Multiple Domains for One Site
-
We are building a site for a new miniature golf course. They have a long name, which they don't want me to mention, but it's equivalent to a name like Golden State Golf and Putt. They also have a restaurant with its own name and brand that will be a part of the mini golf course and its website, much how Hotel websites have their restaurants on their sites.
Before becoming our client they purchased golfandputt.com and want to go with this domain for simplicity sake.
In addition to this domain name they purchased 7 others that contain the bussiness' full name in some way, such as:
As well as:
- 3 variations of the golfandputt.com domain
- 3 variations of the restaurants name
They wish to have all of these redirect to the main website or the restaurant page to "help with SEO," as they told me.
From what I have researched on SEOmoz it seems better to simply optimize the website for Golden State Golf and Putt and the restaurant page for the restaurant's name. Additionally, I'm worried that redirecting the domains to the site will actually hurt them in rankings.
If someone can shed some light on what the best practices for this sort of situation are I'd be much appreciative.
Apologies in advance for the lengthy explanation but its a bit of a unique situation.
-
You would want to implement the 301 redirect by going through the htaccess of your server. This redirect is the most effective. If you don't have access to the htaccess then a 301 redirect with php should do the trick. Also don't forget to do it for every page. A lot of companies actually buy a bunch of variations of their domain so that a competitor doesn't buy a second version for negative purposes or for link ads.
-
That's what I figured. Thanks a bunch!
-
Other sites will be able to link to the 301'd domains and this link juice (at least the majority of it) will be passed onto the dominant domain, so i wouldn't sweat it too much,as this won't harm your SERPs (assuming the links are good).
Its just a whole load easier if you are link building that you use one domain as it keeps things a whole lot simpler!
-
Thanks for the quick responses. I will make sure all link building is done for the main domain. However, individuals will still be able to link to the domains that are 301 redirecting if they choose so. So I guess we will just have to pay attention to this?
-
I agree with Justin. "Defensive" use of multiple domains to pick up misspellings or misremembered names can be valid strategy, but I would 301 them to the main site.
Trying to build links, social signals and unique, fresh content for each individual domain for SEO purposes probably isn't a good idea.
-
There is no harm in adding all of the addresses to the website, although i would certainly redirect via 301 to the master, dominant (or preferred) domain.
One of the main things you need to be careful of with multiple domains is duplicate content, Google will view the website for www.goldenstategolfandputt.com and www.goldenstategolfandputt.net as two different websites even if they are the same website but just reached via a different domain. Therefore if not addressed you would get penalised for duplicate content, to overcome this problem do either a 301 redirect or a rel=canonical to resolve this.
Also unless there is a very good reason, i would ensure from a simplicity's point of view that all linking, internal and external points to a single chosen domain as managing inbound links to multiple domains can be a real pain.
In essence, there is no problem with using multiple domains, plenty of people do it to protect their brand, to overcome misspellings, passing off etc etc.
Hope that helps
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
-
301 Domain Redirect And Old Domain to a New one including pages
Hi, I need to 301 an old domain to a new one (new website) I need to 301 the domain to a new page not the new domain direct for example www.olddomain.co.uk to www.newdomain.co.uk/pagenew Then I need to also 301 all the other pages on the old domain to the new one for example... www.oldmain.co.uk/oldpage to www.newdomain.co.uk/newpage Issue is I can do one or the other not both, I can get the other pages to redirect but then the main domain wont redirect to the correct new page. Or I can get the old domain to redirect but not the internal pages. Thanks
Technical SEO | | David-Sharpe0 -
Choice of domain
Hi. I want to build a new site that is optimised for a training product that we have. We have an existing domain which I'm considering pointing at this new site. This domain is one of the new .training TLDs. Let's call this domain foo.training where my main keyword to optimise for will be "foo training". I've also looked and can see that foo-training.com is available. I read up on best practices for domains here : https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain My question is will the .training domain be seen as "spammy" in any way? Am I better to just go ahead and register the .com?
Technical SEO | | rmcatalyst0 -
Preferred domain is it importnant you choose one?
HI, Just wanted to know if it is important to choose www or non www or let google choose? Regards
Technical SEO | | ReSEOlve0 -
Is a canonical tag the best solution for multiple search listing pages in a site?
I have a site where dozens of page listings are showing in my report with a parameter showing the page number for the listings. Is the best solution to canonical these page listings back a core page (all-products)? Or, do I change my site configuration in Webmasters to ignore "page" parameters? What's the solution? Example URL 1- http://mydomain.com/products/all-products?page=84 Example URL 2- http://mydomain.com/products/all-products?page=85 Example URL 3- http://mydomain.com/products/all-products?page=86 Thanks in advance for your direction.
Technical SEO | | JoshKimber0 -
Am I missing something if I absorb one site into another?
We are absorbing one of our sites into another and I want to make sure I am not missing anything. The site that is being absorbed will no longer exist as all the content has been replicated/duplicated on the main site. About a month ago we added canonicals to all the duplicate content to point to the new site it will be a part of. That went very well and organic traffic continued to flow to those pages on the new site. We recently (yesterday) used 301s on all the pages using mod_rewrites and redirected the domain name from the old site name to the new one. Using mod_rewrites we redirect any other page linking to that domain to www.newsite.com?ref=oldsite.com. So far I dont see anything coming in on an unexpected link. I still need to tell Google via Webmaster Tools that the oldsite is now on newsite.com correct? Is there anything else I might bump into that we havent thought of? Thanks
Technical SEO | | GeorgeLaRochelle0 -
One H1 tag Dead Long Live multiple H1 tags?
Good afternoon from 9 degrees C mostly cloudy Wetherby UK, Ive been holding on to the mantra of one h1 tag per page but a developer has challenged me on this by stating you can have multiple h1 tags on the condition the page is HTML 5 & each h1 tag is within its own section or article tag. So the question is do i need to change my tune? Thanks in advance, David
Technical SEO | | Nightwing0 -
.com domain is an iframe copy of a .net domain?
Hey folks, This one is over my head. I'm helping out a friend's dental office website (www.capitolperiodontal.com), and their home page source code points to the .net TLD for its content apparently: | | <title></span>http://www.capitolperiodontal.com/</title> http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html" /> rows="100%" id="dd_frameset_0001"> src="http://www.capitolperiodontal.net/" name="dd_content_0001" framespacing="0" frameborder="0" noresize="noresize" title="capitolperiodontal.com" /> <noframes></noframes> My idea was to load all the content from the .net to the .com, then redirect the .net to the .com as it has better domain authority and is, well a .com. Any insights what this iframe biz is all about and if my strategy above is ok? Many thanks folks! john
Technical SEO | | juanzo0070 -
301 redirect domain to page on another domain
Hi, If I wanted to do a 301 permanent redirect on a domain to a page on another domain will this cause any problems? Lets say I have 4 domains (all indexed with content), I decide to create a new domain with 4 pages, one for each domain. I copy the content from the old domains to the relevant page on the new domain and set it live. At the same time as setting the new site live I do a 301 permanent redirect on the 4 domains to the relevant pages on the new domain. What happens if Google indexes the new site before visiting the redirected domains, could this cause a duplicate content penalty? Cheers
Technical SEO | | activitysuper0