Splitting a Site into Two Sites for SEO Purposes
-
I have a client that owns a business that really could be easily divided into two separate business in terms of SEO. Right now his web site covers both divisions of his business.
He gets about 5500 visitors a month. The majority go to one part of his business and around 600 each month go to the other. So about 11%
I'm considering breaking off this 11% and putting it on an entirely different domain name. I think I could rank better for this 11%. The site would only be SEO'd for this particular division of the company. The keywords would not be in competition with each other.
I would of course link the two web sites and watch that I don't run into any duplicate content issues.
I worry about placing the redirects from the pages that I remove to the new pages. I know Google is not a fan of redirects. Then I also worry about the eventual drop in traffic to the main site now. How big of a factor is traffic in rankings?
Other challenges include that the business services 4 major metropolitan areas.
Would you do this? Have you done this? How did it work?
Any suggestions?
-
I choose not to split it. With all that has changed in the SEO world I am glad I did not. The site has fared well thru all the changes and still ranks well for both divisions.
-
Interested to know if you ended up doing this and how it has worked out.
Thanks! -
I agree that there is no right answer. I too worry that by splitting it that I would be loosing a lot of the back linking work for that division. Thereby causing the site to drop in rankings. It does TERRIFIC for the other division, which is the biggest part of their business. I really hate to mess that part up on an experiment like this.
I'm still 50-50. I would love to hear from someone that has done this and hear details about what they experienced.
-
I don't think there's a "right" answer here, but my observation is that microsites aren't doing as well as they once did. It used to be that, just by having more sites, you did better. Now, as Google seems to be testing the volume know on exact-match domains, devalues cross-linking, and is harsher on duplicate and thin content, it's a lot harder to support separate sites. Factor in that you're splitting your links, social signals and offline marketing/branding, and promoting two properties can really make you lose focus.
That's not to say it's all-or-none, though. Exact- and partial-match domains do still carry weight, and if the niche is unique and separable enough, it is possible to build a strong identity for it. I'd really look at the business side, though, for guidance. Is this a division of the business that really stands alone as a brand? If so, separation could provide broader benefit. If you're just separating for SEO, I'd generally side with keeping the unified site.
The issue with the redirects is that the weight of those pages only gets to exist in one place. So, if some of those pages have inbound links, a 301-redirect will kick start the new domain, but it will also take away from the authority of the old domain. In other words, you may not just lose the traffic itself - you may lose some of the main domain's ranking ability. That depends a LOT on the situation, though (it's hard to speak in generalities).
-
Slippery slope......Short term it is always better to stay focused. Old saying goes "what you focus on you find". One site and consolidating all the value is always the best short term policy.
Long term, if you continue to build SEO value and the sites are truly different, then you are better off with 2 sites. Here is why:
The same principle applies to the strategy of creating smaller well defined adgroups in adwords to increase your relevance and quality score.... You will create a higher relevancy for those keywords if you separate the site. The problem with this strategy is when you separate the site, you will lose some seo value for both sites.....the way to counteract that is you could pass "linkjuice" back and forth to the sites based on what they needed. But if you have a solid strategy and are working hard at SEO, thats like "mental masturbation" (can i say that?)
Several times we took 1 site and created 2-3 sites. SEO values go down temporarily but we counteracted this by developing a bunch of new relevant content, hyperfocused on the specific sites, and when we eventually got the site reindexed, we were already in better shape than when we started. More importantly, similar to your situation, one of the sites had less competition for several keywords and we started to dominate in that category.
Other assorted stuff:
4 metropolitan areas is not an issue. In some ways it is a plus as it gives you 4 geotargeting opportunities to differentiate yourself from your competitors.
redirects are here to stay. As long as google understands why you are redirecting then you are ok.
Hope this helps. Make it happen.
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
-
I have a same paragraph appearing on two webpages of my site!
is it gonna affect rankings if so what should be done thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Sam09schulz0 -
Merging B2B site with B2C site
Hi, A mobile phone accessory client of ours has a retail site (B2C) and a trade site (B2B). The retail site does pretty well and ranks highly for a number of terms. The trade site doesn't really rank for anything as they don't optimise it. They would like to merge the two sites and allow trade customers to log-in and purchase goods in bulk for their business. If they were to merge the trade site into the already successful consumer site, what would be the best way of doing this and what, if any, implications would it have on the organic visibility of the B2C site? Would it be possible to target retail and trade customers on one website? Cheers, Lewis
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
Launching V2 of my site - what questions to ask the SEO Agency
Hi I am in the process of launching a new version of my site and I know I need to get my current SEO Agency to check and test certain aspects of the site so that I don't lose any rankings. The problem is I am unsure of everything to ask them and I was wondering if someone could help me out. I don't want to have missed something basic and therefore want to give them a checklist to confirm they are happy before go live. Any help appreciated
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Andy-Halliday1 -
Buying Expired Domains with Decent DA/PA for SEO Purposes
Hey guys, i've seen some stuff about this before but I recently found an opportunity to put it into action and wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting into! I am looking at buying a domain (expired and now only 10 dollars) that has a decent domain authority and has some keywords in it related to my clients practice. I plan on using a 301 redirect to pass "link juice" because this client is looking for a quick bump in rankings. Thoughts? Benefits? Problems with this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RickyShockley1 -
How come this site does so well?
Hi Guys, It's bugging the crap out of me why this site does so well http://www.stagedinburgh.com/ when I look at it's link profile its so weak and terrible plus many links comes from the sites they own. Somehow the site out ranks many sites for search terms like edinburgh stag party, edinburgh stag do, edinburgh stag weekends. Am I missing something? They seem to only have links from 13 domains and they aint great. What am I missing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PottyScotty0 -
Best way to duplicate a wordpress site for staging purposes?
I want to make some changes to my Wordpress site, and want to somehow set up a live staging area. Does anyone know of a good way to do this? I want all of the same content there I just want to be able to make changes to it and try it all out before going live. Any thoughts on this? Also I want to be sure the staging site doesn't get indexed since it will be a complete duplicate of my existing site. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NoahsDad0 -
What's the best way to manage content that is shared on two sites and keep both sites in search results?
I manage two sites that share some content. Currently we do not use a cross-domain canonical URL and allow both sites to be fully indexed. For business reasons, we want both sites to appear in results and need both to accumulate PR and other SEO/Social metrics. How can I manage the threat of duplicate content and still make sure business needs are met?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BostonWright0 -
Predictive SEO
Hello all, I am trying to perform a predictive competitive SEO analysis to estimate what I will need to do to surpass my competitors. I am unsure of how to do this and would like some advice or link to an article. What I am trying to do is predict where I can rank in three months, six months and one year as well as what I need to do compared to my competitors. Specifically also to estimate how many links I would need to acquire to both my page as well as domain. I have already pulled my competitors domain links, page links, and age. Adam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digitalops0