of 4 separate products. Currently we have numerous different websites promoting each product, not all of them use a URL which has any real link to our business - it's only when you land on the page that it contains brand images, etc. We are in the process of redesigning and rebranding, and want to know what would be the best course of action to take in terms of domain registration. This is what we have currently, for example: - www.accounts-solutions.co.uk - This site deals with the resale and support of a branded accounts package. www.software-accounts-systems.co.uk - This site deals with the resale and support of a second branded accounts product. In terms of moving forward with new domains, which are going to contain our business name, our options are as follows: - OPTION 1 - www.our-business-name.co.uk/product1/etc, www.our-business-name.co.uk/product2/etc, www.our-business-name/product3/etc where all products are given separate sub-domains within our main business page. OPTION 2 - www.our-business-name-product1.co.uk/etc, www.our-business-name-product2.co.uk/etc, www.our-business-name-product3.co.uk/etc where each product we resell is given it's own separate domain entirely. Does anyone think one direction over another would give any benefits in terms of SEO, or would it not matter as long as each site was well optimised with a solid content and social strategy? My initial preference is for the first option, if only because of the continuity in terms of having one main company website with each product listed in sub-domains. Each landing page would obviously be optimised for each specific product/keyword, etc. so, from a user point of view, there shouldn't be any confusion between separate products. Also, would it be recommended to install 301 redirects from our existing www.accounts-solutions.co.uk, etc pages to the relevant new sites? Thanks, John
Branding | | HBPGroup0 -
Domain name with a hyphen
I am looking at starting a brand new website and purchasing a domain to see my hair product. My question is that domain i am wanting to purchase if a 2 word .com domain but it is not being currently used and it is up for auction for 10K. I am looking a purchasing a domain name that is the same 2 words but a has a hyphen between the 2 works. My assumption is that if I start building content, concentrating on seo (keywords, link building, etc) and brand building that I should not have any problems with my hyphen in the domain. I am looking for feedback and insight from the SEO professionals! Thank you guys in advance. UPDATED 1-29-13 Here is the scenario and I am looking on how you would handle it. **name = my brand name I am looking to purchase a domain within the year: namehair.com I currently am using: namehairbrand.com I have purchased: name-hair.com My concern is if I began my SEO efforts and the brand grows extensively then the person who owns "namehair.com" will raise the price even more than the current price of 10k. I plan on purchasing that domain name within the next 18 months or so and then direct the traffic to the domain "namehair.com". If I put all my efforts into "namehairbrand.com" and then submit to Google that I have changed domains - will I get my butt kicked by Google? Thank you guys - you are really helpful!
Branding | | dsmolinski0 -
How do can I compete with 60-80 Domain Authority?
As the title says, how can I compete with competitors that have a domain authority of 60-80? (Only around 2-3 major competitors) However I would like to compete with them. Is anyone else in this situation? What did you do? I've read a lot about building backlinks etc etc but surely theres more to it. I've got to rank 1500+ subcategories for my niche and it's nearly impossible to do so. Thanks to all who reply!
Branding | | Superinks0 -
Can creating a subfolder and seperate domain blog build external links?
So I am currently going through the creation of a blog with a client that has a company that sells tennis equipment. I have talked to their development team, who is a third-party ecommerce platform, and come up with an idea to create an sub-folder (domain.com/blog) with an article page using their existing framework that would feature full articles in a blog format. Then I would create multiple blogs for them using tumblr and wordpress with their company name and a few with unique names targeted to their niche. These would feature snippets of the content taken from their article page (domain.com/blog) with some responses or reviews on the full articles to further their outreach and then link to the main articles on their article page. These snippets would be divided up amongst the blogs and posted on different days of the week to divide the traffic. Each blog will feature fresh content and focus on a rotating schedule of the latest videos, re-blogs, memes, photos, highlights, scores, upcoming tournament reviews, etc. I will set each one up to rotate through these different topics on different days and times to create a steady stream of traffic. I want to make sure that I stress the fact that I wont be stuffing the unique blogs with links only to the clients company store, I will be making sure to keep it to an amount that isn't spam worthy. Now if these blogs feature rich content including the snippets of the articles from my sub-folder page (domain.com/blog) will these blogs pass link juice to the blog set up on my sub-folder? Also is this a good way to ensure brand awareness and create external links without damaging their reputation? Are there other risks that people have encountered by doing something similar? Please share your experiences so I can make an educated decision.
Branding | | cscoville0 -
Use blog.domain.com or socialbrand.com?
I've got a little bit of a dilemma. A company I'm working for has an ecommerce site that is moving to Volusion. It is impossible to add "domain.com/blog" so I am forced to use a subdomain in order to keep consistency. We are starting a push in Social media and have secured shorter handles for the brand to use on the different networks. One of the main goals originally for developing a blog is to build trust but since the domain names are so big (26 characters) and the ecommerce sites already have a good amount of trust building factors in them I am beginning to question my original plan. My question is this: If I go with a shorter brand recognized domain name to develop the blog on which is different than the ecommerce domain (keyword matched) will I loose too much trust and ranking opportunity because of the difference in domains. I know there isn't a golden bullet for this question but i would love to get you your take on it.
Branding | | BenRWoodard0 -
What do i do with multiple cheap domain names I want to use for SEO?
My domain registrar was having a sale for 1$ per year .com domain names (just for the first year). So I went all out and bought 16 domain names. They pretty much all are two or more keywords that i'd like to rank high on put together. We do dedicated server monitoring, so for instance I bought apachemonitoring.com and haproxymoniotring.com. Can anyone tell me what the best way would be to put these to good use technically? Options: Each domain just 301's to a specific landing page on my main company website Each domain is a site on a drupal multisite with just one page that has links to just my company website Other ideas? Thanks in advance! Walter
Branding | | walterheck0