Exact match domain marketing?
-
Hi All,
I've managed to secure a couple of exact match domains that are closely related to my main site but I'm a bit unsure of how to make best use of them.
My plan is to generate revenue by ranking high for the exact match terms, moving the visitor onto the main site to take their details and payment.
Naturally I want this satelite site to be very similar so that I can keep the brand continuety going and maintain a smooth transition to the main site. My main concerns however are:
- Will I get punished for using the same Navigation menu, logo and code as my main site? The navigation menu will link to pages on the main site, and this satelite site will most likely only consist of an index page and about 5 - 10 individual content pages.
2)I want the branding on this satelite site to be the same as my main site. Will I be punished for the difference in branding vs domain name? I know the SE's are unlikely to pick it up because the logo is an image but is there a risk of human editing?
- I want to link from the main site to the satelite site to give it a bit of a boost and to get through a possible sandbox. If the satelite has numerous links to the main site and the main site is linking to the satelite site will there be any benefit?
Never tried to create a site like this so a bit nervous about impacting the main site.
Thank in advance.
-
Hi Mulith
Ya, from a little town called Gansbaai, an hour outside of Cape Town. Yourself? It depends, dont approach a website that offers to sell links, rather find a good website and do some form of value exchange (I recommend targeted recipricol linking). Anyway, though this might interest you. Have a look at all of these sites. All have exactly same webiste structure/brand, just different domians, and all the domians are strengthened through exact match anchor text (bought!!) (This is similar to the scenario),
and there are many more of these. This is no good and by all means! (I was shocked when I stumbled upon this on the web the other day, the unfortunate thing is they rank for very competitive terms and all their links are bought, or strategically exchanged (although Google picks this up, the anchor text still helps significantly), pity Google cant pick this kind of link buying up yet. Cheers
-
I suppose if you keep it away from the main site then you've got some form of insulation against a penalty. Buying links like that surely is quite expensive?
BTW noticed you're from SA too, small world!
-
Hey Man, you telling me you have to be desperate for buying links, it's pretty desperate buying exact match domains and then doing a whole campaign for those (that's just as spammy in googles eyes), what kind of links do you want to build to the new domain anyway?, or do you expect to rank by having a few links from your mother site, cause that won't happen? Do some research on-line and you will see that 90% of competitive SEO campaigns buy links (like yours :)). I don't want to get into a debate here, but if I look at the current results, there is absoloutley no way you going to take number 1 ranking for that besides with your existing website.....Even if you do a new website and match your competitors profile, he will win due to domain age and your exact match domain wont be sufficient....Or am I missing something here, also by the time your domain ranks number 1, exact match domain might be valued even less...Recipricols depend on the pages they coming from and the balance of the link juice between the two sites, they can be extremely effective in your situation...
-
Buying links - No Offence intented but I'd have to be pretty desperate for that to happen and reciprocal aren't likely to pass much juice despite the exact match anchor text.
The domain is: http://tinyurl.com/3wohp5p
Using google.co.uk amd serps "sell a business" "selling a business"
-
Hi Mulith, can you not give us the website and keywords to have a closer look. If you say you have tried to achieve number one ranking and cannot with your website, because of the other sites high DA, I seriously dought yoru exact match domain will do it (remember there are hundres of rankign factors and there is a correlation, not causation between exact match domains...).....To be honest, although this community might hate me for it, I think you are better of buying links with exact match anchor text, that should get you number 1 quickly. Or do some link exchange...seems like what you are missing is exact match anchor text for your targeted keyword?
-
Thanks Janml for the extended comment.
If I'm honest the strategy is short term and allows me to generate the income needed to get link building done for the main site. So although it may seem short term, there is a long term goal in all of this.
I'm already 3rd-4th for the keyword but the real conversions happen at the top because No1 is a very high DA site and if I'm completely honest with myself, despite all the best content in the world, it will take me months, if not years to get there. I'm banking on the 0.25 correlation between exact match and No1 rankings, combined with a quick link building push to get to the top.
Since employing link builders costs money this seems like the best way to get the dosh together.
Pitty link builders don't accept equity based on the traffic or market share they bring in. That would remove the need for doing this the long winded way.
-
Regarding the questions, the answers bellow suffice. However, I would seriously reconsider the tactic you are wanting to employ. You will not rank that easily just because of an exact match domain (Google has recently devalued this ranking factor, and will probably continue doing so considering all the spam it creates on the web). If these keywords are so easy to achieve a number one ranking for, then rather use your existing domain and create some quality content that will attract links and rank (If your existing website cant achieve this, then it will be extremely challenging with new websites, and with the time you will invest ranking the new sites, you would have probably achieved the ranking easier on your original domain). Google will certainly pick up the links between your website and the new ones (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-link-based-spam-analysis-techniques - is a good read regarding this), and the link juice flowing will be minimal, so you will need to design an entire link strategy for the new sites (which is not feasible....)). . Strengthening multiple domians to drive traffic to a single site is certainly not the most effective way of going about to earn higher rankings. Why do you belive you cannot achive these rankings with your exisitng domian, maybe you should rather start with seeking assitance in that regard?
I am just warning you as you might be investing time and money in a strategy that is not sustainable, always think long term when investing in SEO and make sure your work will bear the fruits of its labour for a long time, and not just achieve a short term solution.....
-
Hi Mate,
My advice:
-
Make all the domains similar layouts yet have different content on all.
-
Try and link up to the main website via all the websites
-
Try and split the hosting too is possible.
I don't think you will get punished if you use the right content
Just change the image sizes possible and use vaired alt tests.
I think it will help but be wary of too many sites on the same IP also same GA analytics
Play it smart and use design and content wise and it will work well.
Regards.
-
-
-
if the rest of the content is different and there is enough unique content) then no i shouldn't be a problem.
-
If above is ok then 2 won't be a problem
-
Yes just like any other link building will help you.
That said I would advice on making a few landing pages on the site and use it as a portal for the main site. Just keep the content unique and relevant and you won't have any problems. Plus you should get a proff. designer to make a nice user friendly landing page design that works.
-
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
-
Referring domain issues
Our website (blahblah).org has 32 other domains pointing to it all from the same I.P address. These domains including the one in question, were all purchased by the website owner, who has inadvertently created duplicate content and on most of these domains. Some of these referring domains have 301's, some don't - but it appears they have all been de-indexed by Google. I'm somewhat out of my depth here (most of what I've said above has come from an agency who said we should address this before being slapped by Google). However I need to explain to my line manage the actual issues in more detail and the repercussions - any anyone please offer advice please? I'm happy to use the agency, or another - but would like some second opinions if possible?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LJHopkins0 -
Guidelines for a second website business domain
Hi There, A client is setting up a second website selling the same products from a separate domain with the same descriptions etc. The site will have a separate URL, but will administered from the same CMS. The only difference is the new site has only one brand instead of several on the main site. E.G The main site sells all plumbing brands, the second site just one brand. Your thoughts and advice for best practise would be much appreciated. Andy (Marz Ventures)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarzVentures0 -
Previously owned domain & canonical
Hi, I've recently joined the business and as part of the cleanup process I got told that we owned this domain preferredsafaris.com with some very similar content to our main site southernafricatravel.com. We're no longer owns the preferredsafaris.com domain but looking at Google's cache for it we realised that the title, meta description & page shown when looking at the 'cached page' is for our current domain even though it is showing the 'correct' URL there. I imagine this might have something to do with canonical set on those pages but the weird thing is all those pages now render 404 & do not show a canonical in the source code. I have used Google Removal Tool https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals for all those URLs & Google says that it has removed them & yet they're still showing. What do you suggest? Any potential issue in regards to duplicate content here? Cheers, Julien
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SouthernAfricaTravel0 -
How Can Google tell, if a anchor text is exact match
So, I was thinking to myself today. Couldn't Google say everything is an exact match anchor text in reality? Such as, Hyundai in Boston, Or cars in boston? I'm just concerned, that's all. Thanks for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeterRota0 -
Redirect old .net domain to new .com domain
I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to but I wanted to get some feedback to make sure or see if there's additional feedback. The long and short of it is that I'm working with a site that currently has a .net domain that they've been running for 6 years. They've recently bought a .com of the same name as well. So the question is: I think it's obviously preferable to keep the .net and just direct the .com to it. However, if they would prefer to have the .com domain, is 301'ing the .net to the .com going to lose a lot of the equity they've built up in the site over the past years? And are there any steps that would make such a move easier? Also, if you have any tips or insight just into a general transition of this nature it would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs0 -
Hosting images on multiple domains
I'm taking the following from http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html "Splitting components allows you to maximize parallel downloads. Make sure you're using not more than 2-4 domains because of the DNS lookup penalty. For example, you can host your HTML and dynamic content on www.example.org and split static components between static1.example.org and static2.example.org" What I want to do is load page images (it's an eCommerce site) from multiple sub domains to reduce load times. I'm assuming that this is perfectly OK to do - I cannot think of any reason that this wouldn't be a good tactic to go with. Does anyone know of (or can think of) a reason why taking this approach could be in any way detrimental. Cheers mozzers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eventurerob0 -
Raise my Domain Authority and MozRank
I have a budget of about $10,000 over the next 2 months and I would like to raise my Domain Authority from 28 to past 50. What should I do with this money? I am looking for suggestions and ideas. If anybody wants to work on this, please PM me. I also need an On Page SEO expert to make corrections and suggestions. I can PM the actual domain to anybody interested.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | trickyzoo0 -
.co.uk to .com - Transfer of domain
After having our site up for over a year and gaining PR 3 and more than a dozen page 1 rankings on Google for most of our competitive terms, we have realised we have to transfer to .com from our current .co.uk URL for legal reasons. What would the best way be to carry out such a move in an SEO perspective?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | qtasad0