Internal vs external blog and best way to set up
-
I have a client that has two domians registered - one uses www.keywordaustralia.com the other uses www.keywordaelaide.com He had already bought and used the first domain when he came to me I suggested the second as being worth buying as going for a more local keyword would be more appropriate.
Now I have suggested to him that a blog would be a worthy use of the second domain and a way to build links to his site - however I am reading that as all links will be from the same site it wont be worth much in the long run and an internal blog is better as it means updated content on his site.
should i use the second domain for blog, or just 301 the second domain to his first domain.
Or is it viable to use the second domain as the blog and just set up an rss feed on his page ?
Is there a way to have the second domain somehow 'linked' to his first domain with the blog so that google sees them as connected ?
NOOBIE o_0
-
Thanks Everyone. I think for the ease of set up - and so the client can do it himself a wordpress is going to be the way to go. We only really got the second domain so that no-one else can and we maight as well use it I figure.
-
Thanks Ryan,
I also use Joomla and AceSEF looks perfect!
-
It would entirely depend upon which software you build your site upon.
I use Joomla and AceSEF is one example of an extension which provides automatic internal linking. There are numerous other extensions which provide that functionality as well.
I would guess all major CMS solutions have at least one extension which provide that functionality. I know Wikipedia uses MediaWiki and all of their articles use automatic linking.
-
Thanks Ryan.
So basic rule is - If at all possible, keep your blog within your domain.
On a brief aside, you said in you last post "With a single site, there is software which can automatically generate all your internal links as appropriate."
Are you able to tell me which software?
-
An offsite established blog such as Google's blogspot or WordPress.com can benefit your site. Those types of sites overcome several of the challenges which arise when you try to set up a blog.
Advantages: quick and easy to set up, a unique C block for hosting, no worries about site maintenance, etc.
Disadvantages:
-
your blog content would not be on your site so would not benefit from the main site's DA. Also, your main site wont benefit from the links your content will hopefully generate. While you can link from your blog to the main site, it is not as beneficial as having a direct link to your site.
-
as Alan shared, your main site would also lose out on the freshness benefits a quality blog can offer
-
internal linking is also a fantastic means of properly directing the flow of PR throughout your site. With a single site, there is software which can automatically generate all your internal links as appropriate. For an external site, you would need to manually create all the links which is a lot more work.
Overall the best results should be achieved by integrating a blog into your existing site. You could choose an external blog and it can benefit your site, but not as much as an internal blog would.
-
-
Hi.
Sorry Cassi, my post doesn't answer your question for you but raises another one based on Ryan's answer.
The main attraction for using 3rd party blogging solutions is the ease at which they can be set-up compared to setting up a blog on a domain from scratch even with the help of wordpress.
Some blogging services such as Posterous will allow you to use a sub-domain address for your blog. Would this help? or would this still be classed as splitting the blog away from the site?
-
Hi Cassi.
My highest recommendation is one site owner, one content focus = one site. By keeping the blog and the main site on the same URL, you will have the benefit of building up domain authority. Higher DA will allow all of your content from both sites to perform better in search results.
Maintaining one site is usually cheaper and easier then multiple sites. You have one set of software, one host and only one place to look if something goes wrong.
If you attempt to split the blog and main site, Google will recognize they are both owned by the same person and your interlink value will be diminished. It also can cause confusion for visitors, along with the natural loss of link value as sites links pass from site-to-site.
You can establish relevancy for a given area with your content and backlinks without depending on your URL.
-
sites need regularly fresh content and inbound authority building. So in this scenario, an internal blog would make sense and provide more long-term value than an external blog unless you've got another plan for a high volume of long term content freshness on the main site.
The exact match keyword domain aspect isn't as important as it used to be since Google has slightly devalued exact match domain importance. Even when it carried more weight, it shouldn't be a primary means for long term success because it causes the illusion that a diverse strategy isn't as important as it in fact really is.
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
-
Is there a limit to Internal Redirect?
I know Google says there is no limit to it but I have seen on many websites that too many 301 redirects can be a problem and might negatively affect your rankings in SERPs. I wanted to know especially from people who worked on large ecommerce site. How do they manage internal redirect from one URL to other and how many according to you are too many. I mean if you get a website that contain 300 plus 301 redirections within the website, how will you deal with that? Please let me know if the question is not clear.
Technical SEO | | MoosaHemani0 -
No follow links on a blog
Hi On our blog, we have a section called 'Tags'. I have just noticed that these links are all "no follow" links. The tags section does appear on every single page on the blog - is this recommend to have them as 'no follow' links or should I get our developer to change them. Thanks
Technical SEO | | Andy-Halliday0 -
Explain me the SEO impact when a website has more internal link compared to less internal links
A website that I am working on has more than 200 internal links (Its because of the design and various kind of service that we offer). I want to know its SEO impact. I also want to know the SEO impact when a website has less internal links compared to more internal links
Technical SEO | | BoniSatani0 -
Best URL format for pagination
We're currently changing the URL format of our website search, we have been discussing a lot and cannot decide the past way to pass the pagination parameter for SEO. We narrowed down to the options. www.website.com/apples/p2 - www.website.com/apples?page=2 - www.website.com/apples/page/2 What would give us best ranking returns? What do you think?
Technical SEO | | HelpSaude0 -
Correct Way to Write Meta
OK so this is a really, really basic question. However, I'm seeing some meta written differently to normal and I'm wondering if a) this is correct and b) whether there is any benefit. Normally it's like this: However, I am seeing it written like this is some places: So, the content= and name= are swapped around. I assume the people that did this were thinking that bringing the content forward would mean that Google reads keywords first. Just wondering if anybody knows whether this is good practice or not? Just spiked my interest so apologies for the basic nature of the question!
Technical SEO | | RiceMedia0 -
Promoting a blog or a blog article
Hi what is the best way to promote a blog or a blog article. What i want to do is to find a site when i can put part of the article on that site and then have a link going to my blog for the article. Can anyone recommend any sites that do this please or the best ways to promote a new article from a blog
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Which one is best? Parameters or Meta
I have issue regarding duplicate pages on website as follow. http://www.vistastores.com/review.html?pr_page_id=90344 http://www.vistastores.com/review.html?pr_page_id=90345 I checked my Google webmaster tools and found that Google have already set Parameter with pr_page_id. So, what is this? Will Google index all that pages? Can I use following Meta tag to block indexing? Which one is best?
Technical SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
What is the best way of generating links with our exchanging them
I have read that google do not look kindly at sites that exchange links so i am trying to find a way of generating links to a new site. I am building a new site and need to start to get google to index it and build important links to generate traffic. I have looked at link exchange sites but have read that this is not great with google and it is better if you have sites where there is just one way linking. I do not want to buy links and would like to find a way of generating free links which can help build up traffic and the status of my new site. Any help would be great
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860