Multiple domain SEO strategy
-
Hi Mozzers
I'm an AM at a web dev. We're building a new site for a client who sells paint to different markets:
Paint for boats
Paint for construction industry
Paint for, well you get the idea!
Would we be better off setting up separate domains - boatpaintxxx.com, housepaintxxx.com, etc - and treat each as a searate microsites for standalone SEO activity or have them as individual pages/sub doms from a single domain - paints4all.com or something?
From what i've read today, including the excellent Beginners Guide - I'm guessing there's no definitive answer!
Feedback appreciated!
Thanks.
-
I would place them in folders rather than subdomains. This is because subdomains are not treated as well in the SERPs as folders.
-
I have a similar query from a client and I am wondering if the way ahead is to use the domain names as sub domains and give a different look to the niche sections (using Wordpress btw) and list all on the sitemap. That is possible? Advisable?
-
Thanks for your feedback everyone, much appreciated. May even print out this page and take to the next client meeting to validate our suggestion!!!
-
Do you already own an EMD? It's worth considering how good the EMD is and if the site owner is going to use PPC advertising. I can say with absolute certainty that people can talk about Google's crack down on EMD's all day to dissuade you; however, I own a lot of EMD's in the real estate industry. My click through rate is great with them.
If you aren't working for one of the big names in paint (sherwin williams, Benjamin Moore, Behr) then you are not going to get the "recognition" in the paid per click area. You can get recognition for an EMD though.
Just my two cents- It's good to consider all things. I personally operate a site that encompasses all of north west florida, but I do have domains that target neighborhoods that don't rank over my main domain. I simply have better returns on adwords with those domains.
-
People who buy one type of paint likely buy other types of paint - and need brushes and dropcloths too.
If you have all of the products on one domain there can be lots of cross selling.
And if you have one big site instead of ten hotdog stands you will have greater credibility, a stronger brand and become the "GO-TO Place" for paints of all kinds as well as painting supplies.
This is a nobrainer.
-
I recommend using only one domain. You'll have much less setup, maintenance, ongoing SEO work with 1 site compared to 3.
I would just use different sections for the different kinds of paints/markets.
-
yup, agree with Edward and SEO5. EMD cannot be relied upon. Add the content and pages as sub-pages. SEO those pages and link througout the site to these pages. No need for separate domains.
-
i agree with Edward as well. With Google cracking down on exact match domains , you would be better off focusing your efforts on building all the keyword related content on one portal related to that industry. You can have a resources section on the site and write good content on the different topics and over time establish your site as a credible repository of information.
-
The only benefit here would be a keyword-related domain name for each industry; however, as Google has made clear in recent history, this matters less and less.
The major downside would be having four or five sites to build up and promote to rank versus only having one.
While others may disagree, I feel your efforts will be better served concentrating on one site.
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
-
Redirect typo domains
Hi, What's the "correct" way of redirecting typo domains? DNS A record goes to the same ip address as the correct domain name Then 301 redirects for each typo domain in the .htaccess Subdomains on typo urls still redirect to www or should they redirect to the subdomain on the correct url in case the subdomain exists?
Technical SEO | | kuchenchef0 -
Personalization software and SEO
Hi guys, I'm just testing a personalization software in our website, basically changing the "location" text depending on the user's IP. I can see in my software that when the Google bot comes to our site the personalization software triggers an action changing the location based text to "California". Can this make Google understand that our website targets only users in California and thereof hurt our rankings in other locations nationwide? I'll appreciate your opinions.
Technical SEO | | anagentile1 -
Old domain still being crawled despite 301s to new domain
Hi there, We switched from the domain X.com to Y.com in late 2013 and for the most part, the transition was successful. We were able to 301 most of our content over without too much trouble. But when when I do a site:X.com in Google, I still see about 6240 URLs of X listed. But if you click on a link, you get 301d to Y. Maybe Google has not re-crawled those X pages to know of the 301 to Y, right? The home page of X.com is shown in the site:X.com results. But if I look at the cached version, the cached description will say :This is Google's cache of Y.com. It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on July 31, 2014." So, Google has freshly crawled the page. It does know of the 301 to Y and is showing that page's content. But the X.com home page still shows up on site:X.com. How is the domain for X showing rather than Y when even Google's cache is showing the page content and URL for Y? There are some other similar examples. For instance, you would see a deep URL for X, but just looking at the <title>in the SERP, you can see it has crawled the Y equivalent. Clicking on the link gives you a 301 to the Y equivalent. The cached version of the deep URL to X also shows the content of Y.</p> <p>Any suggestions on how to fix this or if it's a problem. I'm concerned that some SEO equity is still being sequestered in the old domain.</p> <p>Thanks,</p> <p>Stephen</p></title>
Technical SEO | | fernandoRiveraZ1 -
Am I doing SEO test properly?
Hello, I just created a page for researching the impact of social signals on Google ranking (in Italy). Page was not optimized (one internal backlink, no other external/internal links, keyword repeated 4 or 5 + h1 h2, no alt tags), and only social signals are being stimulated (through votes). The domain is 2 months old and is already positioned for few relevant keywords, but from 2 page down. My question is: am I doing right? Is this a good way to proceed? And if not, what I should do instead? Thank you for an advice. Eugenio
Technical SEO | | socialengaged0 -
Internationalised Domain Names (IDN’s) and SEO
Hi, recently Internationalised Domain Names (IDN’s) are supported. Can anyone give me any indication if there is any SEO benefit in registrering that type of domain names? With Internationalised Domain Names I mean domain names containing "strange characters" like à, é, è, ô, ... . Typical characters used in French, German, Swedish, ... It is now possible to register domainnames (ex. www.hörmann.be). And I was wondering if anyone sees any SEO substance in having this type of domain names.
Technical SEO | | TruvoDirectories0 -
Redirecting Domains
Hi Everybody, My clients owns a lot of domains related to his website. I redirected them to the website. So his website is: www.vallnord.com but if you type Vallnordski, vallnordsnow, etc etc they will go to the website, but they will not change the url and will keep vallnordski, vallnordsnow instead of going to vallnord.com Not very clear actually, so if you have 20 seconds to type them you will see it very clear. I was wondering if this was a good practice or it is better to actually redirect someone completely (If they type vallnordski.com take them to vallnord.com)? Is redirecting a good SEO practice? Regards, Guido.
Technical SEO | | SilbertAd0 -
Country domain: Seo for other languages
Hi, I have an italian domain (.it) for an italian hotel, it is an old authoritative domain (1997) and it is well optimized for the keywords that include the city the hotel is in, now the page is decently positioned in Google Italy. There are many problems to have the same rank for German version (in google.de, google.at). The German version is in the /de folder. The hotel has another .com domain, much less authoritative (2007), in a German server, but it was and is only a simple redirect 301 (by code) to the German version in the .it domain. (obviously the rank for this domain is almost nonexistent). Do you have any suggestion? Thank you.
Technical SEO | | depi0 -
Help with SEO
Hello, I am brand new to SEO and I'm learning on the go everyday. I am having issues with Google and getting any sort of ranking or analysis or even just traffic reports. I understand the site has never really been optimized so it might really not have any reports. So basically my real question is what helpful tricks or hints do you guys have that I can implement? Anything and everything helps. So far I have run the crawl diagnostics and I'm working on fixing the errors. Thanks fr your help.
Technical SEO | | Future130