Buying mutliple keyword rich domain names and directing them to one site
-
I've noticed some folks buying keyword rich domain names and pointing them to one site to try to rank for those keywords. An example of this is a plumbing business that buys domains like austinplumber.com, localaustinplumbingservice.com, bestplumberinaustin.com and then pointing these domains to their main website. Does this help the site rank for these key phrases? How does google see this?
Thanks mozzers!
Ron
-
Not only did the doorway page lose it's ranking for its keyword, but so did the main site.
This sounds like cloaking.
About those doorway domains and microsites. I used to run a lot of hotdog stand websites. I thought that was the way to go. Then I learned that a big kickass site was a lot easier to run, a lot easier to rank and performed better with visitors. So, now the company that I own works actively on just three websites - each in a different niche.
If I had a company like you describe. I would start putting all future work into a single site in each topic area. And work on that site until it defeats all of the doorways. Stop competing with yourself and diluting your brand.
-
Could you set up these microsites on the same server as your main website? Like, having a separate folder in your public html folder with its own index.htm and pages? This way, you wouldn't have to pay for a new hosting company.
-
Instead of building a site around that specific keyword on a domain like that. Just develop a piece of great content on your website around your keyword string. Its going to help in the longevity of things.
-
They might search like that but if you don't have a website on that domain you will not get the traffic. It is highly unlikely that significant numbers of people are typing in for word domain names for websites that do not exist.
-
What is the different way you're recommending? Thanks...
-
The average search on google is over 4 words long, so people actually search like that. Question is, if you redirect it, is there even a benefit, meaning, does Google associate the initial domain with the target page?
-
That's excactly right, for a domain name to be useful in ranking, it needs to be attached to a unique website with unique content.
It has been a sales trick of many internet companies to sell these high value domains to customers 'in case someone types that into Google'. It's nothing more than a sales trick.
That said, if you are looking to capture a localised search traffic like 'Plumbers Windsor', then maybe a set of microsites would be good for you, although it is usually cheaper to optimise your main site than setup micros.
-
Redirecting these names will bring you nothing more than the type-in traffic for those exact domains.
I am willing to bet a month's pay that very few people type localaustinplumbingservice.com or someotherridiculouslylonglocaldomain.com
-
For some reason on the local level, these domains are powerful. I am not sure about just buying a brand new domain and forwarding them, they will be next to useless. But developing microsites with these domains works quite well, I could see if you build one up and then redirected it, then it would help ranking for one site.
I would recommend doing it a different way as this method is currently on its way out. Its been a declining trend for the last couple of years.
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
-
Moving pages to new domain
Hello, Our product pages are ranked #1 on google for our target keywords using our domain e.g. www.olddomain.com/cases/productxyz and sell about 20 products all ranked #1. We have a new company called www.newco.com/case/product1, 2, 3 etc. We use woocommerce e-commerce for both old and new sites. What is the best way to list our old co-products on our new site and move over the #1 rankings? Do we create new products (using our new nice design) in the newco.com woo commerce and then redirect old co links? do we copy and paste all that old content into the newco.com? Totally confused. Thank you!
Web Design | | Jamesmcd031 -
Which one is better for ranking?
Hello community My question is most of the domains on the first page has non-WWW URL thereby If I consider High domain authoritative sites including https://moz.com/ and https://ahrefs.com/ : the site URL is without www on the contrary, when I take Google it has https://www.google.co.in/ It just confused me, could anyone solve my issue that which one is better for SEO?
Web Design | | Tabassum0 -
Curious why site isn't ranking, rather seems like being penalized for duplicate content but no issues via Google Webmaster...
So we have a site ThePowerBoard.com and it has some pretty impressive links pointing back to it. It is obviously optimized for the keyword "Powerboard", but in no way is it even in the top 10 pages of Google ranking. If you site:thepowerboard.com the site, and/or Google just the URL thepowerboard.com you will see that it populates in the search results. However if you quote search just the title of the home page, you will see oddly that the domain doesn't show up rather at the bottom of the results you will see where Google places "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 7 already displayed". If you click on the link below that, then the site shows up toward the bottom of those results. Is this the case of duplicate content? Also from the developer that built the site said the following: "The domain name is www.thepowerboard.com and it is on a shared server in a folder named thehoverboard.com. This has caused issues trying to ssh into the server which forces us to ssh into it via it’s ip address rather than by domain name. So I think it may also be causing your search bot indexing problem. Again, I am only speculating at this point. The folder name difference is the only thing different between this site and any other site that we have set up." (Would this be the culprit? Looking for some expert advice as it makes no sense to us why this domain isn't ranking?
Web Design | | izepper0 -
SSL, SEO, and Site Migration question
When migrating a site to a new url and one where the old url had no https and the new url will be full https does it matter if the 301 redirect points at http://thisisthenewsite.com ? Meaning, should the new site have the ssl / https up prior to redirecting the old site? Does it matter if you redirect the old site to http://thisisthenewsite.com or https://thisisthenewsite.com? Since the site will force to https anyway?
Web Design | | Atlanta-SMO0 -
Build New Site Without Losing Rankings
Good morning SEOmoz community. I have a question which I am pretty sure I already know the answer to, however i thought I would reach out to my fellow experts to see if anyone had some great advice. I would really like to give my website a makeover. i have two thoughts on this, one is to scrap the site completely and start fresh, the other would be to only change it visually, but keep all the content and on-page optimization. I am terrified of losing my rankings. I am ranked position 1 and 2 for highly competitive terms and have another 15 - 20 keywords on page 1. Any advice would be tremendously appreciated!!!
Web Design | | WebbyNabler0 -
From Google Sites to Wordpress - Anyone Ventured this SEO terrain?
We have a few sites in Google Sites - and they are ugly! We have a majority (40+) of websites in Wordpress. But we have a few websites just stuck on Google Sites, and since Google won't let you fully edit the HTML, add scripts, or implement any technology since 2000, we want to move. The sad problem - the Google sites are ranking well. We rank well in Manhattan, Atlanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia. The problem is - the sites do not give much room for growth - and the bounce rate is high because they are so ugly. Has Anyone moved from Google sites to Wordpress? Should we just stay with Google and bite the ugly bullet? My fear is that these sites will not allow for growth. It is hard to update them and even harder to make them look nice. To get a sample - beware: www.counselingphiladelphia.com Even another reason to leave: The slider is non-semantic and terrible SEO. Google won't allow a slider script with tags and a hrefs, so the only way to implement a slider is through a Google Docs Presentation that keeps sliding. I know - terrible SEO (#donthate) but we needed something. Any advice and thoughts would help! Thanks Mozzers!
Web Design | | _Thriveworks0 -
Keywords in the page url for best SEO
Hello all, I am working in the keywors structure of a web and I have the following doubt: If I want to target these keywords: great food madrid and my website is: http://www.madridlive.com I do not know if I should keep either: OPTION 1: page url: www.madridlive.com/great-food-madrid or OPTION 2: page url www.madridlive.com/great-food I do not know if the search engines "understands" madrid in "madridlive", therefore I can avoid the "madrid" keyword, dicarding option 1 and going for option 2. Additionally I avoid duplication of the madrid keyword that can be seen as redundancy and also have a shorter page url. Thank you very much and sorry for such a question but I am new in this SEO field...just the excellent SEOMOZ's SEO Guide for beginners! Best regards, Antonio
Web Design | | aalcocer20030 -
Given the lastest Google update, should I rewrite my Flash site or try to present an alternative HTML/CSS site?
I have a site that was created using Flash. The reasoning behind this was, at the time, that I didn't care if the site ranked or not (portfolio site). Now I would like to drive traffic to the site from SE's. Given the Penguin update, should I rewrite my Flash site in HTML/CSS or present an alternative site for bots and browsers that don't support Flash? My concern is that by presenting an alternative site to bots and non Flash supporting browsers that the SE's will see potentially see this as cloaking. Thoughts and advice would be much appreciated.
Web Design | | mj7750