Should I create mini-sites with keyword rich domain names pointing to my main site?

[Eladla]

Hi, I'm new to seomoz (and seo in general) and loving it so far.

My main domain name is more of a brandname than a search engine friendly list of keywords. I rank well for some keywords I optimized for, and less so for the more competitive keywords. I was wondering if making one page minisites hosted on keyword rich domain names could help in this respect?

What I want to do is just have a single page with a few paragraphs of content and links to the main site. I am not looking for links to boost the main site, just for the minisites to do better for several keywords.

Will this help? Is this ok, or against some Google policy? Can this hurt the main site rankings?

Thank you!

**Edit: **I noticed that sites ranking above me on the first page for some keywords have much less on-page elements than my page, have about the same domain trust and also very little inbound links. The only factor I can see is the exact match of keywords in the domain name.

[RyanKent]

I had previously learned the deeper a keyword was in the URL, the better it was for ranking in SERPs. I am uncomfortable now because I can't remember where I learned that information or from whom. I spent about 90 minutes today watching all of Matt Cutt's videos discussing the topic. I also read numerous articles.

In short, I could not locate any conclusive information on this topic. Everyone agrees it is good to have keywords in the URL, but no one shares if there is any higher value at various positions within the URL. I began a Q&A topic to seek more information on this topic. http://www.seomoz.org/q/keywords-in-urls-looking-for-consensus

[MarieHaynes]

Hi Elad.  In my mind the concept is still the same - whether you are building keyword rich domains for attempting to increase PR or for attracting the traffic for those keywords they are not going to be terribly effective.

A keyword rich domain may get you some traffic if it's a low competition keyword.  But then, it wouldn't take much else to get the same result (i.e. building one or two links to that page).

Check out this video by Matt Cutts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAWFv43qubI

[Eladla]

Noted. Thank you.

[Eladla]

Thanks for the reply.

The link you provided talks about using the minisites as a link building tool in order to boost pagerank. I already know this si close to useless for PR.

About the folders, are you sure having keywords in the folder structure is as effective as having them in the domain name itself? My experience (very short, but observant) shows otherwise.

[AaronSchinke]

I'd be more inclined to put the time and resources into optimizing your main site. Build some links, make sure your on page is flawless.

[RyanKent]

@Dunamis, the link you offered focused on using other sites as a link building strategy. That Q&A is focused on the value of the links. I believe Elad's inquiry is focused on the value of improving ranking for a particular term.

@Theo, your concerns are valid, but I didn't get that feel from Elad's question.

Please allow me to clarify the response I offered.

The best practice is clearly to optimize pages on your existing site for the keyword search traffic. This can be achieved through good SEO strategies and offering great content.

I could have offered this answer and ended the post, but I prefer to always include a direct response to the original question. I even qualified my answer twice with "what you describe is ok" and "as long as you don't violate any rules or offer spam". I wrote those phrases specifically to ensure the advice I was offering could not be manipulated into taking the doorway page path.

[MarieHaynes]

Check out the replies in this post - it's a very similar question:  http://www.seomoz.org/q/what-are-the-good-strategies-using-satellite-sites-in-seo

Keywords in the url are being devalued.  Spending time on a bunch of microsites is not going to benefit you much.  While you may get some small benefit from having a keyword rich domain, there are a lot of other factors to help you rank.  So, if you're going to spend time building links to these little domains, your time would better be spent building links to your main domain.

I would agree that you should have folders on your site so instead of creating the domain best-sunglasses.com have www.mydomain.com/best-sunglasses/

[Theo-NL]

"What you describe is ok, no policies are violated."

I strongly disagree on this one. What he describes sounds an awful lot like Google's description of a 'doorway page', which are explicitly against Google Webmaster Guidelines:

"Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination." (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355)

In light of the above I would advice against the practice your describing. Instead I would optimize (sections) of the main site for such keywords or set up independent (complete and value adding) domains for these keywords you'd like to rank for.

[RyanKent]

Will this help?

It can, but the better approach would be creating pages on your existing site optimized for your key phrase. If you wish to purchase the domain "best-sunglasses.com" why not just creating a page on your existing domain? http://mydomain.com/best-sunglasses

Is this ok, or against some Google policy?

What you describe is ok, no policies are violated.

Can this hurt the main site rankings?

As long as you don't do violate any rules or offer spam, then no.

I noticed that sites ranking above me on the first page for some keywords...

There are over 200 factors considered in determining a search result's location. If the pages which outrank you appear as you describe, then you should be easily able to outrank them if you optimize your site better.

In short, learn more about SEO. Improve your site and you will outrank the others easily, and without purchasing exact match domain names. An excellent place to start is this guide: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

Good Luck