Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Multiple stores & domains vs. One unified store (SEO pros / cons for E-Commerce)
-
Our company runs a number of individual online shops, specialised in particular products but all in the same genre of goods overall, with a specific and relevant domain name for each shop. At the moment the sites are separate, and not interlinked, i.e. Completely separate brands.
An analogy could be something like clothing accessories (we are not in the clothing business): scarves.com, and silkties.com (our field is more niche than this)
We are about to launch a related site, (e.g. handbags.com), in the same field again but without precisely overlapping products. We will produce this site on a newer, more flexible e-commerce platform, so now is a good time to consider whether we want to place all our sites together with one e-commerce system on the backend.
Essentially, we need to know what the pros and cons would be of the various options facing us and how the SEO ranking is affected by the three possibilities.
Option 1: continue with separate sites each with its own domains.
Option 2: have multiple sites, each on their own domain, but on the same ecommerce system and visible linked together for the customer (with unified checkout) – on the top of each site could be a menu bar linking to each site:
[Scarves.com] – [SilkTies.com] – [Handbags.com]
The main question here is whether the multiple domains are mutually beneficial, particularly considerding how close to target keywords the individual domains are. If mutually benefitial, how does it compare to option 3:
Option 3: Having recently acquired a domain name (e.g. accessories.com) which would cover the whole category together, we are presented with a third option: making one site selling all of these products in different categories. Our main concern here would be losing the ability to specifically target marketing, and losing the benefit of the domains with the key words in for what people are more likely to be searching for (e.g. 'silk tie') rather than 'accessories.'
Is it worth taking the hit on losing these specific targeted domain names for the advantage of increased combined inbound links?
-
Thank you for your excellent response, Alan.
Reviewing my post, I did not explain the situation 100% accurately.
Rather than integrating all our shops, in fact we would just be taking one of the shops we run, our main site, and wondering whether to consolidate with two new shops running on two new domains (these domains being excellent keywords).
An important point is that we changed the name of the site and domain name mid-2011, to a more international name. At first this clearly had an effect on our Google ranking, although having just had the best Christmas sales ever, we feel this has succeeded. (301 redirects were set up)
It would appear that the decision whether or not to integrate now to a unified domain would be affected by this fact. The name of our current main site would not be suitable as an umbrella term for all.
-
Thanks for your suggestion, Shane, this is certainly what we can see as a potential advantage, for that way of going.
-
While Shane is correct in general (less effort to drive links, value and trust to a single entity), deciding whether to go with separate entities or one unified entity under a broader reach focus is always a challenge. When you've had split properties for an extended period, and have invested tremendous effort over time in driving the value, relevance and importance of each separately, consideration becomes even more important.
How much time, effort resources have been invested in the split properties? a few weeks or months? Or years of time and cost? How much would it cost to rebrand each of the individual entities when melded into one? Factor in the need to implement flawless 301 redirects for every single product and page on every single site pointing to the new location. (301 redirects carry "most" of the existing SEO value,weight and strength, yet multiplied over hundreds or thousands of pages, the "slight" hit on each may cause at least a temporary overall down-side to rankings).
Having said that, by bringing it all together, when executed properly, you can still drive the marketing for individual "brands" - if you have truly well designed individual "category" landing pages set up (each one replacing the previous individual entity home pages) and by pointing social media and link building efforts at those individually. Yet you then also open your company up to the opportunity to drive the new umbrella brand. But only if there is truly enough of a broader appeal in regard to what people in your target market(s) actually search for online.
If there is a big enough market at that broader level, not only do you get the ability to reach people who might otherwise have not known about your offerings, you get the ability to cross-sell as well.
If you have serious concerns about the broader market opportunity, or the logistics (especially given the 301 redirect issue, for example), maintaining individual brand properties and implementing an easy to use cross-site navigation feature (that doesn't confuse prospective customers) could be an interim solution that risks less. While it might offer the potential for less long-term reward (that comes from reaching that new audience in a massive push way), it offers less risk, less logistic effort, and could very well prove out whether there's cross-selling value.
Then, after a couple years in the hybrid, if enough cross-selling occurs, that could be the vote of confidence you need to then take the next plunge, melding it all into one.
Be aware however, that you should give at least a couple years in between changes though - having too many hops in a site-wide 301 redirect model will cause more harm than good usually.
-
Hi,
I am in no way experienced with E-commerce as i have never done it, but from an SEO/Marketing perspective.
In my opinion Option 3 would be the most helpful both in SEO and Branding.
Because...
SEO - you have now consolidated your link building potential into one domain instead of spreading it out. Also this way you can get a little more keyword power without resorting to exact match tactics which personally I think are going to "fizzle" out over the next few years.
Marketing/Branding - You have created a better user experience and also the possibility of an up sell.. A person that is looking for a handbag, might also be looking for a matching pair of shoes... So use a "suggestion" algorithm at checkout that suggest "relevant" products. Option 3 in my opinion is also better for branding, as you can easier position yourself better in your filed as a "One Stop Shop" for all your "accessory" needs. If you have multiple different domains, it is hard to get a "brandname" going for yourself - even if you just sell other peoples brands.
I am sure others will have more suggestions, just my 2 cents
w00t!
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
-
Local SEO - ranking the same page for multiple locations
Hi everyone, I am aware that issue of local SEO has been approached numerous times, but the situation that I'm dealing with is slightly different, so I'd love to receive your expert advice. I'm running the website of a property management company which services multiple locations (www.homevault.com). From our local offices in the city center, we also service neighboring towns and communities ( ex: we have an office in Charlotte NC, from which we service Charlotte plus a dozen other towns nearby). We wanted to avoid creating dozens of extra local service pages, particularly since our offers are identical per metropolitan area and we're talking of 20-30 additional local pages for each area. Instead, we decided to create local service pages only for the main locations. Needless to say, we're now ranking for the main locations, but we're missing on all searches for property management in neighboring towns (we're doing good on searches such as 'charlotte property management', but we're practically invisible for 'davidson property management', although we're searvicing that area as well). What we've done so far to try and fix the situation: 1. The current location pages do include descriptions of areas that we serve. 2. We've included 1-2 keywords for the sattelite locations in the main location pages, but we're nowhere near the optimization needed to rank for local searches in neighboring towns (ie, some main local service pages rank on pages 2-4 for sattelite towns, so not good enough). 3. We've included the searviced areas in our local GMBs, directories, social media profiles etc. None of these solutions appear to work great. Should I go ahead and create the classic local pages for each and every town and optimize them on those particular keywords, even if the offer is practically the same, and the number of pages risks going out of control? Any other better ideas? Many thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HomeVaultPM0 -
Negative SEO & How long does it take for Google to disavow
Following on from a previous problem of 2 of our main pages completely dropping from index, we have discovered that 150+ spam, porn domains have been directed at our pages (sometime in the last 3-4 months, don't have an exact date). Does anyone have exerpeince on how long it may take Google to take noticed of a new disavow list? Any estimates would be very helpful in determining our next course of action.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Vuly1 -
SEO implications of moving fra a sub-folder to a root domain
I am considering a restructure of my site, and was hoping for some input on SEO implications which I am having some issues getting clarity in. (I will be using sample domains/urls because of language reasons, not an english site), Thinking about moving a site (all content) from example.com/parenting -> parenting.com. This is to have a site fully devoted to this theme, and more easily monitor and improve SEO performance on this content alone. Today all stats on external links, DA etc is related to the root domain, and not just this sub-department. Plus it would be a better brand-experience of the content and site. Other info/issues: -The domain parenting.com (used as example) is currently redirected to example.com/parenting. So I would have to reverse that redirect, and would also redirect all articles to the new site. The current domain example.com has a high DA (67), but the new domain parenting.com has a much lower DA (24). Question: Would the parenting.com domain improve it's DA when not redirected and the sub-folder on the high-DA domain is redirected here instead? Would it severly hurt SEO traffic to make this change, and if so is there a strategy to make the move with as little loss in traffic as possible? How much value is in having a stand-alone domain, which also is one of the most important keywords for this theme? My doubt comes mostly from moving from a domain with high DA to a domain with much lower DA, and I am not sure about how removing the redirect would change that, or if placing a new redirect from the subfolder on the current site would help improve it. Would some DA flow over with a 301 redirect? Thanks for any advice or hints to other documentation that might be of interest for this scenario 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Magne_Vidnes0 -
Intro to programming/coding for seo
Hello, I am currently a SEO and am looking for an Intro to programming/coding course to help me implement various technical SEO tasks for my clients and the business-as the programming dept will not help me, as they do not see the value of SEO. Could someone pls recommend an online course that would introduce me to basic concepts and also specifically, the information that would help me to enhance our SEO? I would also like to better understand APIs. Thanks so much in advance for your help! Lauren
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lfrazer1 -
What is the best practice for URLs for E-commerce products in multiple categories?
Hello all! I have always worked successfully with SEO on E-commerce sites, however we are currently revamping an older site for a client and so I thought I'd turn to the community to ask what the best practices that you guys are experiencing for url structures at the moment. Obviously we do not wish to create duplicate content and so the big question is, what would you guys do for the very best structure for URLs on an E-commerce site that has products in multiple categories? Let's imagine we are selling toy cars. I have a sports car for sale, so naturally it can go in the sports cars category and it could also go in to the convertibles category too. What is the best way you have found recently that works and increases rankings, but does not create duplicate content? Thanks in advance! 🙂 Kind Regards, JDM
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Hatfish0 -
NEw domain extensions, are they worth it seo wise?
Hello I am curious if all of these new extensions for domains are worth it? So say you are a home builder and you bought homebuilder.construction - where as construction is a new extension, does this help seo? Or is it all just a big sales gimmick? Thank you for your thoughts
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Berner1 -
SEO value in multiple backlinks from same domain and from various sub-domains.
A site has a link to my site as one of their main tabs, which means whenever a user clicks through to another page within the site, my link - being a main tab - is there. This creates thousands of links from this site. How does Google treat this? Do we have a rough formula estimate. In other words, assume it creates 1,000 backlinks would the SEO value be around the same as if I had just 2 link total as a main tab, but on 2 different non-related sites? Or, does it actually count fully as 1,000 links? Links from various sub-domains. Several .EDU's are linking to my site. Different schools within the overall same university. Example: nursing.abc.edu links to my site, but so does business.abc.edu. For SEO does that count as much as if I had links from complete non-related universities, or would Google evaluate that these links are related (since same main domain) and that will discount any links more than 1 to some extent? If discounted, then what do we estimate the discount to be? thank yoyu
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen1 -
Domain expiration and seo
My domain name is free with my service with yahoo but it expires every year and gets extended automatically as I continue service, how does this impact my seo efforts? I've heard that the search engines prefer sites to expire in 3 years or more? Is this a fact?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0