SEO and Multiple Domains Pointing to One Site

[cwg25]

I have an idea for a web site. I have the name in mind and the domain name is available. There are also about 4 or 5 other similar domain names, with good, related keywords to my main domain and site content.

What is the best way to go about maximizing search engine results for the main site in this situation?

I'm thinking of just pointing all of the other domains to the main site.

Are there any other options that I should consider?


Thanks,

Chris

[stymiee]

Choose a primary domain and then use a 301 redirect to point the others to it. There's no use in having multiple domains because they will be considered duplicate content and ignored.

[cwg25]

I wasn't going to have any content or web sites associated with the other domains. I'm going to have one site, with the primary domain and have others point to it.

But my question is if there is an advantage to owning the other domains and having them point to the primary one. Will this benefit my site at all in search engine rankings because these other domains have keywords associated with my primary domain and content on the site?

[stymiee]

Will this benefit my site at all in search engine rankings because these other domains have keywords associated with my primary domain and content on the site?

No, it won't benefit you.

[slayerment]

It will help if you set up unique sub-sites on each one of these domains and have them promote and link towards your main domain.

[webvicious]

If you treat each site differently, host them independently you may be able to get rankings for multiples, but this has gotten harder and harder over the years...

[kenneth.robert]

it won't help you. It will be better if you treat each site differently.

[JakeJeck]

Please note that I'm not advocating that you duplicate your content across mulitple domains.

It actually takes a while for google to penalize you for duplicate content. At work we have about 45 vanity domains that are supposed to 301 redirect to our main site. The web company we use however did a 302 on about 15 of these domains. Those vanity domains started showing in the google results for some of the brand new content we would put up.

So what ends up happening is this -
main domain example.com
vanity domain example5.com

Visitor gets search result with link for example5.com/widget and sees content from example.com/widget

Of course once I noticed this I told them to 301 all domains but we didn't have any sort of penalty for the 3 months or so that they were 302'ing.

[stymiee]

It will help if you set up unique sub-sites on each one of these domains and have them promote and link towards your main domain.

If you treat each site differently, host them independently you may be able to get rankings for multiples, but this has gotten harder and harder over the years...

That's a bad idea because now you're splitting your time and resources amongst multiple sites when all you want to do is promote one site. Now each site will rank lower and thus carry less weight then if they spent their time focusing on one site. Just put your content on one site and focus on promoting it. Playing game sand gimmicks are just another way to ensure you fail.

[JJMcClure]

You could try using sub domains instead of urls with 301s but I just read that Google is going to start treating subdomains like folders:

Google to Begin Treating Subdomains as Folders: Max 2 Results Per Search

[stymiee]

You could try using sub domains instead of urls with 301s but I just read that Google is going to start treating subdomains like folders:

Google to Begin Treating Subdomains as Folders: Max 2 Results Per Search

I don't see how submdomains would help them as their content is all in one place. They just wanted to use multiple domains for the keywords in the domains. Subdomains would require them to split up their content which might not be the best way to go about it.

[JJMcClure]

I don't see how submdomains would help them as their content is all in one place. They just wanted to use multiple domains for the keywords in the domains. Subdomains would require them to split up their content which might not be the best way to go about it.

True but it's still useful then, if not exactly relevant, for people to know about the google subdomain issue.

[slayerment]

That's a bad idea because now you're splitting your time and resources amongst multiple sites when all you want to do is promote one site. Now each site will rank lower and thus carry less weight then if they spent their time focusing on one site. Just put your content on one site and focus on promoting it. Playing game sand gimmicks are just another way to ensure you fail.

The idea is to have one main site that will be the authority. But, if there are other domains that you can use, why not put them to use? You don't have to have 5 middle of the road sites that you treat each as the same... you have 1 badass main site and then 4 more niche sites and you conquer the industry from more aspects.

You should always have one main asset that goes all out, but why not put other domains to use as well?

[stymiee]

True but it's still useful then, if not exactly relevant, for people to know about the google subdomain issue.

I know. That's why I started a thread about it two and a half days ago.

[stymiee]

The idea is to have one main site that will be the authority. But, if there are other domains that you can use, why not put them to use? You don't have to have 5 middle of the road sites that you treat each as the same... you have 1 badass main site and then 4 more niche sites and you conquer the industry from more aspects.

You should always have one main asset that goes all out, but why not put other domains to use as well?

Because you're splitting your time, resources, and content amongst five sites thus spreading the benefits of your efforts 5 ways. By having one site you can put all of the content there and get all of the links to one place. That way you can better control your internal links and raise the rankings of your important pages. No dilution of your efforts (or links).

[slayerment]

Because you're splitting your time, resources, and content amongst five sites thus spreading the benefits of your efforts 5 ways. By having one site you can put all of the content there and get all of the links to one place. That way you can better control your internal links and raise the rankings of your important pages. No dilution of your efforts (or links).

You're not splitting your time by putting the sites to use - it's called SEO towards your main domain. Why beg, plead, spam or article submit to another site when you have 4 sweet domains that will give you a link easier than any of these other methods? What's better, 4 domains w/ no type in traffic 301ing to your main site, or 4 domains w/ no type in traffic but extremely relevant content linking to your main site? I would much rather build links with 4 of my own sites than go get them from 4 other sites I don't even know.

Wasting your resources would be 301ing. Put them in use and link em. You still have one main site and you don't need to put anymore time into the 4 small ones, but you can if you need to. Meanwhile, you're gaining trust on 4 other domains that can later be built out however you need to as well. You're hedging your SEO and putting all your domains to use. Seems like the winner to me and a better way to play this scenario.

[andrewdawson]

it would be better if promote each site rather than all domain pointing to same link

[JJMcClure]

I know. That's why I started a thread about it two and a half days ago.

Sorry, I wasn't here 2½ days ago.

I'll try not to make those nOOb kinda posts, I'll do a quick forum search before I talk about anything that's in the news but I apologise in advance if I dup someone's posts

[JJMcClure]

You're not splitting your time by putting the sites to use - it's called SEO towards your main domain. Why beg, plead, spam or article submit to another site when you have 4 sweet domains that will give you a link easier than any of these other methods? What's better, 4 domains w/ no type in traffic 301ing to your main site, or 4 domains w/ no type in traffic but extremely relevant content linking to your main site? I would much rather build links with 4 of my own sites than go get them from 4 other sites I don't even know.

Presumably you host these sites on different IPs?

How much link juice can you seriously expect to generate with a handful of your own sites? Compared to if you'd put that much time into generating links from hundreds of other sites?

[stymiee]

You're not splitting your time by putting the sites to use - it's called SEO towards your main domain. Why beg, plead, spam or article submit to another site when you have 4 sweet domains that will give you a link easier than any of these other methods? What's better, 4 domains w/ no type in traffic 301ing to your main site, or 4 domains w/ no type in traffic but extremely relevant content linking to your main site? I would much rather build links with 4 of my own sites than go get them from 4 other sites I don't even know.

Wasting your resources would be 301ing. Put them in use and link em. You still have one main site and you don't need to put anymore time into the 4 small ones, but you can if you need to. Meanwhile, you're gaining trust on 4 other domains that can later be built out however you need to as well. You're hedging your SEO and putting all your domains to use. Seems like the winner to me and a better way to play this scenario.

You forget that those sites all have no value until you build them up and promote them. They all need links which requires quality content and promotion. They're mere existence means nothing and does you no good. Related sites that have no value have links that have no value. And because your content is split up amongst multiple sites their value will be split as well making them less attractive to link to. As a result you've just diluted your potential strength amongst multiple sites. One website with great content will always beat 5 websites with 1/5 of the content. Just put everything in one place so you can focus on promoting one web property and you can make it harder for other webmasters to resist linking to you.

[stymiee]

Presumably you host these sites on different IPs?

Ignore the whole different IP thing. That really isn't a factor unless you plan to interlink a large number of sites.

How much link juice can you seriously expect to generate with a handful of your own sites? Compared to if you'd put that much time into generating links from hundreds of other sites?

Nothing that makes it worthwhile. Like I said above, you'll get more reward by putting it all on one site then by splitting it up into multiple sites.