Best Way to Integrate Multiple Keyword-Rich Domains

[kevin116]

Hi

I have a French client who has a set of domain names which I am in the process of reviewing.

The main domain is http://www.theirnameofbusiness.com which I managed to get to #1 in Google for a hospitality/tourism related keyword.

However, they also have 5 other keyword-rich domain names which they want to pursue for French related keywords and I'm wondering about the best way to integrate them.

I presume that just having a keyword-rich domain will not magically appear in search results (with a click redirecting to the main site!) so do I

a. treat them as small mini-site/landing pages with the relevant keyword copy but with links back to the main site pages such as the booking form, contact form, photo gallery, etc

b. need to duplicate all the forms on each site but obviously with new keyword copy - this is probably out of their budget to be honest

c. do something else

I haven't put any real domains in the post as I'm not sure if that would be classified as spam/advertising but I obviously can provide the information if that helps anyone.

Any advice would be most welcome

[martink]

I'd do 301 permanent redirects for the 5 keyword rich domains to the main domain. That way, no one can buy-up those domains, but they point to the main site.

All other options are bad ideas to be honest. You'd be cannibalizing your own traffic. One of the number one rules in SEO is that you don't want to have more than one site for the same company or you are stealing your own traffic. You aren't optimizing more; you're spreading yourself thinner. If you're client is asking for this, recommend that you optimize pages on the main domain for these keywords appropriately - even create specialized landing pages for PPC. But don't create new domains for these keywords. Google won't appreciate it. Your users won't appreciate it. And in the end, your client won't really appreciate it.

[PoisonJam]

All other options are bad ideas to be honest. You'd be cannibalizing your own traffic. One of the number one rules in SEO is that you don't want to have more than one site for the same company or you are stealing your own traffic. You aren't optimizing more; you're spreading yourself thinner. If you're client is asking for this, recommend that you optimize pages on the main domain for these keywords appropriately - even create specialized landing pages for PPC. But don't create new domains for these keywords. Google won't appreciate it. Your users won't appreciate it. And in the end, your client won't really appreciate it.

I agree with half of this but not with the other half

There's you and 9 other sites on the first SERP. If you're not getting the click, it's better your other site does than the competitor! I wouldn't agree with the term "cannibalizing your traffic".

However, I do agree that you're better off putting all of your effort into building up one site than multiple sites than spreading your SEO efforts. I'd only recommend that if the two sites had were targeting a different end of the market e.g. a different age group or type of customer and you already mostly dominated the rankings with the first site.

[claybutler]

I'd do 301 permanent redirects for the 5 keyword rich domains to the main domain. That way, no one can buy-up those domains, but they point to the main site.

All other options are bad ideas to be honest. You'd be cannibalizing your own traffic. One of the number one rules in SEO is that you don't want to have more than one site for the same company or you are stealing your own traffic. You aren't optimizing more; you're spreading yourself thinner. If you're client is asking for this, recommend that you optimize pages on the main domain for these keywords appropriately - even create specialized landing pages for PPC. But don't create new domains for these keywords. Google won't appreciate it. Your users won't appreciate it. And in the end, your client won't really appreciate it.

I disagree. 301 redirects will accomplish nothing. There's really no value in that unless you have proof that people actually type these exact keyword match domains in their address bar.

Google doesn't give hoot about how many domains you have. That's just a myth. Also since it cost virtually nothing to have multiple "storefronts" on the web you aren't cannibalizing anything, except perhaps your competitor's traffic because you own three of the top ten spots with your multiple domain strategy.

Only physical stores have to worry about spreading themselves too thin as each store front carries with it the same high overhead regardless of how many customers each one gets. That is not true on the web where setting up, and hosting a domain, is nearly free.

Plus if you can build some page rank to these other domains, the link juice you get from them will be valuable and boost the ranking of the mother site.

Multiple domain strategies can work really well if done correctly. There's no valid reason to just dismiss them outright.

[namebutler]

I agree with claybutler. Plus there's nothing wrong with having the top SERP spots for your terms with multiple websites. The key would having good content on the landing page of the 5 domains so your client does not lose out. Linking back to the main site with some "special" "time-limited" offer might help convert and allow you to track the traffic. Be creative and dominate at the same time if you want.

If thats what the client wants and they are willing to pay go ahead. In other cases I'd optimize internal pages of the main site but whatever works for the paying client.

[Web Res]

I think it would be unwise to build 5 new websites to draw traffic into the one website, but if the 5 websites already exist then it would not be too much effort to simply tune them and keep them working as a funnel to bring traffic to the mother website.

I agree that a 301 would kill their value because as Clay says unless people are clicking existing links or typing the domain name into their browser - the 301 will kill any existing keyword value. Maybe if you had a ton of inbound links to the mini-websites and you wanted to funnel that link juice to the mother website...

Yes, if your trouble is 2 websites show on the same page for the same subject - there are worse problems.

Beware that you do not have duplicate content as that could hurt both websites.

[jhannawin]

The multi-mini-site approach is OK, and I don't have any issue about traffic cannibalisation. My concern is long term ROI. The investment part of that isn't the cost of the domain or hosting, it is the cost of promotion and obtaining all of the link juice etc. If you run all 5 you are now promoting 5 sites and not 1. This means on page, back links, content (but not duplicate content). It is a lot of effort, and you need to be sure that the return will justify that.

I would probably look at building and promoting sections of the main site that can have pages which score well for the domain keywords. Then it becomes almost irrelevant what you do with the domains themselves (so long as you don't let a competitor get them).

[chancellor]

Multiple keyword rich domain would not help you a lot, you have to just push one keyword and rest of them in its title.

[martink]

I do defer that 301 redirects aren’t in and of themselves going to provide value, so I concede on that point. I would make the strongest domain your main one. I will say that sometimes people do type in a domain directly if it is a strong one. For instance, if you’re selling widgets and you own widgets.com. Otherwise though, our colleagues have a point.

As for the cannibalism comment, it’s not totally un-true. IF you can pull off getting all the sites up and running awesomely and you have no competition in your industry where you are located, then claybutler is right. You’ll have more of the top spots in Google with this strategy. However, jhannawin articulated what I meant to say, in that you’re not cannibalizing your own client click-throughs, but rather your back links (are you going to get all the same people to click to all your sites?), you’re spreading out Google’s love to you for getting you up higher in the ranks (your first site is already #1, but would it drop because you are now completing against yourself? You may gain 2 more spots in the top 10, but you may no longer be #1. You’re leaking your SEO juice), you now have the effort to write unique content for each site, optimize each page appropriately, etc. Instead of investing in making the one site strong (keeping everything contained “juice-wise”), you’re spreading your resources thinner on all the sites. So, if you have the resources, the lack of competition, and the appropriate strategy, it can be a game winner, but you’ve gotta be all in (no bluffing if we go to a poker metaphor).

I honestly don’t think microsites are a bad idea – perhaps it’s how you pitched the strategy that has me disinclined. It almost made it sound that each microsite would simply be omptimized for a keyword for the main site, have a few pages slapped together, a lead form and then link to the main site. What you proposed sounds ideal for PPC, but to get ranks naturally in SEO it’s got to be more. I guess I still go with 1) content is king, and 2) value to the user to keep them in the sales funnel. A semi-robust microsite for a sub-brand can be a great thing. But to have multiple mini-sites for keywords on the main brand, even after reading the arguments here, I am not convinced. I like to look at big companies to see what they do.

Gap Inc owns several brands that each focus on different demographics. Each sub-company has its own microsite with unique content and they are all linked to one another. In this instance it makes perfect sense:
http://www.gap.com/browse/home.do?ssiteID=ON
http://oldnavy.gap.com/browse/home.do?ssiteID=GAP
http://bananarepublic.gap.com/?tid=brlocalggl
http://piperlime.gap.com/browse/home.do?ssiteID=BR
http://athleta.gap.com/browse/home.do?ssiteID=BG

Sprite is big enough that Coke has given it its own promotional mini-website: sprite.com vs. coke.com

Facebook is a huge company that is taking over like crazy, but it only has one website. It didn’t get huge by creating multiple sites to crawl their way up. They of course are social media though…

Ikea doesn’t have microsites (except to separate by language and destination).

None of the big companies that utilize multiple domains do so in the way you’ve proposed. I’ve gotta wonder it it’s really a key strategy, why not. I think it’s because a strong company keeps to their main URL for their main site.


I wish you all the best as you slueth through this. SEO is never easy. Keep on keepin' on!!

[kevin116]

Wow, guys - great input, thank you.

The problem I have is possibly more to do with the language issues - maybe I should have emphasised that a bit more.

The main site was originally owned by Brits who targetted the anglophone market for "bed and breakfast" and various localised combinations; so we just had one page summaries for French, German and Spanish. However, they sold to a French couple who kept me as webmaster (my French is pretty fluent) and they now want to target the French market for various localised combinations of "chambres d'hotes".

The main site has just been revamped with a little more French on it (e.g. the original summary and now a reservation form) but it is still mainly anglophone. The keyword-rich domain names are new and are currently just redirecting to the main site, pending a strategy!

The "keyword" domain names are based around "chambresdhotes"+location.com's and .fr's so it's a combination of SEO and language content that needs to be resolved.

Thanks again