SEO for a redirected domain name
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Our client is a law firm with a name that is challenging to spell. We have procured a domain name for them that is catchy, easy to spell, and plays well into their brand, or at least the current campaign. We're using the campaign domain to direct traffic to their website with a 301 redirect. We have placed the campaign domain in a variety of offline mediums including print and outdoor.
The client is currently in the number 1 spot for a good number of our highest priority keywords, so I do not want to do anything to jeopardize that. I'm also not sure this campaign will be their "brand" long-term so I don't want to risk making a switch and making it back. So for now, I'm most comfortable leaving the campaign domain as a redirect to their primary domain.
Recently, the client approached me complaining (legitimately) that when people google the campaign domain, they are brought to search results for an entirely different domain because Google "corrects" the domain name for them. This is obviously a bad thing, with many users defaulting to entering urls into Google instead of the address bar.
If you tell Google that it was wrong about the autocorrection, our site is in the number 1 position.
I liken the situation to Overstock.com using O.co as their offline domain, but overstock.com as their online domain. But imagine if you googled o.co and google brought you to a list of results for "on.co" because it assumed you fat-fingered it.
Is there anything I can do to prevent the domain name from getting corrected by Google?
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Here's a middle ground.
Allow the homepage of the redirected domain to be indexed. Put something useful there.
Change the campaign URL to be a deep page such as SchwempleToSchpell.com/schpelling and redirect that.
John
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Steve
Please read what EGOL wrote first. If you want to stop "auto-correction" (which is a user choice) you must allow the domain to appear in the SERPs. Otherwise, how does the user know that it should not be corrected. But, secondarily, I think you need to also tell your client to chill. (Yes, we have attorneys for clients and they are large clients with nationwide campaigns). Understand, attorneys know everything, ask them. They are assuming people are staying with the corrected version as opposed to overriding. Google does NOT take them to a different domain. Google gives them a choice (showing results for xyz.com - show results for yyz.com instead?).
There is no way to stop the auto correct; just as there is no way to stop an attorney from being totally brilliant, ask them.
Best
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If you want the campaign domain to appear in the search results then you must remove the 301 redirect and allow it to appear in the SERPs.
Google really isn't "correcting" anything. This company has sacrificed the brand of their campaign by allowing that domain to be 301ed to their primary website. This happens on the server, not in Google. Google is obediently following instructions.
This law firm wants to be know as SimpleToSpell.com but they don't want to give up SchwempleToSchpell.com
Just a thought... it is very possible that their new domain will have a lot of competition in the SERPs. I bet it would be pretty hard to rank for something like "simple to spell".... and they will be pissed if they redirect to this new and simple domain and rank at #13 for their brand. So, if they have future plans of using this domain they better get a website on it and start putting some work into it. Get your feet onto the turf and see how it works.
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