Exact match domain marketing?
-
Hi All,
I've managed to secure a couple of exact match domains that are closely related to my main site but I'm a bit unsure of how to make best use of them.
My plan is to generate revenue by ranking high for the exact match terms, moving the visitor onto the main site to take their details and payment.
Naturally I want this satelite site to be very similar so that I can keep the brand continuety going and maintain a smooth transition to the main site. My main concerns however are:
- Will I get punished for using the same Navigation menu, logo and code as my main site? The navigation menu will link to pages on the main site, and this satelite site will most likely only consist of an index page and about 5 - 10 individual content pages.
2)I want the branding on this satelite site to be the same as my main site. Will I be punished for the difference in branding vs domain name? I know the SE's are unlikely to pick it up because the logo is an image but is there a risk of human editing?
- I want to link from the main site to the satelite site to give it a bit of a boost and to get through a possible sandbox. If the satelite has numerous links to the main site and the main site is linking to the satelite site will there be any benefit?
Never tried to create a site like this so a bit nervous about impacting the main site.
Thank in advance.
-
Hi Mulith
Ya, from a little town called Gansbaai, an hour outside of Cape Town. Yourself? It depends, dont approach a website that offers to sell links, rather find a good website and do some form of value exchange (I recommend targeted recipricol linking). Anyway, though this might interest you. Have a look at all of these sites. All have exactly same webiste structure/brand, just different domians, and all the domians are strengthened through exact match anchor text (bought!!) (This is similar to the scenario),
and there are many more of these. This is no good and by all means! (I was shocked when I stumbled upon this on the web the other day, the unfortunate thing is they rank for very competitive terms and all their links are bought, or strategically exchanged (although Google picks this up, the anchor text still helps significantly), pity Google cant pick this kind of link buying up yet. Cheers
-
I suppose if you keep it away from the main site then you've got some form of insulation against a penalty. Buying links like that surely is quite expensive?
BTW noticed you're from SA too, small world!
-
Hey Man, you telling me you have to be desperate for buying links, it's pretty desperate buying exact match domains and then doing a whole campaign for those (that's just as spammy in googles eyes), what kind of links do you want to build to the new domain anyway?, or do you expect to rank by having a few links from your mother site, cause that won't happen? Do some research on-line and you will see that 90% of competitive SEO campaigns buy links (like yours :)). I don't want to get into a debate here, but if I look at the current results, there is absoloutley no way you going to take number 1 ranking for that besides with your existing website.....Even if you do a new website and match your competitors profile, he will win due to domain age and your exact match domain wont be sufficient....Or am I missing something here, also by the time your domain ranks number 1, exact match domain might be valued even less...Recipricols depend on the pages they coming from and the balance of the link juice between the two sites, they can be extremely effective in your situation...
-
Buying links - No Offence intented but I'd have to be pretty desperate for that to happen and reciprocal aren't likely to pass much juice despite the exact match anchor text.
The domain is: http://tinyurl.com/3wohp5p
Using google.co.uk amd serps "sell a business" "selling a business"
-
Hi Mulith, can you not give us the website and keywords to have a closer look. If you say you have tried to achieve number one ranking and cannot with your website, because of the other sites high DA, I seriously dought yoru exact match domain will do it (remember there are hundres of rankign factors and there is a correlation, not causation between exact match domains...).....To be honest, although this community might hate me for it, I think you are better of buying links with exact match anchor text, that should get you number 1 quickly. Or do some link exchange...seems like what you are missing is exact match anchor text for your targeted keyword?
-
Thanks Janml for the extended comment.
If I'm honest the strategy is short term and allows me to generate the income needed to get link building done for the main site. So although it may seem short term, there is a long term goal in all of this.
I'm already 3rd-4th for the keyword but the real conversions happen at the top because No1 is a very high DA site and if I'm completely honest with myself, despite all the best content in the world, it will take me months, if not years to get there. I'm banking on the 0.25 correlation between exact match and No1 rankings, combined with a quick link building push to get to the top.
Since employing link builders costs money this seems like the best way to get the dosh together.
Pitty link builders don't accept equity based on the traffic or market share they bring in. That would remove the need for doing this the long winded way.
-
Regarding the questions, the answers bellow suffice. However, I would seriously reconsider the tactic you are wanting to employ. You will not rank that easily just because of an exact match domain (Google has recently devalued this ranking factor, and will probably continue doing so considering all the spam it creates on the web). If these keywords are so easy to achieve a number one ranking for, then rather use your existing domain and create some quality content that will attract links and rank (If your existing website cant achieve this, then it will be extremely challenging with new websites, and with the time you will invest ranking the new sites, you would have probably achieved the ranking easier on your original domain). Google will certainly pick up the links between your website and the new ones (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/understanding-link-based-spam-analysis-techniques - is a good read regarding this), and the link juice flowing will be minimal, so you will need to design an entire link strategy for the new sites (which is not feasible....)). . Strengthening multiple domians to drive traffic to a single site is certainly not the most effective way of going about to earn higher rankings. Why do you belive you cannot achive these rankings with your exisitng domian, maybe you should rather start with seeking assitance in that regard?
I am just warning you as you might be investing time and money in a strategy that is not sustainable, always think long term when investing in SEO and make sure your work will bear the fruits of its labour for a long time, and not just achieve a short term solution.....
-
Hi Mate,
My advice:
-
Make all the domains similar layouts yet have different content on all.
-
Try and link up to the main website via all the websites
-
Try and split the hosting too is possible.
I don't think you will get punished if you use the right content
Just change the image sizes possible and use vaired alt tests.
I think it will help but be wary of too many sites on the same IP also same GA analytics
Play it smart and use design and content wise and it will work well.
Regards.
-
-
-
if the rest of the content is different and there is enough unique content) then no i shouldn't be a problem.
-
If above is ok then 2 won't be a problem
-
Yes just like any other link building will help you.
That said I would advice on making a few landing pages on the site and use it as a portal for the main site. Just keep the content unique and relevant and you won't have any problems. Plus you should get a proff. designer to make a nice user friendly landing page design that works.
-
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
-
Consolidating Multiple Domains into A Single Domain
I have a client who's website is an amalgamation of multiple domains. jacksonhole.net is the main domain but the site passes traffic back and forth from the following domains/sites. My questions is, would it it be better for SEO to consolidate all of these domains under the single high authority domain and 301 redirect the rest or is that a really bad idea? Thanks for your help. jacksonhole.net (Domain Authority 31) jackson-hole-rental-condos.com (Domain Authority 22) jackson-hole-rental-homes.com (Domain Authority 21) j acksonholehotelguide.com (Domain Authority 19)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dbaxa-2613381 -
Unnatural Links From My Site Penalty - Where, exactly?
So I was just surprised by officially being one of the very few to be hit with the manual penalty from Google "unnatural links from your site." We run a clean ship or try to. Of all the possible penalties, this is the one most unlikely by far to occur. Well, it explains some issues we've had that have been impossible to overcome. We don't have a link exchange. Our entire directory has been deindexed from Google for almost 2 years because of Panda/Penguin - just to be 100% sure this didn't happen. We removed even links that went even to my own personal websites - which were a literal handful. We have 3 partners - who have nofollow links and are listed on a single page. So I'm wondering... does anyone have any reason to understand why we'd have this penalty and it would linger for such a long period of time? If you want to see strange things, try to look up our page rank on virtually any page, especially in the /gui de/ directory. Now the bizarre results of many months make sense. Hopefully one of my fellow SEOs with a fresh pair of eyes can take a look at this one. http://legal.nu/kc68
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoagnostic0 -
Should I start new domain and redirect site?
I recently my rankings for http://www.top-10-dating-reviews.com (some adult content) drop off a cliff. Google tells me there's no manual penalty therefore it might be algorithmic. I don't know why my rankings went but I think it could be that I added A LOT of category pages pulling the same content from posts and this could have caused both duplicate content issues and too many on page links causing an algo penalty. Ive deleted the categories and therefore fixed duplicate content issue (perhaps you guys could check out the site and see that you agree with me) but rankings have not improved even thougo most of the pages have been recrawled. I read somewhere its extremely hard to recover from such a penalty so should I move my site to a and domain and redirect all urls? I can't think of another solution. Any help appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SamCUK0 -
Redirect old .net domain to new .com domain
I have a quick question that I think I know the answer to but I wanted to get some feedback to make sure or see if there's additional feedback. The long and short of it is that I'm working with a site that currently has a .net domain that they've been running for 6 years. They've recently bought a .com of the same name as well. So the question is: I think it's obviously preferable to keep the .net and just direct the .com to it. However, if they would prefer to have the .com domain, is 301'ing the .net to the .com going to lose a lot of the equity they've built up in the site over the past years? And are there any steps that would make such a move easier? Also, if you have any tips or insight just into a general transition of this nature it would be much appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BrandLabs0 -
Should we get a new domain that has our main keyword in it.
We have been running our site about 10 years under the domain www.islesurfboards.com and we are referred as "Isle Surfboards" when linked to in the anchor text. Our core product line and keyword focus has always been on "surfboards" and its related long tail keywords. However in the last several years we have began to sell "paddle boards" and now they have become our best selling product accouting for 80% of our business. We really want to rank well for "paddleboards" and related words but noticed we always seem to fall below people who have websites with "paddleboard" or "sup" in the domain and company name. will they always rank better unless we also inlcude it in ours? Should we move to a New Domain that focuses on the new target keyword "paddleboard" or a combo of both "surfboards" and "paddleboards"and would this make any difference or even hurt us since it would be a new domain. Then in addition rebrand our company name to include surfboards and/or paddleboards in the company name or some combo of both so the anchor text when people who refer to us relate to both paddle boards and surfboards?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | isle_surf0 -
Does a dash in your domain name effect your ranking?
Does a dash in your domain name effect your ranking? or it dosen't really matter?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Radomski0 -
How important is sticking to an exact keyword?
The latest article I'm writing for my site is "Friends With Benefits Rules"... So the first part of my question is, what does SEOMoz advocate as being the ideal # of times to include the entire key phrase in the article? I know nobody but Google knows for certain, but is 4 (including in H1's etc.) generally considered enough, other than in the page title? Second part is, what is the consensus about how important is it to stick to the exact keyword? For the example I gave, is it just as good to include a comma, E.g. "...friends with benefits, rules..." or a hyphen "Friends with Benefits - Rules for..."? One thing I'm unclear about on this topic is stop words and plurals. I've been told before that Google ignores stop words, but results for searches with or without the word "how," for example produce very different results... Same thing with plurals. In any case, all of the above is assuming that the quality of the content would not be affected in either case...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | corp08030 -
Domain buying
hello Mozzers - a bit shout out to all of you. Question - I have a 3 keyword, and the domain is available - the only thing is it has a hyphen example: black-book-covers.com Is it worth getting this domain? There is a fair amount of traffic to this domain. Thank you all - we love you, Best, Vijay
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vijayvasu0