Unique domains vs. single domain for UGC sites?
-
Working on a client project - a UGC community that has a DTC model as well as a white label model. Is it categorically better to have them all under the same domain? Trying to figure which is better:
XXX,XXX pages on one site
vs.
A smaller XXX,XXX pages on one site and XX,XXX pages on 10-20 other sites all pointing to the primary site.
The thinking on the second was that those domains would likely achieve high DA as well as the primary, and would passing their value to the primary.
Thoughts? Any other considerations we should be thinking about?
-
-
It depends on how the content on secondary domains organized. If each secondary domain has a content theme, then it would be easier to get separate links for each of them and thus it benefits everyone. It helps user to quickly find/contribute what they are looking for, helps to attract different specific links and pass the value to primary. If there is no such theme, then all those secondary domain will compete with each other for mindshare, user contribution and attracting individual links which would make them to achieve high DA,
-
I have similar setup. but instead of separate domains I have multiple subdomains with content categorized by theme. It helps may ways 1) Easier for single sign on. Use logged in one site does not need to log in again on anotyher site. 2) Can attract different types of links 3) easier for segmentation for advertisers. Not all subdomains can achieve same DA or traffic but it helps overall network by internal linking.
-
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
-
Merging 5 Sites
Hi there We have 5 separate sites which handle different regions/niches that we work in, and we are planning to merge into one so we have a logical path for 301 redirects. The sites have DA's as follows: Site 1 - DA 36
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ben10001
Site 2 - DA 31
Site 3 - DA 29
Site 4 - DA 27
Site 5 - DA 20 Does anyone have any experience with how the DA would flow through to the new site? Each site currently relates to a different niche that we work with, and we are planning to keep the content structured similarly, probably like this: https://newtoplevelsite/site1/products, https://newtoplevelsite/site2/products and so on. That makes 301 redirects easy and also gives us more control in managing users and different teams in Wordpress. We would link the different niches through the top menu and links within the pages. Is there a better solution? Would it make more sense to have https://newtoplevelsite/products/site1, https://newtoplevelsite/products/site2, and so on? Thanks for the ideas0 -
Any SEO penalties for hosting a site on a sub-domain.
Hi, A client of ours has previously been hosting their main website on a sub-domain of their primary URL. They currently have a training application being hosted on the main domain. They also currently have a redirect in place so when you go to www.xzy.com, you're redirected to xzy.xzy.com. If need need to stick with this set-up for the website relaunch later this month, my question is: are there any SEO drawbacks to having the entire site hosted on a sub-domain? Should we fight to get the training application off the main domain, at which point we can host everything on the main domain? Many thanks! Dan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ThisisPlanB0 -
Backlinking 3 sites from same domain and backlinking main site too
Hello, we have 4 sites, in which 1 is a main site and rest 3 are niche sites All these 3 sites have dofollow links to main site from home page We got a high quality backlink - through which all 3 niche sites have got it from that domain Is it worth to add backlink from that domain to main site too, despite the fact the 3 sites already have recvd it and they all link to main site many thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
How to do a site migration followed by a domain migration and avoid 301 redirect chains?
Hi all, The current roadmap for our Eng team has us performing a site migration (redirecting one subfolder to another subfolder) and then a domain migration shortly after. The way I see it, I have 2 scenarios (the 1st involves the site migration THEN the domain migration and the 2nd is the site migration and domain migration being done simultaneously): olddomain.com/subfolder-old to olddomain.com/subfolder-new THEN olddomain.com/subfolder-new to newdomain.com/subfolder-new AND olddomain.com/subfolder-old to newdomain.com/subfolder-new olddomain.com/subfolder-old to newdomain.com/subfolder-new I also understand that there are two best practices for a domain migration and they are 1) keep everything the same that you can to help Google understand it is the same page, just on a different domain and 2) avoid chain redirects. As you can imagine, scenario 1 requires more Eng costs than scenario 2. So, my question is, is scenario 2 a perfectly viable option or should I make the push to go for scenario 1? Any advice is greatly appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brad-causes1 -
Is it safe to redirect our .nl (netherlands) domain that we have just purchased to our .com domain?
Hi all! We've recently developed a German version of our website with German translation and now we have just purchased a .nl domain, but with this one, we want all of the copy to remain in English. Is it ok to redirect our .nl domain to our current .com website or will this give us bad SEO points? Thank you!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | donaldsze0 -
Any Suggestions For My Site?
I've recently started a website that is based on movie posters. The site has fundamentally been built for users and not SEO but I'm wondering if anyone can see any problems or just general advice that may help with our SEO efforts? The "content" on the website are the movie posters. I know Google likes text content, but I don't see what else we could add that wouldn't be purely for SEO. My site is: http://www.bit.ly/ZSPbTA
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | whispertera0 -
Splitting a Site into Two Sites for SEO Purposes
I have a client that owns a business that really could be easily divided into two separate business in terms of SEO. Right now his web site covers both divisions of his business. He gets about 5500 visitors a month. The majority go to one part of his business and around 600 each month go to the other. So about 11% I'm considering breaking off this 11% and putting it on an entirely different domain name. I think I could rank better for this 11%. The site would only be SEO'd for this particular division of the company. The keywords would not be in competition with each other. I would of course link the two web sites and watch that I don't run into any duplicate content issues. I worry about placing the redirects from the pages that I remove to the new pages. I know Google is not a fan of redirects. Then I also worry about the eventual drop in traffic to the main site now. How big of a factor is traffic in rankings? Other challenges include that the business services 4 major metropolitan areas. Would you do this? Have you done this? How did it work? Any suggestions?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MSWD0 -
Migrating a site
Hello, I have what a I think it's a noob question.. I have a medium size website and need to put it into maintenance for the next 2 months, and afterwards activate a completly new site. My client asked me to do this, cause the same people whoe run the constant flow of information on the site, are the ones who are going to develop the new site, so he wants to just close it out So... what are the steps for doing this with minimum impact on any SEO advances made this past months?.. How do I tell the search engines, Hey, just under maintenance for a while....then... i'm back in the game but this is my new structure. and the old one should go here
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | daniel.alvarez0