Manufacturer, New Direct-to-Consumer Site (Separate Site, or Sub-Domain?)
-
Hi All!
Working with an established manufacturer, been around for many years, it's an internationally known brand, and their products are sold by thousands on distributors. They recently started a new website (separate from their old established B2B manufacturer site) which will be used to sell direct to customer. The new site is great, with a nice responsive design, clean look, flexible, etc. The problem is, it's a new site with low Domain Authority.
The manufacturer's B2B site has been around a while, very high Domain Authority. So, I'd like to be able to harness all the link equity they've build instead of trying to optimize a brand new site. The problem with this old established site is that it IS in fact old. The design is terrible, it's not responsive, old code, bad look and feel, etc.
We could incorporate the new B2C site (which has its own CMS) into a sub-domain, like store.site.com. But, I'd worry that site.com's crapiness will limit growth potential for the new pages at store.site.com. Same issue were we to add the new site into a sub-folder, like site.com/store/.
On the other side, we could just keep the new site, with it's own domain, sitestore.com, and have product pages and/or category pages from the manufacturer's B2B site link to the relevant pages on the new B2C site.
Thanks!
-
Thanks for the responses. Yes, we are worried about too much interlinking and that being seen as manipulative.
I do think we're leaning towards a completely separate domain. I'll just have to be careful with the links.
-
You don't have a benefit with a new domain or subdomain at the start (without some myth I never saw) - but in future: a link of a former new domain to the old B2B site would be worth more, than a link from a subdomain or folder. Its a benefit for the old B2B site (when u link to it and that will happen several times) - the new B2C site is hard work
-
Andreas is right—the subdomain will be considered a new site by the search engines, so you won't get any SEO benefit from the existing domain. I'm not aware of any benefit you'd have a a totally new domain over a new subdomain, either, but Andreas may be able to give more information on that.
-
A: Subdomain: I think to take the subdomain is pretty useless - it is just like a new domain. May be worther (internal links b2b-b2c)
B: Subfolder: Of course you have a bonus in that case, the growth potential shouldn't be limited that much, as long as you won't chose the old CMS (you wrote that you wont).
A new site: I would try that way (but that is my liking). I would Link both sites to each other where ever (natural and relevant) possible. The way for the B2C site is long, in both ways B or C, but in case C, you can link back to the B2B site, so the old site can benefit. There are so many opportunities. I think it should be also possible to link them sitewide, I guess Google wouldn't see that as a manipulative linkbuilding. To much fear? Ask John Mueller in a webmaster hangout for his best practice tipps.
ok, that would be my choice. But one thing is clear, A is not really an option wich brings you in a better position from start up.
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
-
International Websites - Hosting, Domain Names, & Configuration
What is the best way to configure a website that targets a number of countries and languages around the world? For example, Apple has websites optimized for just about every country and language in the world (see: https://www.apple.com/choose-country-region/). When you choose the UK it takes you to: https://www.apple.com/uk/ When you choose China it take you to: https://www.apple.com/cn/ Etc. When you go to apple.co.uk it forwards you to the UK version of the website. The same is true for apple.cn. Is this the ideal way to set it up? I have also seen websites that have each version of the website on its own TLD such as exampleBrand.co.uk and exampleBrand.cn - in this example they don't forward to the .com. My concern with Apple's solution is SEO and hosting. Do consumers favor seeing their country's TLD in search results over exampleBrand.com/uk? For hosting, shouldn't the mainland China version of the website be hosted in China? Is it possible to just host a folder of a website in a certain country such as the cn folder for China? Any suggestions would be appreciated. I was unable to find much info on this.
Web Design | | rx3000 -
Any new tips on how to speed up re-listing after re-design?
A few things around re-designing an older but well performing site for search and retaining/ improving SEO value. Lots of effort has been put into content marketing and optimising individual pages on this site, it has a lot of links coming in from well-respected sites (but the domain name will remain the same so that shouldn't be an issue) so I'm very anxious about how the redesign will effect ranking, although the new site will be far more user friendly, beautiful, responsive where the old one is not and faster to load. Would really like to avoid the search engine drop when the site first goes live if at all possible- One idea on this was to make the new site live on another domain - .co.uk for example, whilst keeping the old site up on the .com for a month or so, then switching the records so the new site is then visible on .com and the .co.uk redirects to it. Does this sound at all sensible?! Also any more advice on how best to ensure the new site will do better, not worse for search is hugely appreciated. We have cut a lot of content to make it more user friendly and easy to find information. We will be making sure all old links are redirected to new site (but as there are fewer pages on new site, will it matter if 5 old URLS point to one new URL for instance?) Also what's the difference between 301 and 302 redirects! Thank you so much in advance, massively appreciated your time!
Web Design | | Emjmoz0 -
Should I Kill the Old Domain or Work Through the Redirect?
Our IT department wasn't able to create a new directory on the current domain name for whatever reason and so we had to create a new domain name called ww2.domain.com to build the new site. So now we have the new site up and appartly some PDFs and pages are being directed to the from the old site. www.domain.com but 10,000 pages /PDFs are still indexed in Google and are not redirected. So when you open the page you get the old www.domain.com instead of it redirecting to ww2.domain.com. It's sort of a mess! My question is can we just kill the old domain name and move the ww2.domain.com back to the old domain? We also want to do away with the ww2.domain.com and go back to www.domain.com. I know it's confusing as heck! What would you recommend?
Web Design | | Eagle-ABS0 -
How does adding ecommerce to a site affect SEO? What are the negative and what are the positives?
We are thinking of adding ecommerce to our website as a service to our customers. We generate most of our leads through online quote requests but heard that it may be beneficial to our SEO if we add ecommerce for a few products. Is this true? Does anyone have tips on best and worst SEO ecommerce practices?
Web Design | | TeguarMarketing0 -
Managing international sites
Hi all, I am trying to figure out the best way to manage our international sites. We have two locations, 1 in the UK and 1 in the USA. I currently use GEOIP to identify the location of the browser and redirect them using a cookie to index.php?country=uk or index.php?country=usa. Once the cookie is set I use a 301 redirect to send them to index.php, so that Google doesnt see each url as duplicate content, which Webmaster tools was complaining about. This has been working wonderfully for about a year. It means I have a single php language include file and depending on the browser location I will display $ or £ and change the odd ise to ize, etc. Problem I am starting to notice is that we are starting to rank better and better in the USA search result. I am guessing this is because the crawlers must be based out of the USA. This is great, but my concern is that I am losing rank in the UK, which is currently where most of our business is done out of... So I have done my research and because I have a .net will go for a /uk/ or /us/ sub folder and create two separate webmaster tools site and set them up to target each geographic location. Is this okay? http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=182192#2 HERE IS THE PROBLEM: I don't was to have to run two separate website with two separate sets of copy. Also, I dont want to lose all the rank data on urls like: http://www.mysite.net/great-rank-result.html now becomes http://www.mysite.net/uk/great-rank-result.html. On top of this I will have two pages, the one just mentioned and now adding http://www.mysite.net/us/great-rank-result.html, which I presume would be seen as duplicate copy? (Y/n) Can I use rel canonical to overcome this? How can I don't this without actually running the two pages. Could you actually have 1 site in the root folder and just use the same GEOIP techology to do a smart MOD REWRITE adding either UK or US to the url therefore being able to create two webmaster accounts targeting each geographic location? Any advise is most welcome.
Web Design | | Mediatomcat0 -
.me.uk or .com domain with hyphen?
Hi Mozzers Just after some opinions really. Basically a client wants a restaurant website developing and had already chosen a name for it as (example) "englishroserestaurant.co.uk". They wanted to register it themselves but unfortunately before they had time to someone else did. Now they have come back to me and said about using the name (example) "englishrose.me.uk". I know these .me.uk names are supposedly for personal websites and not businesses but I assume that, by itself, shouldn't be an issue as there are many commercial sites that do use them. However as all the combinations have been taken I have suggested that they use a "domain-domain.com as an alternative so just wanted to know which option you guys would go for out of: 1. englishrose.me.uk 2. english-rose.com Although I avoid hyphens whenever I can in this instance 100% I would go for number 2 as it's only one hyphen and it's a business and looks more professional......having said that I would welcome any comments or opinions. Thanks in advance.
Web Design | | TrevorJones0 -
Critique a site I'm working on please
Hi guys, I have a list of things to do on this website that is longer than my arm but thought I would gather a few more thoughts on the site before moving on further with it. The site is here. It went live a couple of days ago for live testing. I have a news section coming very soon at theworkplacedepot.co.uk/news - it is in live testing now. One glaring issue for me is that some of the products simply aren't "buyable". What I mean by that is that the options are too vague and too vast - as an outsider I wouldnt have a clue what I was buying! Other issues: The banner at the bottom of the HP is a test - its design will be changing. The sitemap has some issues and will be addressed. There is no area yet to "log-in". However, critique for me pretty please! 🙂
Web Design | | MattJanaway0 -
What is wrong with our site?
Hello Seomoz friends. I've about to pull all my hair out and need to turn somewhere. Our site, www.sightmax.com has been around since 2004. We used to be ranked at the top of page two on google under the keyword "live chat". We are no on page 4, heading to page 5. Can anyone take a look at the site and see if anything jumps out at you? The only way we have been able to get on the first page, is the pay for google adwords (which we've been doing every month for 7 years). Again, the site www.sightmax.com and the keyword is "live chat". Any help or feedback would be appreciated SO MUCH! Thanks! Eric
Web Design | | EricWeber0