Multiple Domain optimization
-
Hello all,
I'm a bit new to this, though I'd like to think I'm a fast learner when it comes to IT related stuff...as I've been doing it for long enough.
Here's my question. I have a non-profit corporation that covers a small region referred to as "Upper Cape" which covers four towns (mashpee, sandwich, falmouth, bourne). I have a direct competitor in each town who has a domain that contains the name of the town.
Being that I'd like to optimize across the four towns, I've decided to also purchase up 4 domain names that contain the towns. Rather than forward the domains to the upper cape domain, I've cloned instances of word press containing my data across 4 different sites that contain the towns.
As I got to thinking about this...I thought that it might actually hurt me...looking for insight and help as to how best to do this to optimize search (and be found) across these four towns. -
Hi IPIM!
Agree with the single domain vs. mult-domain approach, and you absolutely want to avoid duplicating content across multiple websites. I think you might find this article helpful:
-
if you have them (the domains) then your competitors don't...hang on to them and maybe something will come along one day that will warrent using them.
-
Again I appreciate you taking the time to respond and provide insight. I believe you answered my question, although I'm still not sure what to do about the other domains that we've registered.
-
its where do you draw the line, do you create a new site for every town? how unique would the content be across those domains? is that what the search engines really want in their search results, one brand buying multiple domains and dominating the results?
What your proposing above is not considered best practice, other people may disagree but its trying to game the results IMHO, and usually that will end in tears.
think about how you can target those towns within the confines of one domain.
www.yourdomain.co.uk/falmouth-jewelers
have that page contain a Google map with the location, contact details, offers and promotions unique to that location, maybe add a bit of local history, local client testimonials, local news.
Some good reading
https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/give-each-store-a-url/
http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/12/14/what-matt-cutts-says-about-local-search/
-
So is there little value in having domains that contain names that pertain to the industry / town?
I just watched a cool Moz video on watches...so using that as an industry so I can frame this in my mind correctly. If my company is Upper Cape Watch Company and I want to specifically target the towns of Falmouth, Mashpee, Sandwich and Bourne (where my competition might be Falmouth Jewelers, Mashpee Jewelers, Sandwich Jewelers and Bourne Jewelers) there's little value in having a domain for Falmouth Watch Company, Bourne Watch Company and so on?If I have 4 domains such as Falmouth/Mashpee etc. should I just forward them to the main site, forward with masking or without?
I am very grateful for your response and insight...I don't get paid for these efforts as it's a small non-profit...pretty much a labor of love that I'm tasked with since I work in the IT field.
-
Im not a fan of diluting authority across multiple domains, it just means having 4 x the effort and 4 x the budget.
I would go for www.yourdomain.com/town and then optimise each of those pages with highly relevant (unique), local and helpful information.
That way, all your outreach efforts are contained within the one domain and you authority flows across the site.
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
-
Business has one toll free number, but multiple locations
Hello, The business I work for has one toll free number (it's addiction treatment) but multiple locations. How do I handle NAP? Clients that want help call a toll free number and get recommended to specific locations. Thanks!
Local Listings | | lfrazer1230 -
Website with higher domain authority and good content not ranking locally?
I've got a client that has a higher domain authority than top ranking sites, is pretty well optimized from a content perspective, has good local reviews but still isn't ranking well at all... often not at all in local results. We don't show in map pack or even regular organic listings in a pretty small city. They are a local sign shop- so they make business signs/church signs etc. Have you seen anything negatively impacting local rankings that is worth digging into as possible cause? A few historical insights: They had some spammy backlinks (we think a competitor was being shady) that I've sent disavow files into Google for They had a previous SEO person create 100's of orphan pages for every possible city + offering combination you can think of- I've cleaned those up via 301 redirects Should I just keep waiting, doing content optimization or am I missing something else?
Local Listings | | karmadigital0 -
Connecting multiple locations under one Google business listing ?
I am working for a client with multiple locations across U.S. and trying to add multiple locations under one Google business listing ? Is there a any way to add multiple locations in one listing, or every location needs to have its own business listing ?
Local Listings | | singhk0 -
Service for multiple loccations
Hi, OK so I have a page on my website which is 24 hour emergency electrician. Please take a look here https://www.otexelectrical.co.uk/windsor-24-hour-emergency-electrician Now I am ranking OK for Windsor emergency electrician however I would like to do the same for the multiple different locations I've I could create multiple URLs with different title and description meta information and submit using site map and web master tools however I'm aware that doing this I would be creating duplicate content. Would a canonical link for each location pointing to the same page be OK to go with and if so how do I go about doing this? Do I do this by linking each area listed to the same page using rel=canonical? Or if I'm thinking this all wrong how would you suggest I did this. I'm very new to local SEO so you will probably notice in google I did origonally create multiple pages of the same content with location changes in content, meta tags etc. I realise now this was the wrong way to go about doing this hence why I've deleted these and edited my .htaccess to 301 to the same page. The location links have dropped in the rankings. Any help would be very much appreciated. Cheers
Local Listings | | Peo19870 -
2 Domains
Hi, one of my clients owns a dental practice. The business is split into 2 parts. One is general dentistry and the other in cosmetic dentistry. They are both aimed at different markets. The question is, should we have 1 website with all the details for the business under, or could we have two domains and promote both sites differently. Does anyone see any issues with the address being the same etc? Thanks Ade
Local Listings | | popcreativeltd0 -
Citation building for multiple locations
Hey everyone, I think i've got a good handle on citations, but had a question regarding multiple locations. I'm going to be doing citation building for a local lawyer, and he's got 4 locations. I'd like to build citations for each of his locations, but I was wondering if the business name needs to change? Ie. If I am building citations for Town 2 and Town 3, should the business name be listed as "Company Name Town 1" for the first location, and "Company Name Town 2" for the second? Or is it fine to use the company name throughout all citations, and just change the location/phone number to the location based info? I'm just worried about Google seeing differing info, but the same company name, and possibly penalizing me for it. Thanks in advance!
Local Listings | | RCDesign740 -
Local listing ranking higher than domain name
Hi everyone,I was wondering why on my ranking report there is a fluctuation between the local listing page and the domain name page. Is it a way to always get the domain name ranking higher than the local listing?Thanks for your support,RM
Local Listings | | skrauss0 -
Question about domains with 2 or 3 hyphens
I have a client who has 3 domains in the following format: keywordkeywordkeywordkeyword.co.uk keyword-keyword-keyword.co.uk keyword-keyword-keyword-london.co.uk And needs advice on the best one to use. The client is leaning towards the one with 3 hyphens because it has more keywords but I am a bit worried about using it at the risk of it looking too spammy because of the hyphens. So my question is will 3 hyphens as in the above example cause anything negative in terms of SEO? We will not be doing any black-hat seo tactics but even so will 3 hyphens cause any problems or is it safer to go with just two hyphens? And secondly the client asked if Google can understand different words or is it better to have hyphens so Google can understand that there are different words?
Local Listings | | impliweb0