Domain: Product brand or company brand?
-
I work for a company with a very strong brand. We have a product with an even stronger brand. Right now, our product marketing pages look like this:
https://www.company.com/product/....
I believe this leads to URL bloat, and I think we're probably missing some search rank on product-branded keywords that we would automatically get if, instead, our product marketing was here:
An example of this structure is Colgate Palmolive (http://www.colgatepalmolive.com/en/us/corp), the makers of Colgate toothpaste (http://www.colgate.com/en/us/oc/).
We already own both domains, but of course right now SEO rank is entirely owned by company.com.
If we put product marketing at product.com, of course the company site can still link to the product site anywhere, and vice-versa, which means (I think) that both domains help each other out. But we wouldn't have to spend as much time worrying about the branded keyword in product content.
I have found some posted opinion that tends to support my hunch here, but I haven't seen anything more concrete in support of it. Has anyone got direct experience with this question?
-
While I don't have any direct experience to offer, I can absolutely see the benefit of separating product and company - but only if the product is big enough to justify standing alone - it makes perfect sense when considering the example you give, but that's right at the top end of the scale.
However, I see no issue whatsoever with "URL bloat". The URL hierarchy: https://www.company.com/product/.... is very well understood and in common usage with good reason: Categories (and sub-categories) in your URL allows you to reference keywords in the URL as well as giving the visitor a better understanding of what they can expect.
Typically, when you're offering thousands of products across hundreds of categories, you'd want your URL hierarchy to something like domain/category/sub-category/product. This allows you to bring maintain logical order and demonstrate the value of the product/service/information you're presenting, by positioning it further up the hierarchy. Millions of stores perform famously using this structure. I can see you've already considered this, but I wouldn't have any concerns about losing visibility with a domain/category/product structure. So, if you were only doing this because you were concerned about losing visibility for your product due to this fear of the product being diluted at the end of the URL, the example you gave isn't going to cause it.
If the product is as strong as you state and you want this to be the company's star performer, which justifies it's own space, then go for it - but do it because it needs it rather than a fear of losing visibility.
You could always follow this example:
http://www.apple.com/iphone-7/
This works pretty well and you get the added benefit of raising awareness of company brand (and) /product.
If you do decide to relocate your product (elsewhere in the company site or to a new domain) with careful planning, you can roll it out using 301 redirects to guide searches to the new location (https://moz.com/blog/301-redirection-rules-for-seo) and rel=canonical tags - if you're using the same content across both sites (https://moz.com/learn/seo/canonicalization). This, alongside your other marketing efforts should enable you to transition from company to product site without any real risk of losing visibility.
Good Luck!
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
-
How to Measure Impact and Potential Strategies for Competitors with Similar Brand Name in the Same Industry
Hello Everyone, So we have a site (brand1.com) but one of our competitors has a very similar brand name and domain (brand2.org). They’re similar enough that could be confused by users and search engines and target the same topics. When you do a manual brand search they would come up and both have about the same Domain Authority. Assuming we can’t have them take their site down do any of you have any thoughts on how we could potentially measure potential impact they might be having or ideas on how best to approach this? Our thought was to track what they are and are not doing so we could do it at a higher level or fill in what’s missing. We would also emphasize differences with an emphasis on local optimization (they’re in a different area). We would love to be able to have some concrete data on whether they’re having an impact so thought we would find out if any of you have any experience or insight? Any help would be very much appreciated. Please let us know if there’s any further details we could provide that might help. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thanks in advance. Best,
Branding | | Ben-R0 -
Switch to naked domain that has higher page authority
Brilliant Moz community! I just started here and find it so helpful and am confident that I can get an answer to this. Our domain is currently https://www.example.com. I have been wanting to move to https://example.com just for a cleaner URL. To my surprise, https://example.com has the same DA but a significantly higher page authority than our current https://www.example.com. Of course my immediate reaction is to 301 to the https://example.com but I wanted to get some advice and anything we should consider before doing this. My other question would be - how is this possible? I don't remember that we ever used that domain but we also had some rather bad developers a couple of years back. Thank you so much in advance!
Branding | | kris-fannin0 -
Pros/Cons on Where to Host Stores for Ecommerce Solution Provider (subdomain vs. throwaway domain, etc)
Hello! Does anyone have any experience with the pros/cons for where to host storefronts as an ecommerce solution provider. I'm looking for a recommendation on where to house the stores/websites people create with our software (think of us like a shopify/squarespace). What are the pros & cons of creating stores on the main domain name “brand.com” versus buying a new top level domain name who’s only purpose will be to hold all the subdomains, such as “mybrand.com”, or even “.my.brand.com”. store.brand.com <— subdomain our our primary domain
Branding | | andrewmeyer
store.my.brand.com <— subdomain of a subdomain
store.mybrand.com <— subdomain of a throw-away domain Weebly/Squarespace/Tictail go with the first option (store**.weebly.com** and store.squarespace.com). Shopify goes with the 3rd option (store.myshopify.com) Are there any advantages or disadvantages to one or the other? Am I missing any other options? Thanks in advance!0 -
Best use for a second domain?
Hi, I have a client who has a website with its brand name in its URL and this is not very keyword friendly as it is just numbers http://www.44-16.com/ -- the website has been up for a few months and is starting to see it traffic increase (mainly due to PPC). The client has told me that they also have another URL which is directly relevant to the industry they are in and they have asked me for advice on the best way to use the second domain. Would it be best to create a second website that has several links to the main site (although new content, not duplicated content) or would a blog be the best option for the new site? The existing site does have a blog that generates some good traffic so they'd have to be writing two blogs I assume? The client doesn't want to stop using the first site and I want to give them the best advice to make the best use of this second domain. Thanks!
Branding | | bendyman0 -
Which Domain Name to Choose
A non-profit I run owns two domains - ChristianSimplicity.com and SimpleLivingWithGod.com. I have just started producing content under ChristianSimplicity. These are long-term projects and we have resources to commit to them. They do not need an economic return and that is not going to be sought. Ultimately I want the sites to rank high on the key words like - Simple Living Living a Simple Life Living Well The Good Life Christian Lifestyle Christian Simple Living I have a two part question. . . I'll ask the first part now. The second may be irrelevant depending on the first answer. **Which domain name of the two is best to start out the site? ** We already have some content on the first site, but are early enough in the process that it isn't a big deal for us to switch and I don't think we will lose too much with respect to rankings. Will the second domain name partial match on key word phrase help significantly more in ranking for the harder term Simple Living? I already rank 14 for Christian Simple Living - and I'm willing for that to drop to have the longer term goal of ranking higher on Simple Living. Thanks.
Branding | | WithGodInc0 -
Do .CO domains rank up just as easy as a .com domain?
I have ran across a very good .CO domain and am thinking about making it into one of our main websites. I have no experience with them. I have used/bought just about every other domain type out there, but I have never used a .CO yet. The domain I was able to purchase was seobusiness.co for $5.00 - regardless if I am able to use it for our main brand if they don't rank up the same, I will use it for something else. The site isn't up yet btw, so no need visiting it... The keyword gets 1600 exact hits a month give or take a few of course - thats just the Google tool estimate. Matt Cutts says that they can rank up the same, but I am looking for more than this. Does anyone have some proof that .co's can rank up? I hate to put 2-3 months of solid work into this to rank it up for SEO business and it doesn't want to rank due to the .co. Thanks in advance for your time.
Branding | | MarketingOfAmerica0 -
Splitting our main website in Two... What is the fastest way for the new sites to become a brand in Googles eyes.
In a couple weeks our main website (which generates all of the revenue) will be split into two because of a long term branding / identity crisis. So my question is, how can i make sure (besides obvious 301 redirects) that these 2 new fresh urls become a brand as quick as possible in googles eyes? So far i am thinking of things like: press releases, blog posts with brand mentions. I am not ignorant and expect this to happen overnight, but we need a strong foundation to build on, which is why i am asking Anyone got a list / case study / advise so I can really blow it up on launch week? Thanks 🙂
Branding | | Hyrule0 -
Domain Name Masking Redirect for Brandname to Keyworded Domain
Hi mozzers I have 2 domain names, brandname.com and keywordname.com and but have a question related to web vs print marketing on deciding which domain to use or redirect. We already have established unique content first on the Keywordname.com site over the last 6 months and it has started to climb well in google rankings. But now we'd like to do some print advertising and think it would make more sense to use Brandname.com when refering to our website. So the 2 question are: Should I 301 redirect brand.com to keyword.com (preferred as all content and rankings on keyword.com) or vice versa, as I realize I can only have one site to avoid duplicate content. And is it possible to use domain name masking on brand.com if redirecting to keyword.com to avoid risking our rankings, or is masking bad for seo? Thanks!
Branding | | emerald0