Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Keyword-Rich Domains - Redirect?
-
Hi, Mozzers-
I have a client that has a bunch of pretty nice keyword-rich domain names. Their traffic and rankings are good. They provide legal services in the Chicago area.
I have lots of good content that I could use to start a blog using a domain like keyword,keyword-blog.com. Good idea? Currently I have a resources area on their website but feel like this area could be getting a little bloated and some news-related stuff isn't really appropriate.
2 Questions:
- Should I use one of the decent domains for a blog and build up the rankings, traffic, and link to the main site? Or is this lots of work for little payout? Both sites would be hosted in the cloud.
- Some of the domain names are related to their name, others are keyword or geo-targeted. Would it be wise to setup 301 redirects going to their website? Pros/cons?
If you need additional info, please PM me for details.
Thank you, friends!
LHC
-
Thank you!
-
I know that there are content management systems that will not permit additional folders and some hosts make it difficult to use WordPress and other blog systems that connect to a database.
I have seen some of those problems myself. However, my blog is important enough to the success of my site that I have.... changed hosts and hired experts to solve such problems....
In my opinion, if the blog is not in a folder then all of my work on it - every day for years - is being done for fractional returns. So, I would be wiling to move a small mountain to get the blog in a folder.
-
Hi, EGOL-
Thanks again for your help with this issue! Just one followup question, due to the site's construction it will be difficult adding a blog at http://www.mydomain.com/blog. It would be very simple to create http://blog.mydomain.com. Thoughts?
-
Other than typos, 301s for previous links or type-in traffic we have only used a supporting domain for advertisement/other marketing purposes that is catchier than the company name and main URL. This domain just 301s to the main domain.
Something like this can be used in print ads, commercials or billboards to get an idea of the traffic resulting from and subsequent effectiveness of the ad. A similar idea is setup with particular landing pages like www.godaddy.com/superbowl.
Using a different domain for this would not create the best brand recognition for the main URL, however. In our case, it's beneficial to use since the URL is the main slogan of the company as well.
-
Thank you! You confirmed my suspicions.
-
Should I use one of the decent domains for a blog and build up the rankings, traffic, and link to the main site? Or is this lots of work for little payout?
In my opinion, you are correct... lots of work for little payout.
If this company can contribute good content to a blog it would be best located in a folder on their primary domain. That way, any links that are given to the blog by other webmasters will increase the power and authority of the primary domain. It will also be a place to display the expertise of their company right on the main site.
Look at what SEOMoz has done... their blog is in a folder seomoz.org/blog and this forum is also in a folder seomoz.org/q this was deliberate to concentrate links to their main site.
Some of the domain names are related to their name, others are keyword or geo-targeted. Would it be wise to setup 301 redirects going to their website?
This would be beneficial if you think those domains will receive type-in traffic. If no type-in traffic occurs then there is zero value.
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
-
Legacy domains
Hi all, A couple of years ago we amalgamated five separate domains into one, and set up 301 redirects from all the pages on the old domains to their equivalent pages on the new site. We were a bit tardy in using the "change of address" tool in Search Console, but that was done nearly 8 months ago now as well. Two years after implementing all the redirects, the old domains still have significant authority (DAs of between 20-35) and some strong inbound links. I expected to see the DA of the legacy domains taper off during this period and (hopefully!) the DA of the new domain increase. The latter has happened, although not as much as I'd hoped, but the DA of the legacy domains is more or less as good as it ever was? Google is still indexing a handful of links from the legacy sites, strangely even when it is picking up the redirects correctly. So, for example, if you do a site:legacydomain1.com query, it will give a list of results which includes pages where it shows the title and snippet of the page on newdomain.com, but the link is to the page on legacydomain1.com. What has prompted me to finally try and resolve this is that the server which hosted the original 5 domains is now due to be decommissioned which obviously means the 301 redirects for the original pages will no longer be served. I can set up web forwarding for each of the legacy domains at the hosting level, but to maintain the page-by-page redirects I'd have to actually host the websites somewhere. I'd like to know the best way forward both in terms of the redirect issue, and also in terms of the indexing of the legacy domains? Many thanks, Dan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | clarkovitch0 -
Domain Redirect and SSL Cert
Hi, When redirecting an entire site to another domain, do you have to maintain the SSL certificate? The SSL expires 3 days before the planned redirect. Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sofla_seo0 -
Other domains hosted on same server showing up in SERP for 1st site's keywords
For the website in question, the first domain alphabetically on the shared hosting space, strange search results are appearing on the SERP for keywords associated with the site. Here is an example: A search for "unique company name" shows the results: www.uniquecompanyname.com as the top result. But on pages 2 and 3, we are getting results for the same content but for domains hosted on the same server. Here are some examples with the domain name replaced: UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Motava
ftp.DOMAIN2.com/?action=news&id=63
META DESCRIPTION TEXT UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE 2
www.DOMAIN3.com/?action=news&id=120
META DESCRIPTION TEXT2 UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE 2
www.DOMAIN4.com/?action=news&id=120
META DESCRIPTION TEXT2 UNIQUE DOMAIN NAME PAGE TITLE 3
mail.DOMAIN5.com/?action=category&id=17
META DESCRIPTION TEXT3 ns5.DOMAIN6.com/?action=article&id=27 There are more but those are just some examples. These other domain names being listed are other customer domains on the same VPS shared server. When clicking the result the browser URL still shows the other customer domain name B but the content is usually the 404 page. The page title and meta description on that page is not displayed the same as on the SERP.As far as we can tell, this is the only domain this is occurring for.So far, no crawl errors detected in Webmaster Tools and moz crawl not completed yet.0 -
Primary Domain or Redirect?
We are starting a new travel guide for a resort town. I have bought an expired domain with decent related links and PR (which seems to have survived the transfer (4 months ago). Beofre we launch the new site I am trying to decide if we should use this expired domain as the primary URL for the new site or just do a permanent redirect and buy a new domain that better matches the theme of the site. I am obviously concerned with starting from scatch with a new domain. I am confident we can build some good rellevant links in a short time but this space is very competetive. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Locals0 -
SEO value in multiple backlinks from same domain and from various sub-domains.
A site has a link to my site as one of their main tabs, which means whenever a user clicks through to another page within the site, my link - being a main tab - is there. This creates thousands of links from this site. How does Google treat this? Do we have a rough formula estimate. In other words, assume it creates 1,000 backlinks would the SEO value be around the same as if I had just 2 link total as a main tab, but on 2 different non-related sites? Or, does it actually count fully as 1,000 links? Links from various sub-domains. Several .EDU's are linking to my site. Different schools within the overall same university. Example: nursing.abc.edu links to my site, but so does business.abc.edu. For SEO does that count as much as if I had links from complete non-related universities, or would Google evaluate that these links are related (since same main domain) and that will discount any links more than 1 to some extent? If discounted, then what do we estimate the discount to be? thank yoyu
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen1 -
Should I buy a .co domain if my preferred .com and .co.uk domain are taken by other companies?
I'm looking to boost my website ranking and drive more traffic to it using a keyword rich domain name. I want to have my nearest city followed by the keyword "seo" in the domain name but the .co.uk and .com have already been taken. Should I take the plunge and buy .co at a higher price? What options do I have? Also whilst we're on domains and URL's is it best to separate keywords in url's with a (_) or a (-)? Many thanks for any help with this matter. Alex
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoSheikh0 -
Buying an existing domain with higher ranks for redirecting
I've recently came across one of my competitors who's looking to sell their domain. Now they currently rank higher than my primary site for a few keywords we are targeting. Would it be wise to buy the domain and do a name server change over to my primary domain? Would it even help boost ranks for the keywords they rank higher for? Or will the link juice be minimal? Any thoughts would be great!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | upick-1623910 -
New Site: Use Aged Domain Name or Buy New Domain Name?
Hi,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | peterwhitewebdesign
I have the opportunity to build a new website and use a domain name that is older than 5 years or buy a new domain name. The aged domain name is a .net and includes a keyword.
The new domain would include the same keyword as well as the U.S. state abbreviation. Which one would you use and why? Thanks for your help!0