Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Best SEO practice - Umbrella brand with several domains
-
Hi, we have several blogs and comparison sites on specific topics. All the domains rank on top positions in very competitive niche markets. We think that we can get more profit out of the domains when we put them under an umbrella brand. Customers that visit domain A can then also find products easily on domain B. We see this for example on health.com, with several brands in the top.
To maintain or improve our rankings i'm looking for specific information for the link structure. For example, is it better to have the 'about us'/rel=author on each domain, with contributors on that specific domain or is it better to have them all in the (umbrella) brand domain.
At the moment we have the structure like this:
domainA.com, domainA.com/blog, domainA.com/about-us and domainB.com, domainB.com/blog, domainB.com/about-us.
I think to maintain the rankings it is best to keep specific content (like blog/ about us) on the domain. So is it the best to just do side wide links with a logo (like health.com) and what about hosting? We work with wordpress, so all domains will be hosted on one ip? when we use the multiple site option of WP?
All information on this topic is more than welcome

-
Thanks for the question:
"To maintain or improve our rankings i'm looking for specific information for the link structure. For example, is it better to have the 'about us'/rel=author on each domain, with contributors on that specific domain or is it better to have them all in the (umbrella) brand domain."
I'd say that it comes down to how much you want to differentiate your current brands from each other. If you want to keep them quite distinct and each one has it's own team / writers / USPs etc, then you are best to have each domain have it's own sections.
"I think to maintain the rankings it is best to keep specific content (like blog/ about us) on the domain. So is it the best to just do side wide links with a logo (like health.com) and what about hosting? We work with wordpress, so all domains will be hosted on one ip? when we use the multiple site option of WP?"
In terms of cross-linking, I'd say that you should try to do this where relevant and as James has pointed out below, as long as you're not doing this in huge volumes, you should be fine and not trigger any problems with Google. The only time you may want to be careful is where your domains are competing for the same types of keywords. I would avoid cross-linking too much with exact match keywords as this could be seen as manipulate, I'd keep it on brand and to relevant pages.
If the domains you own are in the same niches, then you may hit problems of them competing against each other. I'm not sure if this is the case? If they are in the same niche, then Google certainly can look at things like IP address and footprints that links the sites together, it is hard to know to what extent this would harm you but Google certainly prefer to show diversity in search results rather than having multiple sites from the same company.
-
I would if possible try and concentrate on a single brand/domain as opposed to multiple domain - on the assumption that an identical piece of content will rank higher on a single strong domain than it would on any of your less strong segmented domains.
With a single domain you also don't have the issue of worrying about how to cross market across domains (although as you point out many sites do so - Moz / OSE being one example) . Of course this also gets rid of the worry about whether google may see cross linking between multiple domains as a 'Link Network' - unlikely if it is just a few domians but if you are talking about 10's of different domains then this could well raise a flag in googles alogrithm.
It is still unclear as to how google treats multiple domains owned by the same companies, and on the same theme. Many websites have sub domains for their blogs and other sub-sections and the standard thought a few years ago was that you were better off moving those into folders. However, I think things have now changed such that if there are enough connecting signals it doesn't matter if its a sub domain or sub folder. When considering this, as a subdomain is technically a separate site, you would think that if similar connecting signals where to appear between 2 separate domains, then Google could (and probably should) treat them as they would sub-domains. However, whether there is some, all or no truth in this is likely to be a debate that will be speculation until Google confirms something along these lines.
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
-
Have Your Thoughts Changed Regarding Canonical Tag Best Practice for Pagination? - Google Ignoring rel= Next/Prev Tagging
Hi there, We have a good-sized eCommerce client that is gearing up for a relaunch. At this point, the staging site follows the previous best practice for pagination (self-referencing canonical tags on each page; rel=next & prev tags referencing the last and next page within the category). Knowing that Google does not support rel=next/prev tags, does that change your thoughts for how to set up canonical tags within a paginated product category? We have some categories that have 500-600 products so creating and canonicalizing to a 'view all' page is not ideal for us. That leaves us with the following options (feel it is worth noting that we are leaving rel=next / prev tags in place): Leave canonical tags as-is, page 2 of the product category will have a canonical tag referencing ?page=2 URL Reference Page 1 of product category on all pages within the category series, page 2 of product category would have canonical tag referencing page 1 (/category/) - this is admittedly what I am leaning toward. Any and all thoughts are appreciated! If this were in relation to an existing website that is not experiencing indexing issues, I wouldn't worry about these. Given we are launching a new site, now is the time to make such a change. Thank you! Joe
Web Design | | Joe_Stoffel1 -
Best SEO-friendly CMS platform?
I have been tasked with rebuilding a small e-commerce website using a CMS, but I'm not sure which one has the most SEO compatibility. One SEO company recommended Squarespace. Another warned me against Squarespace because of its limited SEO features and instead recommended Wordpress with the WooCommerce toolkit. I've also heard Drupal and Joomla mentioned. Are certain CMS platforms more SEO-friendly? If so, what are the best ones that can also handle e-commerce? Thanks!
Web Design | | businessimagesolutions1 -
Is placing an H1 tag below a slideshow a bad practice?
Hello All, It is to my understanding that it is a best practice to have a single H1 headline that corresponds to your title tag at the top of your page, above your content for the best On-Site Optimization. We are developing a site that uses a big slideshow with text on each slide, and are concerned that placing the H1 Headline below this will be a bad practice. Would a better option be to have the slide show text on the image and place no alt tags on the slides, so that the crawlers accessing the page overlook this and see the H1 below the slider first? We need to maintain the slider for design purposes, but would like the site to optimized. A similar example to what the slider will look like is as follows: http://www.boviskyle.com/ However, we look to have optimized, "10x" content below the slider with a solid H1 headline as well. Thank You!
Web Design | | Armen-SEO0 -
Confluence and SEO
I think this is a difficult question so apologies in advance and any help would be appreciated! We currently have a large amount of support center content sitting on our main pages which we don’t think is very effective (mainly basic how to guides). We think it is difficult for visitors to understand and the UI is very poor. In order to solve this we’re currently moving this content onto a subdomain using Confluence, a wiki based team collaboration tool (from a company called Atlassian). What we’re planning on doing is very much like what Atlassian themselves have done on this page: https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/ALLDOC/Atlassian+Documentation What are the SEO issues / dangers that I need to consider before moving this content? I’m assuming that as this content will still be on the same domain then we can minimise link equity / authority loss by setting up re-directs to the new content. Also, has anyone had any experience of using Confluence and whether individual pages can be optimised for SEO? I notice that there are lots of add-ins that can be used, one of which is an SEO add-on which allows you to customise things like meta description tags.
Web Design | | RG_SEO0 -
WIX? is it any good for SEO
Hi people. I have just built my website www.bellagiolimousines.com.au using WIX. I am in the process of optimising for SEO, and after reading a couple of older posts i.e 2012; I read that some SEO consultants do not like WIX. However with their recent upgrades, I was hoping if anyone else has had any recent experience with WIX? I have spent a considerable amount of time building this site, and I don't want to waste anymore time in optimising it, if I am not going to receive a top 3 organic SERP. Hope to hear from someone real soon!
Web Design | | Giorgio680 -
Best layout pages for SEO
Dear all, what would be the ideal layout of a webpage for SEO? How would a homepage and landingspage look like? Thanks in advance! Best regards, Ben
Web Design | | HMK-NL0 -
Html 5 main and secondary navigation for SEO best performances
I am building a website which will have a main navigation related to the site and each link of the main navigation will have a secondary navigation. We do not want to use a megamenu style navigation. I will try to explain it with a example: Let's start with an example for a computer store "My PC Store", the Main Navigation would be: Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets
Web Design | | netbuilder
Multimedia When clicking on the "Notebook & Tablets" the user is directed to the page domain.com/notebook-tablet.html and on this page the secondary navigation appears: Laptop Netbook Tablets / iPad I am confused on how I should organize the semantic navigation for best SEO performances and I need advice / suggestions. I thought about 2 different ways to do it but which one is more appropriate in terms of SEO? PROPOSITION A Home Page: <header> My PC Store <nav> Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </nav> </header> Sub-Page (Notebook & Tablets): <nav>(or <aside>?) Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </aside> </nav> <header> Notebook & Tablets <nav> Laptop Netbook Tablets / iPad </nav> </header> As you notice on the home page the Main Site Navigation is included in the <header>while it is not in the sub-pages. PROPOSITION B Home Page: <header> My PC Store <nav> Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </nav> </header> Sub-Page (Notebook & Tablets): <header> Notebook & Tablets <nav> Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </nav> # Notebook & Tablets * Laptop Netbook Tablets / iPad </header> The main navgation remains always in the <header>(home page / sub-pages) of all page. I need suggestions... How would you guys organize the nav ? </header> </header>0 -
Do you suggest a SEO Plug-in for Dreamweaver?
I would like to know it there is any plug-in for Dreamweaver that helps our SEO work
Web Design | | Naghirniac0