How can I make use of multiple domains to aid my SEO efforts?

[Svetoslav]

About an year, the business I work for purchased 20+ domains: sendmoneyfromcanada.com sendmoneyfromaustralia.com sendmoneyfromtheuk.com sendmoneyfromireland.com The list goes on, but you can get the main idea. They thought that the domains can be useful to aid http://www.transfermate.com/ . I can set up a few micro sites on them, but from that point there will be no one to maintain them. And I'm, honestly, not too happy with hosting multiple sites on one IP and having them all link to the flagship. It is spammy and it does not bring any value to end users. I might be missing something, so my question is - Can I use these domains to boost my rankings, while avoiding any shady/spammy techniques? P.S. I had this Idea of auctioning the domains in order to cover for the domain registration fees.

[DeltonChilds]

I was just thinking about this very thing this morning, get to the office and bang... there's the exact question.  What if the "secondary domain", the other ones I own, what if their url's are more keyword rich than my primary domain name.  Your answer seemed the most intuitive and beneficial to long term goals... pouring time into a "dummy site".

Should we just be using these as vanity urls for tracking specific campaigns.  I'd have to admit... some of the urls I own are a little easier to remember and focused on a specific service (ex. seowhatever .com), than my primary domain name, which is my name! They've got to have more value... some are pretty darn good urls... the kind where you tell your buddy you bought it and he says, "THAT WAS AVAILABLE!!!!".

[EGOL]

The realistic side of me says there's nothing wrong with having and owning multiple domains

I agree.  Nothing wrong with it.  One guy is allowed to own ten toy stores on the same street in the same tiny town.

But they compete with one another.

For sales, for resources and for the owner's time.  it's inefficient.

all your eggs in one basket.

I agree.   My defense against that is a very high quality site.  Much higher in quality than I would have if I was creating six sites in that same niche.  I have the very best on that one site and it isn't doing manipulative linking with other sites that I own.

My diversity is in other sites - but in different related niches.  So the sites don't compete with one another.  I think that is superior to having six sites in the payday loan niche.

[fergseo]

I'm on the border with this topic. The realistic side of me says there's nothing wrong with having and owning multiple domains but I can also see the benefit you discussed when you said, “all of your efforts and all of your content and all of your links focused on one single site.”

Sure, you're always going to have one primary website that you will ultimately have the most success with and that's fine. However, what if your primary domain gets hit by the Google Bot (also known as Black Death)? What would you do then? I have a great example of one company's intention to not focus all your efforts into site.

I've been following the "loans" space for about 4 years now: car loans, mortgage loans, payday loans, cash advances, personal loans, etc. If it's a loan I've tested it.

Below is a list of websites that are all owned by the same person who is obviously using the "more is better" online strategy. If you type in the major keywords for any loan type (Examples: car loans, auto loans, personal loans, etc.), you will see that this person is successfully trying to position their sites to be anywhere on the first five pages of the results. I talked to the owner of these sites and his logic is that you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket.

www.apexpaydayloans.com

www.bestleadinglenders.com

www.actionpaydayloans.com

It’s not hard to realize that all these sites are owned by the same person and from the rankings I'm seeing, this person is doing very well.

[alexhoug]

Yeah, that would definitely work. If you can get good content on each of the domains and develop them to be great sites, then you will have some nice leverage in your niche, in many markets.

[EGOL]

I believe that you will do best when you have all of your efforts and all of your content and all of your links focused on one single site.

You want all of the the content there to impress the pants off of any visitor - and thus earn natural links.  That impressive content will also earn trust, sales and clients because you look like an authority.

You want all of the links hitting there to give the domain max authority.   One site with 50 links will outrank 50 sites with one link each.

And, you want to put all of your effort into one site to make it the best possible site in your niche.

Smart generals have always used the "divide and conquer" principle in battle.  Building multiple domains divides your forces for the enemy.

[Svetoslav]

I was agains purchasing that many domains simply to have some content on them. I'm now trying to make the best of it. We have a few good graphic designers on staff, so I think of going with the infographics. Then again, the infographics might do better on the main site.

[EGOL]

If you could "manufacture rankings" by tossing up a thousand domains then everybody everywhere would be doing it.

It doesn't work.

The links on these "manufactured domains" are worth very very little to nothing.

The only way to get true power is to get links from outside of your own network of websites.

These extra domains have no external links of their own and that gives them no power to pass on to your main site.

And, if you can get links into these extra domains then you should instead have those links hit straight into you own website.  Passing them through these extra domains is like trying to kill a rabbit with a ricochet.

Google is too smart to allow this to work.

[Svetoslav]

Not a bad idea. We used to work with a few Filipino guys. I might be able to get a guy to do it in my home country for a little more than what you mentioned. Nothing too fancy, just an article every now and then. I try to steer away from that option. I guess I will need to take some time and come up with and idea where it is easy to maintaing the sites and give some useful information.

I was thinking about putting some infographics on them. Each will cover the theme related to the domain name. It can turn out ok. Don't you think so?

[alexhoug]

You've already invested in the domains, my as well leverage them. What these would be good for is to rank for the "exact matches" as exact match domains still to this date do well in the SERPs. I would hire a Filipino or someone for around $200 USD/month. Train them a little bit, then let them install wordpress, maintain the sites, build backlinks, etc. This would be my suggestion for the domain usage. You can also most likely buy more IPs from your hosting provider. So in essence, just try and get these sites ranked for the exact match terms and funnel the people to your "money site". Lastly, if you are really worried about the "spammy" look, add "nofollow" to the links.