My question is in regards to possible conflict in creating an additional website under a new domain for our company.

[dzaidan]

Our companies, Vulcan Information Packaging and ATC both live under the domain “www.binders.com”. This is a great thing as far as us dominating in the binder industry. However, in the next 2-3 years and forward, we want to build our presence as a company who offers packaging products such as boxes, marketing kits, and other forms of packaging. Obviously, the “binders.com” brand/domain does not contribute much to this effort and can be confusing to customers visiting the site. Essentially, we want to build an additional branding for our company in the packaging industry.

Keeping this in mind, we own the domain “www.vulcaninformationpackaging.com” and we are considering building a new website using this domain which contains the word “packaging”. This new site would only promote and contain packaging related products. This new website will advertise and direct traffic to our company Vulcan Information Packaging, which is the same company “binders.com” directs traffic to.

So my question is to determine whether doing this might be a practice that Google and other search engines might frown upon. I tend to think it will be fine because we will be promoting and driving traffic for non-binder products where as, binders.com is heavily in binder related products.

thank you,

Dominic Zaidan

[dzaidan]

Our thought process is that binders.com limits us to binders and as we all know, looseleaf binders are slowly going away. What comes to your mind when you both think about binders.com? I assume ring/looseleaf binders. So our long term goal behind considering building a new website using vulcaninformationpackaing.com is to strengthen our position as a packaging company, not a binder company.

So anyway, my question wasn't so much about if it's a good idea to build the new website but if Google and other search engines will have a problem with us having 2 websites representing the same company, which is Vulcan Information Packaging. binders.com will continue to promote binders and the new site vulcaninformationpackaging will promote packaging. But they will both represent Vulcan Information Packaging.

thoughts???

[EGOL]

That's a really good point, Julie.

My suggestion above about a new domain such as VulcanProducts.com was assuming that binders.com would be redirected to pass its ranking value - I just didn't say anything about the redirect.  Even with that, some ranking value will pass, but possibly/probably not all.

[julie-getonthemap]

If you've owned Binders.com for a long time and it ranks really well in the SERPS, you might think that creating and ranking a new domain won't be difficult. If your company execs think this, they are potentially in for a big disappointment.

If you start a brand new website from scratch, you could wait a long time before it ranks well enough to bring you any sales. Ranking a subdomain on your current site would certainly be quicker.

[EGOL]

do you see a problem in regards to Google and other search engines if we do decide to create a website under vulcaninformationpackaging.com that directs traffic to Vulcan Information Packaging, which is the same company represented under binders.com?

I think that Google will rank your websites based upon their quality for each individual querry.  I think that customers will find the names and domains confusing.  Most of my sites are on exact match keyword domains and those domans can have a limited fit for a growing collection of products and services.  A domain that has no product association might be a better fit for a diverse company.  VulcanProducts or VulcanServices or something similar might retain a portion of your identity and allow you to build a website for a more diverse company.

You have mentioned "advertising" and "directing traffic" from one domain to another.  Would it be more efficient to place all of your efforts into one domain, make everything extremely clear, and focus all of your energy into a single attack.   Catching visitors on domain A and transferring them to domain B is like trying to kill rabbits with a ricochet.   Just shoot 'em.

[dzaidan]

Thanks much for your response and thoughts. The challenge we face is with our domain which is so focused and limiting. Or so it seems to me. Our domain is binders.com, we do currently market other products such as boxes and packaging but because of the binders.com domain, we feel it might be limiting as far as incoming traffic. This is the main reason we are considering building a new website under www.vulcaninformationpackaging.com, geared more toward packaging only and not binders. I would appreciate any additional input from you. Also, from your experience, do you see a problem in regards to Google and other search engines if we do decide to create a website under vulcaninformationpackaging.com that directs traffic to Vulcan Information Packaging, which is the same company represented under binders.com?

thanks again.

[EGOL]

Generic advice on this matter isn't good advice.  You have to consider a lot of things and then put them together.

One of the most important things that I would consider is how many of your current customers would be customers of these new services.  The higher that number the more strongly I would consider keeping everything on one domain and changing the business name to something that fits all types of products offered by the company.

From an SEO perspective, uniting your brands usually creates a more formidable web presence that is more difficult to beat in the SERPs than building a new site for every new product.

So, if I thought that I could create a website that funnels visitors to what they need easily and efficiently then I might do everything on one website.    A lot of people don't want to mix business lines or don't want to think hard or are not up to the design challenge.  They take the easy route and build a separate site.  I would work hard to avoid that if the products and services are complimentary.