Keyword rich domain names -> Point to sales funnel sites or to landing pages on primary domain?
-
Hey everyone,
We have a tonne of old domains we have done nothing with. All of them are keyword-rich domains.
Things like "[City]SEOPro" or "[City]DigitalMarketing" where [city] is a city that we are already targeting services in. So all of these domains will be targeted for local cities as keywords.We have been having an internal debate about whether or not we should just host sales funnel pages on these domains, that are rich in keywords and content.........
... Or ...
... Should we point these domains to landing pages on our existing domain that are basically the same as what we would do with the sales funnel pages, but are on our primary site? (keyword rich, with good and plentiful content)
Then, as a follow-up question...
Should these be set as just 301 redirects on these domains to our actual primary domain so the browser sees the landing page domain instead of the actual keyword-rich domain? ( [city]seopro.com )
Thanks guys. I know for some, the response will be an obvious one. However; we have probably way over thought this and have arguments for almost every scenario. We think we have an answer but wanted to send this out to the community first. I won't post what we are thinking yet, so that the answers can remain unbiased for now and we can have a conversation without it being swayed any one way.
We understand that 301 redirects would be seen as a doorway page.
We are also only discussing in the context of organic search only.
If we ran the domains as their own sites, they would be about 3 pages of content only. Pretty static, but good content. Think of a PAS style sales funnel. Problem -> Acknowledgement -> Solution. -
To me this depends upon the traffic build of your old domains. If they mostly receive direct and referral traffic, then the redirect idea could work very well. If they gain most of their traffic from Google, redirecting them will eventually make them stop ranking as Google don't like to rank (in the long-term) redirecting URLs
Once that occurs, your main site may gain ranking features from your old sites, but even with perfect redirects (using the mighty 301) you would still stand to lose rankings. Google will basically check how similar the last active cache of the redirecting URL is to your new page (the redirect destination). Even with a 301; if the content (in machine / Boolean terms) is highly 'dissimilar', then your new page will only receive a fraction of the SEO / ranking authority of the old (redirecting) URL. This is to stop webmasters buying up authoritative expired domains, redirecting them to themselves and gaining free ranking power
From Google's POV, a lot of ranking 'power' (authority) still comes from links. Which sites have the best links? Do other sites in the same area of the web (same theme) have more quality links? How fresh are those links? Are there any positive / negative trust signals to refract along that axiom?
When a page ranks well on Google, it is because it has recently (or historically) 'impressed the web' (thus gaining backlinks and un-linked citations). If you replace a page which has 'earned' links with another page (like a sales funnel) or redirect it to a completely different page, why should that new page benefit from the same links? The webmasters who linked to the old URL, may not have chosen to link to the new page (be it a replacement or redirect destination) so it shouldn't see loads of SEO authority coming from a past legacy
Obviously if you just change domain and the pages are essentially the same, then it's fair that those pages retain their former Google rankings. This is why Google has to validate the 'similarity' of old vs new pages (whether they replace the current content, or exist at the end of a redirect)
Be careful with your path forwards. You could have a 'great idea' only to lose most of the traffic which those domains were supplying
Obviously if the old domains which you are sweeping up, don't see much traffic from Ads or Google (SEO / organic), then you can do pretty much whatever you want with them. But if the traffic came mostly from Google (organic) then it may be tricky. It may also be tricky to redirect the domains if paid ads are served to them, as ads will often be 'disapproved' if they point to a redirecting URL (true of FaceBook and Google ads). So at the very least there would be a major overhaul of your ads campaign(s) which would be required
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
-
8 New Location Pages Have Been Indexed But Only 1 Is Showing in SERPS
Hi All Thank you in advance for any help. Previously we were sending all keyword traffic to our homepage, targeting the main keyword garden rooms plus the seed keywords eg garden studios, garden offices etc. We created 8 new pages, 4 for each main seed keyword and location and these went live on May 12th. The pages are indexed by google. The issue is that all searches, except for garden annex brighton, are still pointing to the homepage and not the new location/service pages and now we're on July 27th it seems enough time has gone by. We've setup this post to ask the question, what can we do to reinforce to google that we want the services pages listed in SERPS and not the homepage? Here is the list of new pages : - garden offices brighton garden offices sussex garden gyms brighton garden gyms sussex garden annexes brighton garden annexes sussex garden studios brighton garden studios sussex Many Thanks
Local SEO | | DigitalProgress0 -
Is it okay to update Page Titles and Meta descriptions over a period of time?
Some of the page are not performing even after having good content, videos, images and faqs. I am planning to update the page titles and planning to use Long Tail keywords in it for example, Contact US - Brand name would be Contact US - Brand Keyword. Is it okay to do that for all the pages?
Local SEO | | Ravi_Rana0 -
Multiple keywords in one article?
Hi guys! I will be soon getting my article published in local newspaper (online edition) with DA 50. They told me i can choose whatever anchor text I want. The article is about towing business and my keyword is going to be also "towing". Is it smart to add another keyword in the same article (which is similar and is also a money keyword) ? Thanks!
Local SEO | | Suksinho0 -
Houston Printing Company Removed City from Main Page - Will Our Rankings Change?
We operate a full service printing and direct mail company located in Houston (www.catdi.com ). We have been in business for quite sometime and had enjoyed top tier position on page one for many years. However after revamping our website and main page it was determined that we used "Houston" way too often. Our keywords are ( Houston Printing , Printing in Houston)
Local SEO | | NEWCHOPPER
I suppose to the pros it looked and it seemed a little spammy with all the references to our city. But after the changed we have now dropped to mid - bottom of page two. Should we worried or does after sometime
will be move back up? I dont want to hastily change back but to our surprise those aren't really searched terms I would hate to see our positions and ranking fall because of this change. Thanks CATDI PRINTING0 -
My 12 year old site suddenly has all of its landing pages deindexed?
Half of my landing pages have suddenly been de-indexed without warning. These have been ranking for over two years! Climbing from the bottom of page two to the top three of page one with fundamental content marketing and healthy real links. I'm desperately trying to figure out what has gone wrong. They even deindexed my Medford Oregon landing page, then reinstated in and I asked to be re-indexed on search console and deindexed it again. I've checked screaming frog, and I see no robot issues. There were some wp-media attachments with kind of similar URLs (city name-locksmith) ranking on page four that I found (i thought I set Yoast to redirect all attachment, strange) and I deleted those because I thought that might be the problem. But they have deindexed even more today! We are a 12 year old company and our livelihood was built on search, which is why we have maintained good ethics (which most locksmiths don't care about) and have done our best to play by Google's rules. I checked with wp-engine and everything seems to be perfect for our hosting. Any suggestions would be so greatly appreciated.
Local SEO | | Meier0 -
One company, two audiences. Ok to make two sites?
I have researched and researched on this question, and I'm still not satisfied. Most of the answers on the Moz forum and otherwise are all from 2013, as well. So, I thought I'd bring it up again. I have two distinct audiences for a real estate business I'm working with (very different needs and interests): Farm Buyers Residential Buyers My client is wanting to expand their presence in the farm market. Their main competitor is ranking for, more or less, an exact domain name match. They want to spin up a site focused only on farm buyers. Here are the pros/cons in my mind of creating a separate site: Pros: Reaching/targeting a specific audience (better user experience), having domain name with keywords (I won't keyword stuff...promise), a site completely devoted to content regarding farms, a blog completely devoted to farms (we have a content strategy in place) Cons: NAP issues (same address), splitting up domain authority, a bit of brand confusion (though the same logo/brand will be on both sites) In my mind, the pros outweigh the cons. Any ideas on how to address the cons? I could just not include address and phone, but that seems ridiculous...catering to the bots and not the user. Thanks, everyone!
Local SEO | | Gabe_BlueGuru
Gabe2 -
Do not understand why a page will not rank- AT ALL!
I have a business that provides on-site services out of a central location. For instance in Denver, we have a warehouse location where we can perform repairs but the majority of business is performed within a 50 mile radius of the city center- on-site, a homes, businesses, etc. Our Google local page is set up to reflect this (mobile service as well as physical location). In order to capture business organically within this 50 mile veil, we have set up city specific service pages on our site to reflect the more than 30 municipalities that fit within the 50 mile veil. This strategy seems to work pretty well in Colorado but in Minnesota we are not having the same outcome. The following city page is created specifically for the term "iPhone repair Minneapolis" and has been live for over a year. It is not even in the top 50. Is this a regional issue or a specific page issue? Our domain actually ranks 15th for this term. http://www.shatterbuggy.com/service-areas/minneapolis/iphone-repair/ Thoughts?
Local SEO | | BenjaminH0 -
Content Rewriting and Page ranking
Lets say that a prior writer did a horrible job with more then a few pages on your site and you wanted to rewrite the content for each landing page. A few of these landing pages are actually ranking pretty decently would it be ok to rewrite them as long as you kept the keywords and the density some what equal?
Local SEO | | Spartan222