Multiple Domain optimization
-
Hello all,
I'm a bit new to this, though I'd like to think I'm a fast learner when it comes to IT related stuff...as I've been doing it for long enough.
Here's my question. I have a non-profit corporation that covers a small region referred to as "Upper Cape" which covers four towns (mashpee, sandwich, falmouth, bourne). I have a direct competitor in each town who has a domain that contains the name of the town.
Being that I'd like to optimize across the four towns, I've decided to also purchase up 4 domain names that contain the towns. Rather than forward the domains to the upper cape domain, I've cloned instances of word press containing my data across 4 different sites that contain the towns.
As I got to thinking about this...I thought that it might actually hurt me...looking for insight and help as to how best to do this to optimize search (and be found) across these four towns. -
Hi IPIM!
Agree with the single domain vs. mult-domain approach, and you absolutely want to avoid duplicating content across multiple websites. I think you might find this article helpful:
-
if you have them (the domains) then your competitors don't...hang on to them and maybe something will come along one day that will warrent using them.
-
Again I appreciate you taking the time to respond and provide insight. I believe you answered my question, although I'm still not sure what to do about the other domains that we've registered.
-
its where do you draw the line, do you create a new site for every town? how unique would the content be across those domains? is that what the search engines really want in their search results, one brand buying multiple domains and dominating the results?
What your proposing above is not considered best practice, other people may disagree but its trying to game the results IMHO, and usually that will end in tears.
think about how you can target those towns within the confines of one domain.
www.yourdomain.co.uk/falmouth-jewelers
have that page contain a Google map with the location, contact details, offers and promotions unique to that location, maybe add a bit of local history, local client testimonials, local news.
Some good reading
https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/give-each-store-a-url/
http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/12/14/what-matt-cutts-says-about-local-search/
-
So is there little value in having domains that contain names that pertain to the industry / town?
I just watched a cool Moz video on watches...so using that as an industry so I can frame this in my mind correctly. If my company is Upper Cape Watch Company and I want to specifically target the towns of Falmouth, Mashpee, Sandwich and Bourne (where my competition might be Falmouth Jewelers, Mashpee Jewelers, Sandwich Jewelers and Bourne Jewelers) there's little value in having a domain for Falmouth Watch Company, Bourne Watch Company and so on?If I have 4 domains such as Falmouth/Mashpee etc. should I just forward them to the main site, forward with masking or without?
I am very grateful for your response and insight...I don't get paid for these efforts as it's a small non-profit...pretty much a labor of love that I'm tasked with since I work in the IT field.
-
Im not a fan of diluting authority across multiple domains, it just means having 4 x the effort and 4 x the budget.
I would go for www.yourdomain.com/town and then optimise each of those pages with highly relevant (unique), local and helpful information.
That way, all your outreach efforts are contained within the one domain and you authority flows across the site.
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
-
Creating multiple GMB listings same address?
Hi Guys, We have a medical centre which has different services like medical, dental, pathology, mental health and 3-4 other services. They are all at the same address within the medical centre. Currently, we have a GMB listing just for the medical centre. But we're looking to create separate GMB listings for each service. I was wondering if anyone has done this before and can speak from experience of the pros and cons of doing this? It seems we will have a lot more GMB listings to manage, but we should benefit more from relevant GMB searchers and this will improve our visibility. Cheers, Mark
Local Listings | | brandonegroup1 -
Google my business : Multiple businesses operating from the same location.
After multiple phone calls with Google My Business help, I'm still completely stumped! I need to set up Google my business pages for 5 business', however, each of these companies work in the same office - so the location used on Google my business would be the same. I want to know if this is possible? Surely there's ways to do it, especially since the increase of hot-desking and shared offices! Thanks
Local Listings | | sophiecrosby970 -
How does Google Local Insights report impressions for multiple mappack listings (same company) showing up for one query?
I had a client ask me a difficult question about impression reporting via Google Local Insights. Lets say a client is a popular ice cream chain and somebody does a local brand search for "San Francisco Exotic Tasty Ice" and three locations for the same company all show up in the Google Local Pack. Does each one of these locations receive their own impression via Google Local Insights? Or does Google just count this as one impression for one location altogether? Logically speaking I would think that each location would get its own impression in the insights report. However I'm wondering if there is anything to negate that. Any feedback is appreciated.
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0 -
Multiple Google Business Pages/ Backlinks for Google Maps
Hello, I represent several attorneys in the metro Atlanta area. In doing my research with open site explorer and other tools I am finding that many of the competitors have more that one, if not several personal and branded Google business pages.
Local Listings | | underdogmike
So this raises several questions while I go through my Local SEO strategy. How Many Google+/My Business Pages Can A Business Owner Have? Should I be creating backlinks for the Google Business Pages as I do for my clients website? I noticed that some of the competitors are creating backlinks with their Google Map Location URL, is this a best practice? In addition to those questions, I am curious about the various different Google+ pages that are available to business owners.
As of now, I create and cultivate the following Google Pages for my clients: Claim a GMB Page and optimize it with photos and accurate information Attached to the GMB Page there is a Google + Page(this is where I share blogs and updates for the business). Upon further review I feel like there are a few steps that I am missing in regards to the Google + pages. Listed below are the links to Local Market leader for Criminal Defense in Woodstock GA. From what I can tell he has 4 separately branded Google+ pages that are all verified. https://plus.google.com/104434819427186216811/about https://plus.google.com/113476381600385352368/about https://plus.google.com/104300020905072698361/about https://plus.google.com/103523192982501886740/about Should I be taking the same approach?0 -
Local Citation with multiple offices
We have 5 different offices and each has its own google+ page and yell page. At first they were ranking poorly and the wrong offices were coming up for searches in that town so we change the name to :
Local Listings | | EJmoz
BusinessName (Location1)
BusinessName (Location2) Etc. those listing all starting to rank top for searches in Location1 and Location2. We have now been told that it is bad for our overall SEO to have the business name appearing differently in different listings and this led me to look at Moz Local. My question is should I remove the (Location1) from the Google+ business listing so that all our offices have the same name (but obviously different addresses) even though it appears to have a negative impact on rankings? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks0 -
Do Citation Count As Backlinks / Referring Domains
I listed clients listed on about 200+ local citation sites and was NAP complaint. However, when I run a backlink checker using MOZ, SEMRUSH, etc it only show 8 -12 and none of them are the citations. Anyone have any pointers?
Local Listings | | InfinityTechnologySolutions0 -
Best practice for setting up multiple Google Places listings?
Hello, My client has just opened up two new smaller offices which I now need to have listed on Google Places as the primary office is. How is this done (using best practice)? Thanks
Local Listings | | Martin_S0 -
Citations for multiple practicioners in an office (real estate, dentists, etc)- Best Practices
We're just about to breakout our citations as we've added listings for a few real estate offices and dental offices for the individual real estate agents/dentists. I didn't see any discussions on best practices, so I thought I'd start the discussion (please point me elsewhere if I missed it) 1. Is it even a good idea to build citations for a practitioner in an office (Dr. Who, Dentist, in addition to Whoville Dental Office)? 2. Name will be different, address will be the same, but what about phone #? Should they use the office phone # and their extension? Or a separate (cell) #? 3. Website citation: Should it go to their "profile" page on the website? Or home page? Thanks in advance for any input 🙂
Local Listings | | AvalancheSearch0