Sister Sites or Joint Family?

[RishadShaikh59]

A large News Media Group has a Tv Channel, print newspaper, radio channel (for music primarly) and an online website that includes the newspaper content and other original content in different media. My question is, is it better to have independant websites for these different mediums or have all the content on one big website. Currently the newspaper and blog are online as one whereas the radio channel has its own website and the television has its own. So should we maintain sister sites and cross link to each other or have one big happy family under one house?

Best,

Rishad.

[RishadShaikh59]

Thanks for your response. As an SEO, I would have to agree with your approach but I don't think the decision to merge these different mediums on the online front will rest with the SEO, however, when asked for my two cents, i can give them the option that is most likely to bring maximum benefits.

Cheers!

[RishadShaikh59]

Thanks for such a detailed answer. A very good explaination and you've pointed out important things to think about. As goodnewscowboy said, the answer cannot be solely based on SEO and you've pointed out the different things to take into consideration.

Cheers!

[Francisco_Meza]

The answers above are all good.  I don't know if there is a right answer though.  I think my approach would be something like what http://www.gap.com did.  They have 5 different sites combined into one.  Look at the URLs. Looks like they are using subdomains to use the same shopping cart between all sites.  But I don't think you would need to do subdomains. I would shoot for long term SEO strategy.

[goodnewscowboy]

Hi Rishad:

My answer to your question is soley based on SEO. The more concentrated your focus on the one site and the incoming links, the higher an authority the site will gain.

But I hadn't thought about the marketing angle until I read Gianluca's response. He makes a strong case for letting your marketing/brand requirements drive the decision.

[Getz.pro]

Perfect answer!

[gfiorelli1]

Not so easy to answer, because definitely we are not talking just about SEO, but essentially of Marketing and Brand Marketing. I will try to give you my opinion, also basing it on my 11 years of experience in Media industry.

The choice, as an SEO, would be to have one site, as all the backlinks, citations and social buzz would pointing to just one domain. Anyway, I would wisely design the different communication areas in order they seems visually (and psichologically) different for the user. In that way you can maintain the essential difference between the three media (Newspaper, Radio, Tv), also because - as you say about the Radio - these media not necessarely have the same main focus.

My main concern as an SEO would be the indexation of such a big website, therefore I would put all my attention on the navigational architecture of a site that would include all the three distinct ones.

BUT, as Marketer and if the branding between the three Medium is very different, I would not put them under the same domain, but I would mantain them separate and croslink them editorially (for instance the newspaper using videos of the tv site). This could also better the construction of your News Media Group enthity.

More over, using three different sites/domains it is possible to strategy web marketing plan which complement themselves, in order to conquer three different range of searches and users.

In this last case, the real problem wouldn't be SEO, but the coordination of the tree SEO/web marketing plans.

[ninjamarketer]

We recently went through domain consolidation of two high authority corporate websites. Based on my experience, combining all the media sites into one would be a wise decision for brand positioning, usability and seo. Domain authority continues to be one of the top search ranking factors and building the authority of one domain is lot easier than building authorities of multiple domains.

There could be instances where you may want to keep content / software on separate domains i.e. a startup investment, brand new software or an acquisition.

Having separate domains may have advantages in short term but having a one domain in longer time is highly suggested. (think Google)

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Sameer