Should I redirect a direct keyword url?
-
We are a manufacture of a product and we own the url of our business/product name (samples) "www.thewafflemaker.com" and our company name is "The Waffle Maker". We do all of our business on "www.thewafflemaker.com" and rank #1 for about 16 of the top 20 keywords related to "Waffle Makers".
However, we also own "www.wafflemaker.com" without "The" in the URL. Right now we have it set up as a single page that contains information about the product and a link to our sales site. Should we build this site up or have it just redirect to "www.thewafflemaker.com"?
Any help is appreciated.
Thank you!
-
We really dont have the time or resources to keep up with both sites. We get about 150 organic hits to the "www.wafflemaker.com" site and only see about 20 of those come to our main site.
Maybe a redirect is best since our sales site is set up to reel the buyer in.
Thanks for the input Ryan
-
If you have enough content and time to manage the SEO on the 2nd domain, I'd say go for it. What you want to avoid is duplicating your content, or cannibalizing your own keywords on the main site.
If you don't have any new keywords you want to pursue, don't have the time to properly SEO the domain, or don't have enough content for a second site, I'd say go for the redirect.
EDIT: You should also know that exact match keywords in domains is one of the less important ranking factors, and most agree it will continue to become less important.
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
-
Google+ SERP Visibility For Non Branded Keywords
Hi, I've noticed that a competitors Google+ box is appearing on the right hand side of the Google UK SERPs for a non-branded keyword (open air balustrade). Please see attached image. I've always thought that the Google+ box would only be displayed in the SERPS for branded keywords. How is this Google+ box appearing for non-branded keywords? How can we improve our chances of our Google+ box being shown instead? Many thanks in advance, Lee. vDm914D
Branding | | Webpresence0 -
How to rank #1 for brand name when its 2 competitive keywords?
Hi Mozzers, I have recently began the SEO on a website which is a few years old, with little SEO done beforehand.
Branding | | Silkstream
I really want to get this domain ranking #1 for its brand name, however the brand name also happens to be a combination of two highly competitive keywords - one of them being "hire". I have done everything I can think of as a recommended step to signal Google, but it still sits between position #20 and position #15 (on a good day). So far I have:
Set up G+
Linked the website
Added Rel=publisher
Submitted site to Yell.com and a couple of other business directories
Added branded links from every the bio of each article on the blog pointing to the homepage.
Built a handful of branded links from related niche websites.
Set up social pages. Question:
What else can I do to improve on its position in the SERPS? More info:
The site ranks number 2 in Bing for the brand name. The domain is an exact match of two keywords without a hyphen between them - the site ranks position #1 for that search on Google. Question:
Would a hyphenated domain make any difference at all? Thanks everyone!0 -
Having trouble finding the right keywords for an abstract topic
Hello,
Branding | | IamKovacs
My website is about cultural exploration - foreign cultures. (the people, their art, food, music, places, etc.)
By volume, the word culture is referred to other kind of cultures: company culture, city culture, etc. Also, the people who are actually interested in exploring other cultures - be it food, art, music, travel diaries,
etc. usually do not actually type in "Cultural Exploration". How should I target my keyword? Do a bunch of secondary targets that cover specific? Or just use the word and keyword that are naturally related to the content and hope that google figures out who the right people to direct there?0 -
Anybody else seeing branded organic traffic decreasing and direct traffic increasing? Anything to do with Google auto-filling URLs?
If so, what could the reasons for this be? Maybe because of Google auto-filling URLs? Thanks for reading!
Branding | | DA20130 -
Should we have customers like our URL or our Facebook brand page?
(Note: main question in bold) I know this post basically establishes that Facebook shares are not a strong cause of increased rankings. But what about likes? I've searched and read through the forum and YouMoz blog but haven't really found this question answered. We just redesigned our site and we're implementing sharing options in the booking and order completion processes - should we point the Facebook Like button to like our URL or our Facebook brand page (currently with 3,800+ likes)? Seems that a like of the URL would be more direct ranking value (what we're going for), but according to that same post mentioned above, Google doesn't crawl or index FB wall pages... so is all Facebook activity - shares, url likes, brand page likes - for naught? (at least for now, till Google starts using that info)
Branding | | DanielH0 -
Domain Name Masking Redirect for Brandname to Keyworded Domain
Hi mozzers I have 2 domain names, brandname.com and keywordname.com and but have a question related to web vs print marketing on deciding which domain to use or redirect. We already have established unique content first on the Keywordname.com site over the last 6 months and it has started to climb well in google rankings. But now we'd like to do some print advertising and think it would make more sense to use Brandname.com when refering to our website. So the 2 question are: Should I 301 redirect brand.com to keyword.com (preferred as all content and rankings on keyword.com) or vice versa, as I realize I can only have one site to avoid duplicate content. And is it possible to use domain name masking on brand.com if redirecting to keyword.com to avoid risking our rankings, or is masking bad for seo? Thanks!
Branding | | emerald0 -
Reputation Management and Keyword Choice
I am assisting a company with reputation management. While we know we must use our brand name plus a modifier (or many different modifiers) within our numerous company owned blogs, websites as well as within press releases, blog entries, and article topics - so that we can hopefully get all of our sites to push out the negative ones for the use of our name - the question is whether to simultaneously compete for popular keyword terms to gain more secondary traffic that may not be looking for our company name but product? If getting more hits on our sites helps our rankings, then would it be worth targeting specific key phrases? Or, should we just focus on our brand name only at this point? Thanks, Pamela Ravenwood SEO Essential Solutions
Branding | | seoessentials0