Domain Masking with New Keyword-Rich Domains
-
Hello, friends. We have an ecommerce site and we also own several keyword-rich domains but haven't done anything with them yet. Is there any value in using domain masking to point them to either product pages or special landing pages on our primary ecommerce site? Here's an example:
Primary site is widgetzone.com
Keyword rich URL is acmewidget.com (which is totally blank and isn't indexed)
It could point to our category page for Acme Widgets: widgetzone.com/category/acme-widgets
or it could point to a new landing page: widgetzone.com/acme-widgets
My concern is that because the keyword-rich URL hasn't been utilized at all there's really no point in redirecting it. I'm of the mind that it's either going to be ineffective at best or a duplicate content issue at worst. What do you guys think?
As a follow-up, if we don't redirect these domains, what should we do with them? Just try to sell them off rather than create totally new sites?
-
The biggest concern is duplicate content.
If the domain acmewidget.com points to widgetzone.com/acme-widgets and that directory is accessible from the widgetzone.com website then the search engines will see acmewidget.com as a duplication of widgetzone.com/acme-widgets and almost certainly exclude it from the search engines.
I'd recommend setting up microsites under your keyword rich domains that sell a small range of products - the work load is manageable and as long as you provide some unique descriptions and content will work alongside your main website.
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
-
Moving to old site to new domain sub directory
Hi, we've moved our old site to a new domain but in a subdirectory (the shopping site has been consolidated into overarching company website's shopping section, thus the move to sub dir). Are 301 redirects from old URLs to new domain's subdirectory ex newsite.com/shopping/page-1/ sufficient for site migration? I wasn't able to use Google's site address change tool since we're moving to a subdirectory on the new domain. Thanks
Technical SEO | | SoulSurfer80 -
Site hacked in Jan. Redeveloped new site. Still not ranking. Should we change domain?
Our top ranking site in the UK was hacked at the end of 2014. http://www.ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk/ The site was the subject of a manual spam action from Google. After several unsuccessful attempts to clean it up, using Securi.net and reinstating old versions of the site, changing passwords etc. we took the decision to redevelop the site. We also changed hosting provider as we had received absolutely no support from them whatsoever in resolving the issue. So far we have: Removed the old website files off the server Developed a new website having implemented 301's for all the old URL's (except the spam ones) Submitted a reconsideration request for the manual spam action, which was accepted. Disavowed all the spammy inbound links through Webmaster Tools Implemented custom URL parameters through Google to not index the SPAM URLs ( which were using parameters) Our organic traffic is down by 63% compared to last year, and we are not ranking for most of our target keywords any longer. Is there anything that I am missing in the actions I have taken so far? We were advised that at this stage changing domain and starting again might be the way to go. However the current domain has been used by us since 2007, so it would be a big call. Any advice is appreciated, thanks. Sue - http://www.ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk/
Technical SEO | | galwaygirl0 -
Keyword rich domain name and page title
Hi guys, First of all, I must say I love this community, and that SEO is great and at time fascinating :d Ok my question now is, I have this domain which is keyword rich, later I noticed Google changed my pages title into something else but similar, also added my domain name (mysite.com) in the titles. Google had taken some of his auto-title-suggestions from inside my pages, later i changed them and saw google changed the titles too accordingly, nice work google ) So I figured this tile name changing is because my domain is already keyword rich, right? so the best practice is, I create a more unique descriptive title + my domain name at the end of the title. (And for homepage, domain name .com at the beginning in the title. What do you think? Thanks for your thoughts!
Technical SEO | | mdmoz0 -
301 redirect after penalty to domain which currently 301 to the penalised domain
Hello all, As I have mentioned in another Q&A, one of our new clients got hit by manual penalty. I checked their link profile and there was a lot of black hat involved. Long story sort, I submitted a reconsiderationr equest which was not enough as it seems 99,9% of his links are bad links. We took the decision to move a newly launched web site from www.websitename.com to www.website-name.com with the latter being an old domain name with good authority and clean link profile. The problem is that at the moment the www.website-name.com is set to 301 redirect to www.websitename.com and what we want to do now is take the web site off www.websitename.com and launch (not 301 as we dont want to pass the penalty to the clean domain) it to www.website-name.com. What is the best practise for this particular case and are there any things i should pay attention to? I would appreciate your advise!
Technical SEO | | artdivision0 -
How to prevent duplicat content issue and indexing sub domain [ CDN sub domain]?
Hello! I wish to use CDN server to optimize my page loading time ( MaxCDN). I have to use a custom CDN sub domain to use these services. If I added a sub domain, then my blog has two URL (http://www.example.com and http://cdn.example.com) for the same content. I have more than 450 blog posts. I think it will cause duplicate content issues. In this situation, what is the best method (rel=canonical or no-indexing) to prevent duplicate content issue and prevent indexing sub domain? And take the optimum service of the CDN. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Godad0 -
Multi page with title with same keywords
Greetings Team, I have a webiste home page optimize for the keyword ''example apartments'' and i have included in the title but that i have another page called site.com/exampleapartments and is optimize for the keyword example apartments How can i make them different ?
Technical SEO | | WorldEscape0 -
Domain Name Acquisition
Hi Anyone know how to get contact details for a domain owner beyond those provided by the likes of whois, archive etc etc ? Cheers Dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Does a TM in the keyword have effect?
If I include TM in a keyword string, does this make it another keyword or does Google ignore that? Example: Kentucky Hot Sauce vs Kentucky Hot (TM) sauce. Of course the TM would be done properly via ™ Cheers.
Technical SEO | | Malarowski0