Singular/Plural Domain Strategy Question

Hosting
1

Hi,

I am in the process of doing keyword research for some mini-niche sites and
have encountered some available domains for exact match names. It turns out that the singular and plural versions for these niches are available as well as some combination of the .net and .org domains.

So, I was hoping to take advantage of all this traffic, but had some questions about how to structure my approach. For the sake of argument, let’s say that

smallwidget.org, smallwidgetS.net (plural) and smallwidgetS.org (plural)

were available and had similar search volume. Let’s also assume that the page one competition scenario is very similar for the singular and plural search versions.

Please excuse my naive questions, but I’ve never set up redirected domains like this before.

o Would I have to simply develop one of these 3 domains (smallwidget.org) and then setup a 301 redirect from smallwidgetS.org and smallwidgetS.net?

o For the redirected sites, do I still have to install Wordpress on them and have any content?

o For the redirected sites, would I still have to do backlinking to them and how is SEO and Google love affected when a site is simply redirected? So, do I have to still undertake seperate SEO efforts for all 3 domains? If so, is the destination site the beneficiary of all the link juice from all 3 domains?

o One of my other motivations here is to simply develop the content once and benefit from double or triple the traffic from 3 domains.

o I would also like to basically be my own competition and have multiple sites on page one. It also doesn’t hurt to remove any chance of future competition by owning all the relevant exact match domains. I’m thinking worst-case that I would simply park the domains so they could at least pay for their own annual renewal fees.

o What are the pros and cons with such a strategy?

Advice Appreciated

George

2

Is there any point in having three sites, all on the same topic, competing with each other? It seems pointless to me. Also, when you setup a 301 redirect, Google will only index and store information for the domain you redirect to.

3

Is there any point in having three sites, all on the same topic, competing with each other?

I guess the motivation and point I see is that I would be eliminating any outside competition for exact match domains when I discover a niche that is easy to rank for. Why would you leave the .org and .net both available only for someone else to develop and become a future competitor? That way I can dominate that specific product niche. Worst case, I can park the unused domains so they at least pay for their renewal fees. But to me, that would be a waste when I can redirect all the traffic to one developed site.

4

Domain name registration does not cost the fortune. Really. So I suppose the best strategy would be: register both singular and plural domains.

5

if you need to choose between singular and plural versions. Best is to have a look at to traffic on Google Trends. Will give you have an idea on what people are searching for.

http://google.com/trends

6

it depends how large the niche is. for small things i usually avoid competing with myself unless they are marketted vastly different ways.