Does multiple sites that relate to one company hurt seo
-
I know this has been asked and answered but my situation is a little different.
I am a local electrical contractor. I specialize in a service and not a product. Competition is high in the local market due to the other electrical contractors that have well seasoned sites with very good DA/PA. Although new to the web I am not new to the trade. Throughout years almost back to the AOL dialup days I have been collecting domain names for this particular purpose. Now I want to put them to good use.
Being an electrical contractor, there are many different facets of work and services we provide.
My primary site is empireelec.com
A second site I threw online overnight with minimal content is jacksonvillelightingrepair.com. Although it is a fresh site, there is minimal content and I have put almost zero effort in to it. It appears to be ranking for keywords a lot quicker.
That leads me to believe I should utilize my other domain jacksonvillefloridaelectrician.com and target just the keyword Jacksonville Florida Electrician.
It leads me to believe I should use jacksonvillebeachelectrician.com for targeting electricians in jacksonville beach. And again with jacksonvilleelectricianservice.com
I can provide a unique phone number for each site.
Am I going about this all wrong? Everything I read says no,no,no but I feel my situation is a little more unique.
-
Thanks, Gabe! So nice of you to say. We've just had another good thread about EMDs going this past week, with a great response from Rand on it. You might like to read: https://mza.seotoolninja.com/community/q/to-re-domain-or-not-re-domain-that-is-the-question#reply_376575
-
That was nearly two years ago, but that is an INCREDIBLE answer, Miriam. Going through these questions myself right now.
EMDs unfortunately still seem to be ranking higher, but maybe Google AI will start to pay off in 2018...
-
Hi Andrea!
I'm so happy this thread helped you! You wrote:
"From what I read, the best solution would be instead putting the blog on the main site and this discussion confirmed this."
YES! Absolutely.
Regarding what to do with the old domains, I go with choice #1 on that.
-
hello,
I ran into this thread while looking into a similar issue for one of our client. First of all thanks to Miriam for the great post.
I thought I'd follow up on this, to see if I'm taking away the right ideas.This client has a corporate website on a medium-low competition B2B industry. DA is 22 and positioning is good on most of the relevant keywords is satisfactory, on the national market (Italy). There is no blog on this site: when we took the job, we adviced that they start one, but they weren't ready at the time. Now, they also have 3 other domains with static generic pages set up a few years ago by their former agency, which link back to the main site. None of them has any DA, nor inbound links and just one is bringing (very little) traffic to the corporate website. Last month they asked us to start a blog on one of those secondary domains, redirecting the other two to the one chosen to host the blog.
From what I read, the best solution would be instead putting the blog on the main site and this discussion confirmed this. Provided that I can convince the client to take that road, I am unsure of what to do with those other domains:
- let them expire and buy beers
- use them as landing pages for specific topics related to the keywords in each domain, linking back to main site (btw is this considered a spammy technique by google?)
If I can't convince them, would linking back to the corporate site potentially hurt ranking? Should I nofollow those links?
Thank you in advance
Cheers
Andrea -
So glad it helped, Rich, and hope no one drowned in that sea of words
-
Miriam, I dont think you could have articulated that answer with any more detail. That has cleared any doubts. Thank you very much for taking the time to explain in the detail you have provided.
-
Rich, you just received $5000 worth of consulting from Miriam.
-
Hi Rich,
I know those EMDs can be so tempting to use, particularly because Google still appears to have a bias towards keywords in the domain after all these years, but I'm going to attempt to explain here why you are likely hearing 'no-no' on this.
Your topic is such a good one, that I'm going to break this response down into 4 different parts, looking at this from 4 different viewpoints.
-
You're an electrician physically located in Jacksonville. You install lighting, you install wiring, you do residential work, you do commercial work. You offer half a dozen or more different services, but they all fall under the general heading of electrical work. Because you have a single office you're working out of, you are only allowed to build a single Google My Business listing, based on your Jacksonville location and using the categories Electrician and Electrical Engineer. You set this up as a service area business in your GMB dashboard, because you serve a variety of towns around your Jacksonville location. You are not allowed to create additional GMB listings for each of your services nor for cities where you don't have a physical location. So, in sum, you've got one GMB listing, properly categorized and listing one business name, one address, one phone number and one website. This is the sum of the information you are sending directly to Google about your business, via the GMB dashboard.
-
Now, we need to step into the shoes of a Googlebot to picture what happens from here, once you've created that GMB listing. We (the Googlebot) have this info about ABC Electrical at 123 Main St in Jacksonville, phone number (904) 365-7777 and URL www.abcelectrical.com. We head out to the web to cross-check this data we have with every other piece of data that seems to relate to this. We run into confusion very quickly because we start to encounter:
-
The same physical street address on 6 different websites
-
A shared phone number on 2 websites
-
Some duplicated content on 4 websites
-
A shared or similar business name on 3 sites
We thought the electrician told us his business was ABC Electrical at X address, X phone number and X website URL. So what is all this stuff? How does ABC Electrical relate to ABC Electrical Jacksonville Beach, or ABC Electrical Palm Beach, or Enterprise Electrical Jacksonville? We aren't totally sure and we don't think we 'trust' our data about this business which seems confusing. We'd rather rank a business highly when we're positive that it's relevant to the searcher, and we just don't feel sure how relevant ABC is, given how their data is all over the place. In fact, there's a chance ABC could be trying to game us, trying to appear as if it is 6 businesses instead of 1 and in 6 locations instead of 1. Hmm, we don't really like that at all.
- Okay, so that was us being Googlebot. Kind of silly, I know, but I find it helps me to tell a story to myself like this to help me envision possible paths. Now, let's turn back into being you, the business owner. You have been in your industry for a long time, and have been building a brand called Empire Electric. You've had a single website you've been working to make the very best site on its topic in its geography. Likely, just doing this has represented a considerable investment of time and money. You've got a blog on this site, and it's challenging enough to find time every week to write something awesome on it, but you're doing it. You're making that time. You're dedicated to building that brand!
Now, suddenly, instead of concentrating all the spare time and budget you have on your one website, your one blog, you are considering splitting that up into 2, 3, 4, 5 different parts. Ask yourself seriously if you will have the time to develop totally unique, high quality content for each separate site, and to write not one blog post a week, but five, so that every site you run is equally good, equally the best of its kind in its city. Or, if not the time, the money to pay a really excellent copywriter and blogger to achieve all of this for you on an initial and then ongoing basis? Or, will trying to run all this and/or pay for all this just end up detracting from your original goal of making your company and main website the leader in its industry/geography? Will you end up with half a dozen poor quality websites instead of one powerhouse website?
4). Now, finally, let's be me - the Local SEO, or any of those other Local SEOs you've heard 'no-no' from on this. Why are you getting this response? It's because this is what we've seen with other businesses that went with a multi-site path instead of a single site one:
-
NAP inconsistency across multiple websites, killing trust in the true data for the brand.
-
Duplicate content
-
Thin, weak content
-
Neglected websites
-
Owner burnout
-
Efforts being spread too thin to have the effect we hoped for
-
And, in extreme cases, filters, penalties and GMB takedowns!
So, that's what the no-no comes from. If you're hearing this, it's because this is what Local SEOs have seen so many times, they are worried that the same things will happen to you. To be totally honest, those you've heard this from likely feel doubtful that your business is going to be the exception that ensures that all guidelines are obeyed, no NAP is shared or convoluted, no content is thin, no content is duplicated,all sites are kept fresh and active at all times, and that there is absolutely ZERO footprint linking one website to another in any way. That is a really big list of requirements, and in fairness, it is actually possible to meet all of those requirements. It may be that you do have the time, the funding and the technical skills to meet every one of these requirements for a multi-site approach. If you do, then, yes, you could go this way.
But will it be worth it?
It's my personal opinion that it is almost always better to build the best darned authoritative website in your industry/geography, putting every bit of time and money into turning that site into a powerhouse for your brand, rather than spreading yourself thin over a bevy of websites. After all, at the end of the day, it's your brand that you want on the lips of your neighbors. You want them to know to call Empire Electric for all of the electrical needs. You don't want them to try to remember they saw some site called electricalservicesjacksonville.com. That's not a brand. It's just a bunch of keywords.
Moz is a good example we can look at. It offer a variety of products and services, all under the Moz roof. But, imagine if Moz instead had one site for this forum, another for Pro, another for Local, another for our blog, another for YouMoz, one for Seattle, another for our customers in Portland, and San Francisco, and Denver. Doesn't it make it easier for you, the community member, to know you just come to Moz for everything we offer? And wouldn't it be easier for your customers throughout Florida to know that they just come to Empire Electric for every service you offer in every city in which you serve?
Whew - long response, but it's scenarios like these that represent a major decision for a business like yours, and they deserve all the thought you can give them, taking into account how all paths might affect the future of your business. I'll just close by addressing the fact again that, yes, Google is still weighting EMDs in Local SEO. I see totally awful websites ranking because of keywords in their domains ... but I do not expect this to last. I predict that the continuous growth of Google's sophistication will one day result in a crackdown on these low quality sites. When that day comes, I'd certainly be glad I'd built a fortress at my single, branded domain and I'd sit back, and watch those EMD competitors who never deserved to rank well in the first place fall down the rankings. I'd be in pretty good shape
Hope this helps!
-
-
I respect that. It was kind of what I was thinking I was going to hear.
I tried adwords in the past. It made the phone ring, alot. Too bad all of the calls were people telling me how they could get me first on Google. I have to wonder two things, how many of them clicked and cost me money and how many legitimate calls did I miss having to field all the solicitations.
As for yellowpages, I dont want the 60-90 demographic. With my previous company we spent upwards of 5K per month on print and our call accounting proved that was a huge loss hence the reason the phonebook has gone from 3inches think to 3/4 inches thick in the last 4 years.
As for content, I have one goal and that is to make them call me. From there it is purely customer service. Sometimes I think even a splash page with "are you looking for "blah,blah,blah" then call 555-1212 would serve its purpose.
-
Let's say you start all of these new websites. You spend a little work on this one, a little work on that one, a little work here.... then when your customers want to review you some will go to this site, some will go to that site, some will go to another site...
What do you have after that? A collection of hotdog stands. Nothing impressive. You have a bunch of websites that are not much different from your weakest competitor who didn't work very hard.
When you enter competition in the SERPs you enter a melee. You are being attacked from the front, side, behind, above and below. The best way to win is to go in like a Rambo and start kicking ass. If you go in without working hard, you lose. If you go in with a bunch of hotdog stands you lose a bunch of times.
So, if I was you, I would focus all of my efforts on one website. EmpireElec has a long way to go. Put good informative useful content on there for each of your service activities. What to do before you call the electrician for lots of your most common situations. Be generous, inform people, save them money, weave yourself a huge white hat. No time to do that? Then buy adwords, use the YellowPages.
About those domains... I would allow them to expire and buy beer with the savings. You have one domain. If you don't have the time or the engergy to make it kickass you are not going to do it with a dozen of them.
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
-
SEO for Franchises - Subdomains or Folders?
Wondering if there ever has been any recent consensus on best SEO strategy for a Franchise. I feel it is safe to assume that just having one corporate website with a "store locator" that just brings up the address, phone and hours of a location is not optimal. Yes, the important thing is to get a Google Places for Business listing for each location so you can come up in the 3-pack and regular Maps result, BUT, the rankings for the 3-pack is largely determined by the site's authority and relevance to the specific search term used, IN ADDITION TO, the proximity of the business to the search user's physical location. Apparently it is widely believed that domain authority does not transfer from www.mycorporatedomain.com to somecity.mycorporatedomain.com. And of course we also know there is a potential for a duplicate content penalty, so you can't just duplicate your main site for a number of locations and change the address and phone number on the contact page. If the products and or services are identical for each location, then it's going to be somewhat ridiculous to try and rewrite many sections of the website since the information is no different despite the location. It seems in general more people are advocates of putting location pages or micro-sites in a subfolder of the corporate domain so that it can benefit from the domain's authority. HOWEVER, it is also widely known that the home page (root URL) of any domain carries more weight in the eyes of Google. So let's assume the best strategy is to create a micro-site where phone and address is different anywhere they appear and the contact page is customized to that location, and the "Meet The Staff" page is customized to that location. The site uses the same style 'template' if you will as the main site. Let's also assume you can build a custom home page that has some different content, but still shares the same look and some of the same information as the main site. But let's say between the different phone, address, and maybe some different images and 20% of the content rewritten a bit, Google doesn't view it as dupe content. So would the best strategy then be to have the location home page be: somecity.mycorporatedomain.com and the product and services pages that are identical to the main site you just use a rel canonical to point to the main site? Or, do you make the "home page" for the local business be a subfolder of the main site. So I guess what it boils down to is whether or not the domain authority has more of an effect compared to having a unique home page on a subdomain. What about this? Say the only thing different on the local site is the contact (phone/address) in the header and/or footer of every page, the contact form page, and the meet the staff page. All other content is identical to the corp site, including the home page. I think in that case you need to use a script to serve the pages dynamically. So you would need to server the pages using a PHP script that detects the subfolder name to determine the location and dynamically replaces the phone and address and server different contact and staff pages. You could have a vanity domain mycity.mycorporatedomain.com that does a 301 redirect to the subfolder home page. (This is all ofcourse assuming the subfolder method is the way to go.)
Local Website Optimization | | SeoJaz0 -
Using geolocation for dynamic content - what's the best practice for SEO?
Hello We sell a product globally but I want to use different keywords to describe the product based on location. For this example let’s say in USA the product is a "bathrobe" and in Canada it’s a "housecoat" (same product, just different name). What this means… I want to show "bathrobe" content in USA (lots of global searches) and "housecoat" in Canada (less searches). I know I can show the content using a geolocation plugin (also found a caching plugin which will get around the issue of people seeing cached versions), using JavaScript or html5. I want a solution which enables someone in Canada searching for "bathrobe" to be able to find our site through Google search though too. I want to rank for "bathrobe" in BOTH USA and Canada. I have read articles which say Google can read the dynamic content in JavaScript, as well as the geolocation plugin. However the plugins suggest Google crawls the content based on location too. I don’t know about JavaScript. Another option is having two separate pages (one for “bathrobe” and one for “housecoat”) and using geolocation for the main menu (if they find the other page i.e. bathrobe page through a Canadian search, they will still see it though). This may have an SEO impact splitting the traffic though. Any suggestions or recommendations on what to do?? What do other websites do? I’m a bit stuck. Thank you so much! Laura Ps. I don’t think we have enough traffic to add subdomains or subdirectories.
Local Website Optimization | | LauraFalls0 -
URL and title strategy for multiple location pages in the same city
Hi, I have a customer which opens additional branches in cities where he had until now only one branch. My question is: Once we open new store pages, what is the best strategy for the local store pages in terms of URL and title?
Local Website Optimization | | OrendaLtd
So far I've seen some different strategies for URL structure:
Some use [URL]/locations/cityname-1/2/3 etc.
while others use [URL]/locations/cityname-zip code/
I've even seen [URL]/locations/street address-cityname (that's what Starbucks do) There are also different strategies for the title of the branch page.
Some use [city name] [state] [zip code] | [Company name]
Other use [Full address] | [Company name]
Or [City name] [US state] [1/2/3] | [Company name]
Or [City name] [District / Neighborhood] [Zip Code] | [Company name] What is the preferred strategy for getting the best results? On the one hand, I wish differentiate the store pages from one another and gain as much local coverage as possible; on the other hand, I wish to create consistency and establish a long term strategy, taking into consideration that many more branches will be opened in the near future.1 -
Google can't discern the identity of my site
I have a website, http://NewYorkJazzEvents.com, that promotes jazz bands that are available for brides looking to hire a jazz band to perform at their wedding, or event planners looking to hire a jazz band to perform for a corporate event, etc. This identity, that my site is an Entertainment Agency, is made clear by all of the content on my site, as well as all of the content on its associated sites (such as its linked Facebook, YouTube, and Google Business pages, and many local citations). Yet, contrary to all of this data, the mere presence of the word "events" in my URL and business name has led Google to believe that my site is a Live Jazz Guide, i.e., a site that lists public performances of jazz groups in New York City. The problem, then, is that Google displays the site when people search for local events listings, and not when they search for jazz bands to contract for private events. For example, do a search for "jazz bands new york" and up pops the listings for sites catering to searchers looking to hire bands for private events, like Gigmasters, Gigsalad, right at the top of the list, followed by lots of individual bands. My site is buried (in my results, anyway), on the middle of page 2. (My paid Adwords ad, on the other hand, shows up at the top of paid ads.): https://www.dropbox.com/s/sv4we4gvnb6wkyb/Screenshot%202016-04-11%2019.22.40.png?dl=0 Now do a search for "new york jazz events." Boom! I'm #1 in the natural results, and, unlike in the search for "new york jazz band," my Google plus page and map (or is it the "knowledge graph"?) display right at the top of the right column: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nob24x1b8u1g4or/Screenshot%202016-04-11%2019.18.49.png?dl=0. (Pretty useless to people searching for live jazz listings in New York, though.) (This, by the way, is an additional related frustration: why does Google display all of its local information (its map, links to my Google reviews, etc.) next to my site listing when people are searching for events, but but hides this valuable information next to my site listing when people are search for jazz bands (when my site comes up on page 2)?) For a further confirmation of Google's confusion, see this data from Google that indicates the top search queries that it is using to display my site are centered around searches for local live jazz listings: Google Search Console > Search Traffic > Search Analytics > Queries: https://www.dropbox.com/s/t8blxv6a077iuw6/Screenshot%202016-03-07%2012.28.38.png?dl=0 See also see this data from Google that indicates that it see "events" (which it understands as local live jazz listings) rather than "new york jazz bands" as the essential keyword describing the identity of the site: Google Search Console > Google Index > Content Keywords: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6nk6skfgx9zjzgc/Screenshot%202016-03-07%2012.46.04.png?dl=0 It's been this way for several years. I thought Google was supposed to be smart, but it's pretty dumb in this case (all the other search engines, including Bing, are quite a bit more intelligent). All this trouble, essentially from a word within a URL? Does anyone have an idea of the cause of this issue, and any potential cures? What can I do to clear up Google's confusion?
Local Website Optimization | | ChuckBraman0 -
Company sells home appliances and commercial appliances. What is the best way to differentiate the two on our site for the best user experience/SEO?
Should we structure it starting at the homepage with the user selecting for home or for business, that way they have to make a selection before moving further OR should we somehow differentiate in the navigation using the top menu tabs, dropdowns, etc?
Local Website Optimization | | dkeipper1 -
Why has my site dropped to page 2?
I haven't been paying attention to my sites SERP for the past year, and only realized I've dropped to page 2 on a keyword search. Specifically, on Google.ca, searching the keywords "wedding invitations" My site, www.stephita.com, used to consistently rank in the top 3 links. While my competitors have leapfrogged me. 😞 I realized that my site wasn't "mobile-friendly", and had a few other issues like keyword stuffing, long meta descriptions and titles. I've fixed these issues "now", but wanted to know does this mean my site was severely penalized by the Panda/Penguin updates for the last few years? Does having a PR3 site mean anything? My competitors who our rank me on SERP, are all PR1 sites. Greatly appreciate any feedback you can give me! 🙂
Local Website Optimization | | TysonWong0 -
Passing Juice through Multiple Locations
Hey Gang, Thank you in advance for taking some time out of your day to read/comment on this. I really am thankful for this awesome community. SO, I just took over a locksmith client with over 20 different locations all up and down the west coast. They have some of their Google My Businesses ranking in the snap three. But most of them are not even close. The SEO that they had done was very 2012 and very messy. They have the name of the cities in their GMB profiles which is against google policy (although we haven't got taken down) Example: Instead of Locksmith plus they have Locksmith Plus Portland or Locksmith Plus Seattle. So their Citations are all over the place. Some locations have a bunch, and some locations I haven't even been able to put them on Yelp or Super pages (because they do not accommodate well at all for multi location business it's kind of been a nightmare) And Besides mediocre citations their websites are all over the place to. None of them are Linked to each other they each look like a separate brand. So here's my question(s) 1. I have a pretty good PBN network of my own real websites for clients that I have ranked to page one. I want to start Backlinking to just our one Main locksmith site (that ranks for no city) an have that juice flow into all the other sites but I am afraid I wont interlink them correctly and the juice will get wasted. Should I have like all the links to every cities website on the front page and point all my pbn at the front page? How to I link these bad boys correctly? Or should I... (next question) 2. Ok I know the Google my business does not care about how many citations we have but rather the quality of those citations. I already know we are having a brand crisis. We need to change all these listings to the same brand name but I am afraid google will spank us once we change and take down our number ones (so be it?) But My question is how much should I focus on back linking some of these page listings. Like should I be posting the naked Yelp URL on some of my web 2.0s (that link back to my main website)? Or what if i just had the main citations on the cities website so they could get some juice too? Confusing! Overall I know that Google wants clean consistent branding and that what we want to do.I just want to make sure everything is hooked up right so when I do make some Bad a** big content that every location can benefit from it. Guys thank you again. Much Loves and I hope every body had a great new year. Here's to a strong 2016
Local Website Optimization | | Meier0 -
Subdomain for ticketing of a client website (how to solve SEO problems caused by the subdomain/domain relationship)
We have a client in need of a ticketing solution for their domain (let's call it www.domain.com) which is on Wordpress - as is our custom ticket solution. However, we want to have full control of the ticketing, since we manage it for them - so we do not want to build it inside their original Wordpress install. Our proposed solution is to build it on tickets.domain.com. This will exist only for selling and issuing the tickets. The question is, is there a way to do this without damaging their bounce rate and SEO scores?
Local Website Optimization | | Adam_RushHour_Marketing
Since customers will come to www.domain.com, then click the ticketing tab and land on tickets.domain.com, Google will see this as a bounce. In reality, customers will not notice the difference as we will clone the look and feel of domain.com Should we perhaps have the canonical URL of tickets.domain.com point to www.domain.com? And also, can we install Webmaster Tools for tickets.domain.com and set the preferred domain as www.domain.com? Are these possible solutions to the problem, or not - and if not, does anyone else have a viable solution? Thank you so much for the help.0