Multiple Domain Names Point To One Site
-
I spoke with a potential client yesterday and for legitimate reasons they have multiple domain names, all very closely related in name to each other pointing to one site. His main site. So for example this is how things look,
mainsiteva.com, mainsitedc.com, mainsitepa.com, mainsiteca.com, mainsitega.com, mainsitela.com ALL forward to mainsite.com
This is being done because they used to have different sites for different geographies. Will google look at this as some form of manipulation?
-
Can't see a problem with this at all. In fact, it's fairly common practice.
Many companies buy domain names that feature their brand + a destination. Some companies even buy the misspellings of the brand. For example, GTMetrix has bought http://www.gtmetrics.com, which 301 redirects straight to http://www.gtmetrix.com.
Provided these are redirects and nothing more, it shouldn't be a problem. A problem would occur if your client started building manipulative and spammy links to one of these other domains, hoping that the 301 redirect would mask the suspiciousness and passed on the PageRank. Just like all bad quality link building, this could cause problems.
Buying the domains and just redirecting them, however, shouldn't be a problem as it wouldn't be interpreted as trying to manipulate PageRank or pass any strength. It's simply being done to protect the brand, which we know Google loves, if anything. Should your client warrant an individual site for these locations in the future, you can then reverse the redirect and go for it.
The last thing you would want, in my opinion, would be thin content on these sites or the main site that only serves to attract local search terms and drive traffic to the site, without offering any real value to the user. I think your potential client would be fine with what he's doing.
-
In my experience with multiple domains forwarding to 1 mothership - I have seen issues with rankings and overall organic nature of all sites.
It would be best to at least place a few pages, >5 on the sister sites with authentic content - referencing the mothership with jpeg logos etc - to eliminate an un-healthy back link profile.
Your pal,
Chenzo
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
-
One of my Friend's website Domain Authority is Reducing? What could be the reason?
Hello Guys, One of my friend's website domain authority is decreasing since they have moved their domain from HTTP to https.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Max_
There is another problem that his blog is on subfolder with HTTP.
So, can you guys please tell me how to fix this issue and also it's losing some of the rankings like 2-5 positions down. Here is website URL: myfitfuel.in/
here is the blog URL: myfitfuel.in/mffblog/0 -
Splitting One Site Into Two Sites Best Practices Needed
Okay, working with a large site that, for business reasons beyond organic search, wants to split an existing site in two. So, the old domain name stays and a new one is born with some of the content from the old site, along with some new content of its own. The general idea, for more than just search reasons, is that it makes both the old site and new sites more purely about their respective subject matter. The existing content on the old site that is becoming part of the new site will be 301'd to the new site's domain. So, the old site will have a lot of 301s and links to the new site. No links coming back from the new site to the old site anticipated at this time. Would like any and all insights into any potential pitfalls and best practices for this to come off as well as it can under the circumstances. For instance, should all those links from the old site to the new site be nofollowed, kind of like a non-editorial link to an affiliate or advertiser? Is there weirdness for Google in 301ing to a new domain from some, but not all, content of the old site. Would you individually submit requests to remove from index for the hundreds and hundreds of old site pages moving to the new site or just figure that the 301 will eventually take care of that? Is there substantial organic search risk of any kind to the old site, beyond the obvious of just not having those pages to produce any more? Anything else? Any ideas about how long the new site can expect to wander the wilderness of no organic search traffic? The old site has a 45 domain authority. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 945010 -
How to switch brand domain and address previous use of domain
We recently acquired a new domain to replace existing as it better fits our brand. We have little/no organic value on existing domain so switching is not an issue. However the newly acquired domain was previously used in a different industry and has inbound links with significant spam scores. How can we let Google know that these links are not valid for our business and start rebuilding reputation of the domain? Disavow tool?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Marlette0 -
My Domain authority dropped 9 points... Does anyone have any suggestions to fix this significant drop.
My domain authority dropped by 9 points and I haven't done anything differently since the last scan. What is going on?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | infotrust20 -
Best practice for duplicate website content: same root domain name but different extension
Hi there I have a new client who has two websites: http://www.bayofislandsteambuilding.co.nz
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | turnbullholdingsltd
http://www.bayofislandsteambuilding.org.nz They are the same in every regard apart from the domain extension (.co.nz & .org.nz) which is likely to be causing them issues with Google ranking given the huge amount of duplicate content. What is the best practice approach to fixing this? Normally, if I was starting from scratch, I would set one of the extensions as an alias which redirects to the main domain. Thanks in advance. Laurie0 -
How can i redirect my site to other domain ?
I have been running an eCommerce site since 2008 and have a PR3 with mostly have an authority link from reputed sites, how can I transfer my existing eCommerce site to the new domain so in the new domain i get SEO value from the old domain. Please advice.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | chandubaba0 -
Site #2 beats site #1 in every aspect?
Hey guys, loving SEOMoz so far and will definitely continue my subscription after the free trial. I have a question however, which I am really confused about. When researching my primary keyword, I have found that the second ranked site beats the top site in every single aspect, apart from domain age, which is almost 6 years for the top one and 6 months for the second. When I say every single aspect, I mean everything. More authority for the page and domain, more links, more anchor text links, more authoritive links, more social signals, more relevant links, better domain (although second ranked site is a .net), better MozRank, better MozTrust etc.... I have noticed though, that in the UK SERPs, those sites are switched, so #2 is actually #1. Could it be that the US SERPs just haven't updated yet, or am I missing something completely different.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | darrenspeed1 -
Content on New Domain or Sub Directory of Existing Domain?
I have a client with a well aged, high DA site. They rank well for their wedding photography business in several cities. They are launching a new service which is related to photography (photobooths and flipbooks) which they built and developed content on a new domain. The existing domain has 0 links with a DA of 1. The site is brand new.. Is there any drawback to moving the existing content on the new domain to a sub directory of the high authority domain? EX: http://domain.com/newcompany The look, feel, and design of the new site / service is much different than the high DA site. My thoughts are that this will give them an automatic step up, especially since they will be marketing this in several major cities. Also, since the design will be different, if it is good to move to the subdir, should we put the new company name in the subdir folder or something keyword friendly like domain.com/photobooth as opposed to domain.com/newcompanyname. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | itrogers0