SEO ethical practice in question

[QualityHosting]

A family friend asked me to take a look at her website.

www.designsbymaida.com

First thing i noticed is what seemed a 301 redirect or a forward to

http://funktionaldesignstudios.com/dbm-old/

So her site is hosted with what it looks like, in his site(funktonaldesigns).  What does this means in terms of how google sees her site and in terms of SEO.

My thought is that he is boosting his domain name.  He is getting the link juice.

Thanks for the insight and help.

[SteveOllington]

Haha, what the??!! They're charging her for hosting and putting her in a sub directory of their own domain? Jeez, that is brazen. And they clearly must be one of those companies that profess to supply SEO but don't actually know squat about it. Tell her to fire their ass! And to ask for a refund on all her hosting payments. Tell her to tell them that all us crazies on this thread would like to throw wet kippers at them!

[EGOL]

Her new site might have a problem with the content on this guy's domain.  I would want him to put up a permanent redirect.  But I bet he will not do it.

[MarieHaynes]

She may want to consider moving the site to another host! She can get a hosting plan at a number of reliable places for under $10 per month. Then she can start doing some SEO for her site! If she just wants a place where she can tell people, "Hey, this is my web address" then what she's got is sufficient. But, if she wants to be found by search engines, this just ain't going to work.

[EGOL]

OK.... not a design proof.  thanks

[QualityHosting]

This site has been this way for like a year and she pays for hosting.

[QualityHosting]

I agree with you entirely.  Good answer.

[QualityHosting]

She is paying for "website" hosting.  Apparently Funktion Designs also does SEO.  How could a company view this as acceptable.

[EGOL]

Good point, Steve.  It could be a design proof.

[SteveOllington]

Are you sure the site is fully ready and released yet? When we used to build sites for people, we'd host them like that on our own site in a directory just so the client could see the site, etc... up until it was ready to go live, at which point it would have it's own hosting.

If not that, then yeah it's ridiculous and your friend should tell them it needs its own hosting.

[EGOL]

** What does this means in terms of how google sees her site and in terms of SEO. **

I'd say she doesn't have a site.  The service provider has usurped her site by intent or ignorance.

[SebastianDyer]

Sorry, she*

[SebastianDyer]

If he's serious about his business he'd have the site on his own domain name.

The site he's got his site hosted on doesn't carry much weight so I don’t see the point. Also, having a site hosted on another companies domain looks really unprofessional.

[MarieHaynes]

It looks to me like this isn't her website at all.  Instead, she has purchased space on the funktional designs website.  "www.designsbymaida.com" isn't a website - it's just a domain name that redirects to the designer's site.

So if there was any linkbuilding effort geared towards designsbymaida, then yes, funktional designs would benefit.

But, I don't this this is an ethical question.  I don't think they're trying to do anything shady.  They're just giving space on their website.  Now, if she wants to SEO her site she's got to talk to Funktional Designs about taking her content and putting it on a self hosted site.

[Entrusteddev]

Agreed, very questionable. Maybe hes saving on hosting fees!

In the current scenario any inbound links to your friends site will be building the Domain Authority etc of the FunktionalDesignStudios domain. Thus, yes he is boosting his own domain. Though technically speaking it will also be boosting your friends site whilst it is served from a sub directory of the funktionaldesign domain.