Should I create mini-sites with keyword rich domain names pointing to my main site?
-
Hi, I'm new to seomoz (and seo in general) and loving it so far.
My main domain name is more of a brandname than a search engine friendly list of keywords. I rank well for some keywords I optimized for, and less so for the more competitive keywords. I was wondering if making one page minisites hosted on keyword rich domain names could help in this respect?
What I want to do is just have a single page with a few paragraphs of content and links to the main site. I am not looking for links to boost the main site, just for the minisites to do better for several keywords.
Will this help? Is this ok, or against some Google policy? Can this hurt the main site rankings?
Thank you!
**Edit: **I noticed that sites ranking above me on the first page for some keywords have much less on-page elements than my page, have about the same domain trust and also very little inbound links. The only factor I can see is the exact match of keywords in the domain name.
-
I had previously learned the deeper a keyword was in the URL, the better it was for ranking in SERPs. I am uncomfortable now because I can't remember where I learned that information or from whom. I spent about 90 minutes today watching all of Matt Cutt's videos discussing the topic. I also read numerous articles.
In short, I could not locate any conclusive information on this topic. Everyone agrees it is good to have keywords in the URL, but no one shares if there is any higher value at various positions within the URL. I began a Q&A topic to seek more information on this topic. http://www.seomoz.org/q/keywords-in-urls-looking-for-consensus
-
Hi Elad. In my mind the concept is still the same - whether you are building keyword rich domains for attempting to increase PR or for attracting the traffic for those keywords they are not going to be terribly effective.
A keyword rich domain may get you some traffic if it's a low competition keyword. But then, it wouldn't take much else to get the same result (i.e. building one or two links to that page).
Check out this video by Matt Cutts:
-
Noted. Thank you.
-
Thanks for the reply.
The link you provided talks about using the minisites as a link building tool in order to boost pagerank. I already know this si close to useless for PR.
About the folders, are you sure having keywords in the folder structure is as effective as having them in the domain name itself? My experience (very short, but observant) shows otherwise.
-
I'd be more inclined to put the time and resources into optimizing your main site. Build some links, make sure your on page is flawless.
-
@Dunamis, the link you offered focused on using other sites as a link building strategy. That Q&A is focused on the value of the links. I believe Elad's inquiry is focused on the value of improving ranking for a particular term.
@Theo, your concerns are valid, but I didn't get that feel from Elad's question.
Please allow me to clarify the response I offered.
The best practice is clearly to optimize pages on your existing site for the keyword search traffic. This can be achieved through good SEO strategies and offering great content.
I could have offered this answer and ended the post, but I prefer to always include a direct response to the original question. I even qualified my answer twice with "what you describe is ok" and "as long as you don't violate any rules or offer spam". I wrote those phrases specifically to ensure the advice I was offering could not be manipulated into taking the doorway page path.
-
Check out the replies in this post - it's a very similar question: http://www.seomoz.org/q/what-are-the-good-strategies-using-satellite-sites-in-seo
Keywords in the url are being devalued. Spending time on a bunch of microsites is not going to benefit you much. While you may get some small benefit from having a keyword rich domain, there are a lot of other factors to help you rank. So, if you're going to spend time building links to these little domains, your time would better be spent building links to your main domain.
I would agree that you should have folders on your site so instead of creating the domain best-sunglasses.com have www.mydomain.com/best-sunglasses/
-
"What you describe is ok, no policies are violated."
I strongly disagree on this one. What he describes sounds an awful lot like Google's description of a 'doorway page', which are explicitly against Google Webmaster Guidelines:
"Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination." (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355)
In light of the above I would advice against the practice your describing. Instead I would optimize (sections) of the main site for such keywords or set up independent (complete and value adding) domains for these keywords you'd like to rank for.
-
Will this help?
It can, but the better approach would be creating pages on your existing site optimized for your key phrase. If you wish to purchase the domain "best-sunglasses.com" why not just creating a page on your existing domain? http://mydomain.com/best-sunglasses
Is this ok, or against some Google policy?
What you describe is ok, no policies are violated.
Can this hurt the main site rankings?
As long as you don't do violate any rules or offer spam, then no.
I noticed that sites ranking above me on the first page for some keywords...
There are over 200 factors considered in determining a search result's location. If the pages which outrank you appear as you describe, then you should be easily able to outrank them if you optimize your site better.
In short, learn more about SEO. Improve your site and you will outrank the others easily, and without purchasing exact match domain names. An excellent place to start is this guide: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo
Good Luck
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
-
301 Multiple Sites to Main Site
Over the past couple years I had 3 sites that sold basically the same products and content. I later realized this had no value to my customers or Google so I 301 redirected Site 2 and Site 3 to my main site (Site 1). Of course this pushed a lot of page rank over to Site 1 and the site has been ranking great. About a week ago I moved my main site to a new eCommerce platform which required me to 301 redirect all the url's to the new platform url's which I did for all the main site links (Site 1). During this time I decided it was probably better off if I DID NOT 301 redirect all the links from the other 2 sites as well. I just didn't see the need as I figured Google realized at this point those sites were gone and I started fearing Google would get me for Page Rank munipulation for 301 redirecting 2 whole sites to my main site. Now I am getting over 1,000 404 crawl errors in GWT as Google can no longer find the URL's for Site 2 and Site 3. Plus my rankings have dropped substantially over the past week, part of which I know is from switching platforms. Question, did I make a mistake not 301 redirecting the url's from the old sites (Site 2 and Site 3) to my new ecommerce url's at Site 1?
Technical SEO | | SLINC0 -
If you are organizing the site structure for an ecommerce site, how would you do it?
Should you use not use slashes and use all dashes or use just a few slashes and the rest with dashes? For example, domain.com/category/brand/product-color-etc OR domain.com/anythinghere-color-dimensions-etc Which structure would you rather go for and why?
Technical SEO | | Zookeeper0 -
Is pointing multiple domains to a single website beneficial for SEO or not?
A client has purchased many domains with keywords in each. They want to have us point each domain to their site for better SEO. Is this a good or bad thing to do?
Technical SEO | | thinkcreativegroup0 -
Best practice for eCommerce site migration, should I 301 redirect or match URLs on new site
Hi Guys, I have been struggling with this one for quite some time. I am no SEO expert like many of you, rather just a small business owner trying to do the right thing, so forgive me if I say something that makes no sense 🙂 I am moving our eCommerce store from one platform to another, in the process the store is getting a massive face lift. The part I am struggling with is whether I should keep my existing URL structure in place or use 301 redirects to create a cleaner looking URLs. Currently the URLs are a little long and I would love to move to a /category/product_name type format. Of course the goal is not to lose ranking in the process, I rank pretty well for several competitive phrases and do not want to create a negative impact. How would you guys handle this? Thanks, Dinesh
Technical SEO | | MyFairyTaleBooks0 -
Does it matter if I leave image links pointing to old site when I move a wordpress blog?
Hi everyone I am moving a blog from one site to another. I have all the 301 redirects etc under control, but my question has to do with image links in the blogs. The image links all point over to the old site once the posts are copied over. Is this a major problem from an SEO perspective? Lots of links pointing out to an old site? It won't matter from the users perspective as I have 'none' for the image URL, so the user will never know. I will reload all the images if necessary but boy that will be a lot of work. Or is there a shortcut? Thanks very much Wendy
Technical SEO | | Chammy0 -
What if my brand name is my keyword?
Referencing the new 'over optimization' penalties.. What if your company name was "Buy a Burrito" and your website website was buyaburrito.com (not a real site), and your main keyphrase was "buy a burrito". Will Google treat all Branded Terms as exact or phrase match keywords and penalize you?
Technical SEO | | daviddischler0 -
Impact on domain when using a subdomain for majority opf site content
Hello, We're looking to use a subdomain for a bookings engine that will also host the majority of our site content as it wil house the details of the courses that we'll be selling online. All content is currently available on www.existingdomain.co.uk A few pages will remain here but the majority will ultimately be hosted on a different IP address under a subdomain: courses.existingdomain.co.uk I am a little concerened about search engine reaction to this content separation. Would this approach dilute the rankings of www.existingdomain.co.uk? Is there anything else we need to be mindful of? We have alternative options if this is a real SEO faux pas. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Urbanfox0