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.
One big site or lots of little sites? Which is better for SEO and my business in general?
-
I realize there are some aspects of what I'm asking that only I can answer. With that said, I'm looking for some discussion about the pros / cons of each, and what are the most important factors that will push me one way or another.
Let's say I have a company that has three products. One big brand, three little brands. Each of the little brands is focused on a particular sub-niche, all of which are in the general health & wellness niche.
-
Either, I could create a large site for the big brand, with subsections for each product, and work hard on turning that domain into a goto site, with lots of articles, etc. The domain name for this one would be a made up word so I can fully control the search results.
-
Or, another strategy would be to create smaller, "sniper" sites for each product, maybe even sites for each major search term that is interested in that product. These sites would have fewer articles. Descriptive, exact match domain names.
Which is the best strategy? #1, #2, or a mixture of both? #1 seems legitimate, #2 seems a bit spammy. What are the pros and cons to each? Can anyone speak from experience about both these practices?
-
-
Keywords in the domain name are not carrying as much value as they once did. (See the Matt Cutts video below).
The value you that you would get from having your keyword in the domain of a microniche is pretty small.
I think, if you had these two options:
MyMainSite/bodybuildingfortheelderly
...you could still rank the second one really well. And, any links you build to the second one would help the entire domain.
-
Hey.... what's wrong with body-building for the elderly?
I agree that in the long term a big kickass site will defeat a flock of hotdog stand websites.
-
The supposed advantage of different sites (I think) is that you can game the system to rank quickly for niche terms.
So, let's say I have a product that targets people searching for bodybuilding for the elderly (hypothetical, lol). I could register and quickly create a microsite at www.bodybuildingfortheelderly.com. Which is different, say, than claiming a unique brand name, say jubilados.com, and then pointing people to the bodybuilding for the elderly section on that site. I imagine doing the former would be quicker in the short term, and that doing the latter would be better long term.
Thoughts?
-
One big site ... what's the advantage of different sites? if you want to make "microsites" or special promotions, you can go with directories, but keep your backlinks together on one single site. Optimize different pages for different terms, keep your internal linking straight, and if you can constantly do something for your linkbuilding, you're all set.
-
I definitely vote for one big site as well. I think every person has this idea that multiple sites will help because you will be able to crosslink them. But the juice you get from those cross links is less than the juice you would get from having all of your links pointing to one site.
I would have one main site and then have 3 folders within the site each with their own focus.
-
I vote for the one big site.
Which will rank better? One big site with 300 links or three little sites with 100 links each? My money is on the big site.
Which will be more linkable? One big site with a cluster of products or three hotdog stands with one product each?
Which will give you the opportunity of cross-selling and larger, more profitable sales? A big site with multiple products or three tiny sites with one product each?
Which will be more work and expense to run?
I used to have a cluster of little sites and then combined them into one big site... and that big site beat all of the smaller sites and all of their competitors.
-
#1 definitely, one big site is easier to optimise, promote and manage than a series of smaller sites.
with lots of smaller sites link building is a huge job where each link will only benefit the site it links too, where as 1 big site all links to it are going to benefit the domain as a whole.
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
-
Changed the trailing slashes - how it effect SEO?
Hi, I'm doing a project called https://www.machinerygate.com/ Due to trailing slashes issues, our developer requests to remove the trailing slashes from the URLs. However, the homepage with and without trailing slashes the same effect right. How about the inner pages affect SEO. Because we just started to do SEO and not even one single link of Inner pages done with the process. However, for example, the URL for https://www.machinerygate.com/machinery/cranes/ is before with trailing slashes and it is on google indexed with trailing slashes. Due to some bug, google inspection tool has been not functioning nowadays and I'm finding hard to index the new URL without trailing slashes https://www.machinerygate.com/machinery/cranes to index on Google. If this gets indexed, how the URL with trailing slashes will be, does it automatically redirect to URL without trailing slashes or not? Please share your thought about this concern.
Branding | Oct 20, 2020, 5:16 AM | Navya1241 -
Is .com.sg or .sg a better for SEO?
Hi all, Is .com.sg or .sg a better option?
Branding | Feb 8, 2014, 10:42 PM | chanel27
And also which can have a better advantage in terms of SEO ranking?0 -
Rebranding & Minimizing SEO impact
Hello everyone, One of my clients is undergoing a major rebrand, which will require some substantial changes to their domain / URL structure. Primarily, we're going to: Move from a high-ish DA site to a low DA site Change the subdomain URL structure (more on that below) Update the content (copy, design, structure) on www. site to match the new brand The content on the subdomains should remain the same 301 redirect all pages from old site to new site where applicable The current site architecture makes great use of subdomains, which are also going to be changing in terms of name. So, we're moving from oldsubdomain.olddomain.com to newsubdomain.newdomain.com (and not oldsubdomian.olddomain.com to oldsubdomain.olddomain.com). The content / structure of these pages is going to change minimally. We understand that we're going to take an SEO hit overall, but are there things we can do to minimize this hit? Anyway we can 'estimate' the hit? Anyway we can educate our client to as to what to expect beyond (it is going to be bad…). Please let me know. Thanks!
Branding | Oct 30, 2013, 3:58 PM | 10SL0 -
Big Problems Using &'s in Business Name?
One of my clients is a law firm with a Business name like the following:
Branding | Nov 1, 2013, 5:30 PM | gbkevin
Rosenberg & Dalgren, LLP They get A TON of organic search traffic on their brand name above, but most people (95%) search "Rosenberg and Dalgren" instead of "Rosenberg & Dalgren". **Notice use of ampersand being used and alternatively, the word "and" being used. ** Currently, their local citations across the Internet (G+, YP, Yelp, etc) use the business name, "Rosenberg & Dalgren, LLP" (with ampersand). Here is the dilemma we are in... When someone searches "Rosenberg and Dalgren" in Google (which the majority of our search traffic does), Google does NOT show our local one-box on the right hand side of the SERPs (see example of a one-box I am referring to here http://blumenthals.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Screen-Shot-2013-09-28-at-9.59.58-AM.png). But when someone searches "Rosenberg & Dalgren" in Google, it does trigger our local one-box with photos, review ratings, links to our Google+ Local page, etc. WHICH IS GREAT! They have AWESOME reviews that command powerful social proof. We want that local one-box to show up! So my question is, what can I do to trigger that local one-box for both brand name searches for "Rosenberg & Dalgren" as well as "Rosenberg and Dalgren"? I am considering changing our NAP citations to have the business name be "Rosenberg and Dalgren" since that is what 95% of people search in Google to find them. I am guessing Google doesn't quite understand that "Rosenberg and Dalgren" is linked to "Rosenberg & Dalgren" via what it sees in the knowledge graph of the Internet (citations, website, etc). So how best should I handle this and get that local one-box triggering for the majority of our branded search traffic? Lastly, what is the best advice for including company/corporate designations in the NAP citations? (ie. LLP, LLC, Inc, etc) Thank you for any help and guidance! We appreciate it!0 -
1 Website, 2 Business Names, 2 Locations
I took on a dentist office as an SEO client. They have 1 website, 2 business names and 2 locations. Each location has it's own business name. They are both within the same city as well. I'm not exactly sure where to start with them since they have 2 different business names. If it were 1 name with multiple locations I would just create a Contact Us page for each one, but is that the best thing to do when the location names are different? Should I create a different website for each location or is that smart because then they are competing against each other? Any help from the community on the direction I should take would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Branding | Nov 23, 2023, 12:14 PM | SilhouetteBS0 -
Best to have separate private and the business twitter accounts?
Just starting to use twitter and can see its potential but I have a personal account, one my holiday letting business and one for my CCTV installation business. Obviously the problem is I have to login to each account separately and post relevant tweets. I like the idea that people following because they're interested in the subject but the downside obviously is that I have to split my time and my total followers across three accounts. What do you do with your twitter presence focus on one account or have separate accounts?
Branding | Aug 30, 2012, 7:23 PM | whitbycottages0 -
How to get Google to link external review sites in Google Places
Hi, I have several company profiles in Google Places and Google Sites, I also have the same profiles for those companies in review sites like Yelp! and so on. I have seen that other sites have links on the bottom where Google points to those external review sites, but that doesn't happen for me yet, is there a way to tell Google that I have profiles on other review sites so they can link them or is it Google whenever they find them that will link them? Here's an example: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=14126341780178539960&hl=en At the bottom you'll see that it says: Reviews from around the web Now this is one of mine: http://maps.google.com/maps/place?cid=12168877126282825032&hl=en Now how do I get that line at the bottom provided that I know there are reviews out there in other sites? Is there something I can do? Or is it all about Google doing it whenever they see fit? Thank you!
Branding | May 1, 2012, 3:54 PM | tass0
