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.
Should I open a new domain and website for a new location under one company?
-
Hi my name is Gina and I wanted to ask for some advice. I'm thinking opening a diff location and was thinking if its a good idea to open up a new domain and new website? And why that may be a good idea and why or a bad idea and why?
-
Hi Gayane,
We have a long recent thread on this same topic here, https://moz.com/community/q/does-multiple-sites-that-relate-to-one-company-hurt-seo , which you might like to check out
-
Unless the business locations are franchises and independently run, I'll say keep it all under one domain. Build location landing pages out for the different locations with unique content. Splitting them to separate domains will create more work for you (and the company) to maintain and build the authority. If you use location page silos, then you can keep content and links under one domain and consolidate your efforts. The divide and conquer approach won't work well if you don't have a pretty sizable staff (and budget) to work on both sites simultaneously.
If you keep it all under one powerful domain you can have a setup like:
Homepage > Location 1 (general) > Specialized services for location 1
Homepage > location 2 (general) > specialized services for location 2
That way you're able to capture traffic using each unique location page and more specific traffic for the services. All are sharing a benefit from the homepage authority, and you'd be able to internally link to the other locations so customers can easily find all the business offices. It's a little cleaner than replicating another site on a new domain... plus you need to think about creating all unique content for the other site, and making sure it's optimized... That would be a lot of extra (not needed) work.
Keep it simple - one primary domain, and local landing pages for the new locations.
-
Hi Gayane,
It really comes down to a question of budget. Having a site for each location will allow you to be the most geo-targeted but if you have 5 different locations, that essentially means 5 SEO budgets. 5 lots of content (all having to be completely unique), 5x the link profiles and 5x the monitoring, planning and general campaign management.
In reality, the best option for most of us is to use a single site for all areas. Since Google looks at a lot of domain-wide metrics these days, it means if you're boosting content and links to your Las Vegas page, your LA page is going to benefit from that to an extent as well.
Rather than go into detail with ideas on how to do it, check out Rand's Whiteboard Friday on the topic.
I hope that helps!
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
-
Geo-location by state/store
Hi there, We are a Grocery co-operative retailer and have chain of stores owned by different people. We are building a new website, where we would geo-locate the closest store to the customer and direct them to a particular store (selected based on cookie and geo location). All our stores have a consistent range of products + Variation in 25% range. I have few questions How to build a site-map. Since it will be mandatory for a store to be selected and same flow for the bot and user, should have all products across all stores in the sitemap? we are allowing users to find any products across all stores if they search by product identifier. But, they will be able to see products available in a particular store if go through the hierarchical journey of the website. Will the bot crawl all pages across all the stores or since it will be geolocated to only one store, the content belonging to only one store will be indexed? We are also allowing customers to search for older products which they might have bought few years and that are not part of out catalogue any more. these products will not appear on the online hierarchical journey but, customers will be able to search and find the products . Will this affect our SEO ranking? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks - Costa
Local Website Optimization | | Hanuman881 -
Dual website strategy
We have two websites (different businesses) in the technology sector that sell the same products on the same platform (OSC) but have different branding. We have tried to make the static content different and the user generated content is different. SEO as largely different. But the one site has much better rankings than the other. Whilst the under performing site is not responsive yet, I need to decide whether to merge the two businesses into one or continue on the two separate websites approach. I would only pursue the latter approach and invest further time and effort into this under performing website if I knew I was "on the right" track. My SEO knowledge is not extensive and so I would be interested in any views the community has? I note that kogan.com.au and dicksmith.com.au have a similar dual website approach (same company) and they are both major brands in Australia. I thank you in advance for any thoughts you may have.
Local Website Optimization | | Alpine91 -
Does multiple sites that relate to one company hurt seo
I know this has been asked and answered but my situation is a little different. I am a local electrical contractor. I specialize in a service and not a product. Competition is high in the local market due to the other electrical contractors that have well seasoned sites with very good DA/PA. Although new to the web I am not new to the trade. Throughout years almost back to the AOL dialup days I have been collecting domain names for this particular purpose. Now I want to put them to good use. Being an electrical contractor, there are many different facets of work and services we provide. My primary site is empireelec.com A second site I threw online overnight with minimal content is jacksonvillelightingrepair.com. Although it is a fresh site, there is minimal content and I have put almost zero effort in to it. It appears to be ranking for keywords a lot quicker. That leads me to believe I should utilize my other domain jacksonvillefloridaelectrician.com and target just the keyword Jacksonville Florida Electrician. It leads me to believe I should use jacksonvillebeachelectrician.com for targeting electricians in jacksonville beach. And again with jacksonvilleelectricianservice.com I can provide a unique phone number for each site. Am I going about this all wrong? Everything I read says no,no,no but I feel my situation is a little more unique.
Local Website Optimization | | empireelec1 -
Sub domain for geo pages
Hello Group! I have been tossing the idea in my head of using sub domains for the geo pages for each of my clients. For example: one of my clients is a lawyer in a very competitive Atlanta market http://bestdefensega.com. Can I set his geo page to woodstock.bestdefensega.com? Is this a viable option? Will I get penalized? Thoughts or suggestions always appreciated! Thanks in Advance
Local Website Optimization | | underdogmike0 -
Location Pages and Duplicate Content and Doorway Pages, Oh My!
Google has this page on location pages. It's very useful but it doesn't say anything about handling the duplicate content a location page might have. Seeing as the loctions may have very similar services. Lets say they have example.com/location/boston, example.com/location/chicago, or maybe boston.example.com or chicago.example.com etc. They are landing pages for each location, housing that locations contact information as well as serving as a landing page for that location. Showing the same services/products as every other location. This information may also live on the main domains homepage or services page as well. My initial reaction agrees with this article: http://moz.com/blog/local-landing-pages-guide - but I'm really asking what does Google expect? Does this location pages guide from Google tell us we don't really have to make sure each of those location pages are unique? Sometimes creating "unique" location pages feels like you're creating **doorway pages - **"Multiple pages on your site with similar content designed to rank for specific queries like city or state names". In a nutshell, Google's Guidelines seem to have a conflict on this topic: Location Pages: "Have each location's or branch's information accessible on separate webpages"
Local Website Optimization | | eyeflow
Doorway Pages: "Multiple pages on your site with similar content designed to rank for specific queries like city or state names"
Duplicate Content: "If you have many pages that are similar, consider expanding each page or consolidating the pages into one." Now you could avoid making it a doorway page or a duplicate content page if you just put the location information on a page. Each page would then have a unique address, phone number, email, contact name, etc. But then the page would technically be in violation of this page: Thin Pages: "One of the most important steps in improving your site's ranking in Google search results is to ensure that it contains plenty of rich information that includes relevant keywords, used appropriately, that indicate the subject matter of your content." ...starting to feel like I'm in a Google Guidelines Paradox! Do you think this guide from Google means that duplicate content on these pages is acceptable as long as you use that markup? Or do you have another opinion?0 -
Expert Advice Needed: Single Domain vs Multiple Domain for 2 Different Countries?
Hi MOZers, We are looking for some advice on whether to have a single TLD(.com) or 2 separate domains (.ca) & (.com) Our website will have different products & pricing for each of US users(.com) and Canada users(.ca). Since, we are targeting different countries & user groups with each domain - we are not concerned about "duplicate content". So, does it make more sense to have a single domain for compounding our content marketing efforts? Or, Will it be more beneficial to have seperate domains for the geo-targeting benefits on Google.CA & Google.COM? Looking forward to some great suggestions.
Local Website Optimization | | ScorePromotions0 -
Rebranding a Website to a new Domain Name
Hi All, I'm looking to rebrand my current website to a new domain name.
Local Website Optimization | | Mark_Ch
In short the current website has out grown it's potential. The domain name is not memorable nor is it attracting a wider audience.
I will create my new website and 301 redirect the old website to the new, hence pass SEO value. Google Places
Having spoken to Google they tell me that I can simply change the URL in Google Places to the new URL. Articles on my current website
I have a number of rich content articles on my current website, can I simply create my new website and copy & paste these previously written articles? Google+, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
What should I do for accounts associated with the current website? Any other useful information would be much appreciated. Regards Mark0 -
How Best to do implement a Branch Locator for a Website with invididual location category pages
Hi All, We have an ecommerce Website with multiple locations for our stores and we currently display separate location specific pages for the different categories and sub categories. This has helped us previously to rank well for local search in each of the areas we have a store but over the last few months since humingbird, our local rankings on some things have dip a little . We want to implement a branch locator of some description to improve the user experience. From looking at other websites with branch locators, they tend to a separate button/page with which you can search for a branch etc. However, they don't have location specific pages. My query is should I do it so if a user comes in on a specific category location page and follows it through to product page , then to have a tab on the product page displaying the local branch from which he can come in. My thinking here is that , is that it would help confirm my local citations and help improve local rankings. Or Should the local branch be displayed on the local category pages instead or as well ?. If a user comes in from the homepage or not on a specific location page, then the branch locator will allow them to search for a specific branch. Should I also put in a branch locator as a separate page or can It be in more places. I don't want to damage anything which may have an effect on rankings due to citations and NAP on the location specific pages. Any advice or good examples to look at would be greatly appreciated thanks Sarah.
Local Website Optimization | | SarahCollins1