What's the best way to hold newly purchased domains over 2 years?
-
Hi,
A friend has just bought 3 domains and is not planning to build websites with them for around 2 years. He asked me what the best thing to do with these domains was...I have 2 ways of look ing at it:
a) Putting a holding page on these and submit to Google Webmaster Tools - this way they are indexed by Google and hold search engine trust when the site finally goes up - HOWEVER, if they are not updated with fresh content would that work against them in 2 years time?
b) Simply redirect them to their existing site and don't do anything else.
Let me know your thoughts.
Adido.
-
everywhere I've read says it is important
My early SEO days weren't pretty. I read a lot of information which was far from credible. Much of the information made perfect sense in a "of course the world is flat! If it was round the people at the bottom would fall off" type of way.
Much of my day used to be spent optimizing meta keywords, building links from blogs with follow links, and many other activities which are frankly crap but otherwise promoted from random sites as having value. Then I changed my focus from learning SEO from anyone who seemed like an expert and restricted my focus to truly credible sources. That change was the single best move I made.
If I may make a suggestion, stop reading SEO information from "everywhere" as the overwhelming majority of it is crap. Focus on a few, reliable sources of information. Even then, always question and test new learnings. A few sites to start with are: SEOmoz, mattcutts.com/blog, matt's videos on youtube, and Google's official blog. It would take months or years to sift through the information on these sites alone. You will pick up links to other credible sources of information and be able to form your own opinions.
-
A 10 year old domain is not worth any more then a domain you acquire today." why do you think this?
When asked this question Matt Cutts replied "We can't promise that it's not a factor, but if it is a factor, it's super tiny. It's a really small thing. We're using it primarily in conjunction with other things to try and see what's going on." It's often hard to pin Matt down on things of this nature and that response is about as clear and definitive of a response as one could hope for.
Overall, the theory is often supported with correlative results. "Hey look at these older sites which rank better". Older sites often have shorter, more brandable .com URLs. Older domains have had a lot of time to earn links and recognition. These are the value factors. Going through the process of picking up domains which otherwise don't have value, then hosting these domains and adding random content to put them through the "aging" process is not an acknowledged SEO best practice. It is an idea someone came up with that caught on, nothing more.
You are welcome to disagree with me. I freely acknowledge I could be wrong. As long as search engine algorithms are kept secret we could all be wrong about a great many things. All we can do is rely upon what search engine employees such as Matt Cutts share with us, and our testing. Based on the above information, I maintain the belief domain age is not a ranking factor. Even if I am wrong, the factor is given such an incredibly small weight it is unlikely to ever make a noticeable difference.
Some links which may help:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/age-of-site-and-old-links-whiteboard-friday
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/5-common-pieces-of-seo-advice-i-disagree-with
-
I respectfully disagree with this statement "A 10 year old domain is not worth any more then a domain you acquire today." why do you think this?
I have helped people with 10 year old domains do SEO and have seen very fast and excellent rankings results, even on sites that were crap and the only way I can explain that is that they built trust in Google due to domain age.
My suggestion for someone buying domains that they plan on sitting on for a couple of years and then using is to prime them by creating a two page site with each page having about 2000 words of relevant content, getting a few links pointing to it and let Google find (and index) the site on it's own. Then the site is considered a live site and not parked or 301 redirected and it will begin building up age.
Even if we cannot completely confirm either way that domain age is a factor, it is always best to play it safe, there is no way a brand new site would be seen by Google as more trusted than an established aged site, right? That is as long as the site you set up is not a site with flimsy pages. Google doesn't care how many pages the site is, it could be 2 pages just as long as those 2 pages have a lot of relevant content it won't get smacked down.
-
Thanks for your quick response Ryan...can anyone else shed light on whether domain age is important...everywhere I've read says it is important...any other Mozzers have an input into this one?
Cheers,
Adido
-
Given the choices offered, option 2.
Purchasing a domain in and of itself offers no value. A 10 year old domain is not worth any more then a domain you acquire today. Any word to the contrary is a myth.
There can be a correlation whereby an active domain earns links over time, and the longer a domain has existed the more links it has had time to earn. But buying a domain and sitting on it doesn't help a domain's SEO value on any level.
If the domain names you acquired are in some way related to an existing domain, you can perform a 301 redirect to the main site and gain some value from them in that manner. For example, seomoz.com redirects to seomoz.org. Some people might mistakenly visit the .com site and redirecting to the main site has some value.
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
-
Domain Name redirection to new Domain Name - VS - Transfering Domaine Name from account 1 to account 2
Hi there! Thanks for your time 😉 I have a new cutsomer that bought his domain name via WIX and your know... WIX sucks huge time for SEO. Basically, we want to do SEO outside of WIX. But I am not sure HOW I should proceed. I think I have 2 options: OPTION 1- We transfer the domain name from WIX to a new hoster. But we will lose 7 days during that, lose prospects while the website is in maintenance and we might lose the little bit of ranking we have on the way. BUT! ONCE Everything is done with the transfer, we will be able to operate our SEO campaing with a Domain Name that as 15 domain authority, links, little bit a ranking, etc. OPTION 2- I just buy a new domain name. I build the new Website on it and then use the SEO juice from the old domain name with redirect to push the new domain name. Like this, I won't lose any opportunities. BUT I will have to restart the SEO as new... Any tips or ideas for me? Maybe there is an OPTION 3 that I don't know about.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gab-SEO1 -
Best way to structure urls wordpress and Yoast?
I am using Wordpress and Yoast. I have Parent pages and child pages. Yoast recommends you have the keyword in the url. For the parent page I have the city name in the url. Question is, should the child pages also have the city name in the url or would that be considered keyword stuffing? Here is the current structure. http://forestparkdental.info/st-louis-dental-services/restorative-dentistry/inlays-and-onlays So didn't know if should have the end of that url as /restorative-dentistry-st-louis /inlays-and-onlays-st louis since those are separate pages and Yoast and Moz plugin doesn't give you the Green light in in all areas unless you do it like this? Thanks Scott
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | scott3150 -
Does Google Read URL's if they include a # tag? Re: SEO Value of Clean Url's
An ECWID rep stated in regards to an inquiry about how the ECWID url's are not customizable, that "an important thing is that it doesn't matter what these URLs look like, because search engines don't read anything after that # in URLs. " Example http://www.runningboards4less.com/general-motors#!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 Basically all of this: #!/Classic-Pro-Series-Extruded-2/p/28043025/category=6593891 That is a snippet out of a conversation where ECWID said that dirty urls don't matter beyond a hashtag... Is that true? I haven't found any rule that Google or other search engines (Google is really the most important) don't index, read, or place value on the part of the url after a # tag.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Google's Stance on "Hidden" Content
Hi, I'm aware Google doesn't care if you have helpful content you can hide/unhide by user interaction. I am also aware that Google frowns upon hiding content from the user for SEO purposes. We're not considering anything similar to this. The issue is, we will be displaying only a part of our content to the user at a time. We'll load 3 results on each page initially. These first 3 results are static, meaning on each initial page load/refresh, the same 3 results will display. However, we'll have a "Show Next 3" button which replaces the initial results with the next 3 results. This content will be preloaded in the source code so Google will know about it. I feel like Google shouldn't have an issue with this since we're allowing the user action to cycle through all results. But I'm curious, is it an issue that the user action does NOT allow them to see all results on the page at once? I am leaning towards no, this doesn't matter, but would like some input if possible. Thanks a lot!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kirmeliux0 -
.com Outranking my ccTLD's and cannot figure out why.
So I have a client that has a number of sites for a number of different countries with their specific ccTLD. They also have a .com in the US. The problem is that the UK site hardly ranks for anything while the .com ranks for a ton in the UK. I have setup GWT for the UK and the .com to be specific to their geographic locations. So I have the ccTLD and I have GWT showing where I want these sites to rank. Problem is it apparently is not working....Any clues as to what else I could do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DRSearchEngOpt0 -
Who is a good provider of many class C hosting IP's ?
this is to host about 80 different websites all in the same niche, all doing very well in ranking for their specific keywords, currently at hostgator seohosting plan, but hostgator has issues I do not want to continue dealing with
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | beehappy0 -
Reverse Proxys - Lost On It's Purpose To Help Seo
Reverse Proxys - Lost On It's Purpose To Help Seo - read an article on seomoz check link below. When should we use this reverse proxy and is it really worth the trouble at all ? Why create subdomains vs subfolders when organizing different sections of the website ? http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-is-a-reverse-proxy-and-how-can-it-help-my-seo
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | helpwanted0 -
Is 404'ing a page enough to remove it from Google's index?
We set some pages to 404 status about 7 months ago, but they are still showing in Google's index (as 404's). Is there anything else I need to do to remove these?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0