Domain Name Redirect Question
-
My agency just built a new website for a client who is a franchisee. It's not launched yet - it's currently under an IP address. I suggested to client that he buy a keyword-rich domain name for it, which he did. Then he found out that the franchisor will not allow it to be his main domain name. They want him to use a domain name with the franchisor name in it. But they WILL allow him to put a 301 redirect on that franchisor-approved domain name, and redirect it to his keyword-rich domain name.
He is interested in having my agency perform an SEO Campaign for this new website. But would SEO and link marketing work for a website that has a new non-keyword domain name that 301 redirects to a new keyword-rich domain name?
-
The keyword in your domain won't really add much because of the anchor text itself, if that's what you're inferring. The link's placement and relevance is the more important factor, always.
Even if they did, the last thing you want is a keyword-heavy anchor text profile... That's the short version of the way I see it.
Anyway I guess I still don't understand what you're asking in this topic. In the original post you mentioned that the "franchisor will not allow the keyword-domain.com to be their primary domain." But then you said people will be landing on keyword-domain.com?
So is it the other way around? the franchise-name.com will be redirecting to keyword-domain.com? If this is the case, have at it! I guess what I'm saying is I advise against building links to the domain that's being redirected and instead all links should be built to the final destination.
But it sounds like that's what you are doing. Forgive my confusion here, I've had a stuffed head all week!
Yeah I don't love exact match domains and I can all but guarantee their effectiveness will be going away. Google has addressed this multiple times publicly and made no effort to conceal the fact.. Nonetheless I think the most important factor is the quality of the site's content and the authority/relevance of the links coming in.
I wish you luck!
-
Thank you for answering so quickly! I respect your opinion, and I know that keyword-rich domain names are controversial (always have been). For many years I've continually seen great results when people use them and market them the right way. Even if all search engines stop including the keyword-richness of domain names in their algos, the bottom line is, when people link to websites, they will likely use the domain name. If it's keyword-rich, they're using keywords to link to the website.
I intend to correctly build links and the anchor text will often read www.keyword-domain.com and the user who clicks it will land on www.keyword-domain.com. So no confusion there, hopefully. I welcome further discussions.
-
Thank you for answering so quickly!
-
I am against this whole keyword-rich domain name thing you seem to be pushing here. I would want the domain name to be branded as the company. Your SEO campaign should be more than enough to get the brand ranking for whatever keywords you are targeting.
That being said, whatever you redirect to, be sure you are building links to the final domain (aka the domain you are redirecting TO.)
Reason for this is as 301s do pass link juice, there is a slight degeneration there. Even if it's less than 1%, what would the point be of losing that juice?
Not to mention the fact that if you are correctly building links and the anchor text reads www.keyword-domain.com and then the user who clicks it lands on www.branded-domain.com they will be ultimately confused. This is unnecessary and somewhat deceitful. You should focus on building initial trust with your users, and this is a bad first step in doing so.
That's my two-cents on the subject. Good luck!
-
Simple answer, yes, most SEO tactics would work just fine in this case as long as the 301 redirect is set up correctly.
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
-
When domain a buys domain b (whose links direct to c), does domain a has links redirecting to domain c ?
Hi, I really need to know what happens when a company or domain (a) acquires another company with domain (b) with its links pointing to yet another location (c). Does company a then have redirects to c?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Yeshourun0 -
Redirecting to a new domain... a second time
Hi all, I help run a website for a history-themed podcast and we just moved it to its second domain in 7 years. We've had very good SEO up until last week, and I'm wondering if I screwed up the way I redirected the domains. It's like this: Originally the site was hosted at "first.com", and it acquired inbound links. However, we then started to host the site on blogger, so we... Redirected the site to "second.blogspot.com". (Thus, 1 --> 2) It stayed here for about 7 years and got lots of traffic. Two weeks ago we moved it off of blogger and into Wordpress, so we 301 redirected everything to... third.com. (Thus, 1 --> 2 --> 3) The redirects worked, and when we Google individual posts, we are now seeing them in Google's index at the new URL. My question: What about the 1--> 2 redirect? There are still lots of links pointing to "first.com". Last week I went into my GoDaddy settings and changed the first redirect, so that first.com now points to third.com. (Thus 1 --> 3, and 2-->3) I was correct in doing that, right? The drop in Google traffic I've seen this past week makes me think that maybe I screwed something up. Should we have kept 1 --> 2 --> 3? (Again, now we have 1-->3 and 2-->3) Thanks for any insights on this! Tom
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TomNYC1 -
Which Domain is better
Which domain is better for SEO. vehiclewrapslasvegasnv.com Or vehicle-wraps-lasvegas-nv.com Thanks in advance for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AlexanderWhite0 -
Changing Domain
We have an old domain that we have had registered for many years(pinpoint;asersystems.com) and redirected to our regular domain (which is a short version of our name (pinlaser.com). Management wants to switch and use the longer version as the primary domain for branding purposes. I have cautioned against this for many reasons: Need to do 100's of redirects Potential loss of back links Most links will now be 301 redirects and not look natural to search engines. I would appreciate feedback on any and all risks associated with this potential move. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Pinlaser0 -
Redirect old .net domain to new .com domain
I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to but I wanted to get some feedback to make sure or see if there's additional feedback. The long and short of it is that I'm working with a site that currently has a .net domain that they've been running for 6 years. They've recently bought a .com of the same name as well. So the question is: I think it's obviously preferable to keep the .net and just direct the .com to it. However, if they would prefer to have the .com domain, is 301'ing the .net to the .com going to lose a lot of the equity they've built up in the site over the past years? And are there any steps that would make such a move easier? Also, if you have any tips or insight just into a general transition of this nature it would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs0 -
How long should a domain redirect take?
Hi, I know that this is a 'How long is a piece of string?' type question but at what point should the ranking value of site A pass over to site B following a domain 301 redirect? I have shifted a domain over to a new URL, same hosting server, same IP address. I haven't made any URL changes or any content changes other than to change the site logo to match the new domain name. Domain B is basically an exact clone of domain A. I have redirected Domain A to domain B using the following line at the top of the .htaccess file:- Redirect 301 / http://www.newdomain.com/ I have submitted a sitemap for the new domain via google webmaster tools. It looks like the original domain as been completely indexed by google following the redirect as all rankings have been dropped from the results and there are no results for a site:olddomain.com search. Surely the rankings should have switched over at this point? Any help would be much appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis
Ade.0 -
Redirect Help - Domain Change and Website Redesign
Hi there, I've redesigned a website for a client, but we are also changing domains and I'm trying to figure out the best way to set up the redirects from their old domain to the new one. 95% of their search engine traffic originally came through brand related keywords that landed on their homepage, and most of the remaining 15% landed on 3 other pages. The new site has pages to replace these 3 main SEO pages, and I'm about to set 301 redirects from their old domain, but I can't figure out the quickest/best way to do it. Is it possible to set up a specific redirect for the 4 main pages (Home + plus the 3 others) then a "catch all" type of thing for the rest of the pages, that redirect either to the homepage, or some sort of "Check out our new Site" landing page. How do you do this, or is there a better way to set it up? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | timscullin0