Domain Masking with New Keyword-Rich Domains
-
Hello, friends. We have an ecommerce site and we also own several keyword-rich domains but haven't done anything with them yet. Is there any value in using domain masking to point them to either product pages or special landing pages on our primary ecommerce site? Here's an example:
Primary site is widgetzone.com
Keyword rich URL is acmewidget.com (which is totally blank and isn't indexed)
It could point to our category page for Acme Widgets: widgetzone.com/category/acme-widgets
or it could point to a new landing page: widgetzone.com/acme-widgets
My concern is that because the keyword-rich URL hasn't been utilized at all there's really no point in redirecting it. I'm of the mind that it's either going to be ineffective at best or a duplicate content issue at worst. What do you guys think?
As a follow-up, if we don't redirect these domains, what should we do with them? Just try to sell them off rather than create totally new sites?
-
The biggest concern is duplicate content.
If the domain acmewidget.com points to widgetzone.com/acme-widgets and that directory is accessible from the widgetzone.com website then the search engines will see acmewidget.com as a duplication of widgetzone.com/acme-widgets and almost certainly exclude it from the search engines.
I'd recommend setting up microsites under your keyword rich domains that sell a small range of products - the work load is manageable and as long as you provide some unique descriptions and content will work alongside your main website.
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
-
Redirect Chain Domain
MozPro is highlighting some redirect chain issues with our domain that I do not recall ever setting up in our redirect list. In our Moz Pro Campaign I see the Site Crawl has flagged 36 Redirect Chain Issues. I understand how the redirect chain errors can happen but I do not recall ever manually redirecting our domain, yet I have http://stickylife.com, https://stickylife.com & https://www.stickylife.com all associated in one of our redirect chain errors. When looking at our redirect files I do not see any of these domain redirects and wonder how this has happened and how to fix it. It appears as though our HTTP and HTTPS is causing some redirection. I wonder if this is coming from our DNS settings?
Technical SEO | | StickyLife0 -
Is repurposing an old sub domain better than creating a new sub domain?
We have a good sub domain like** art.ourwebsite.com** which currently sells custom canvas art. We have owned the domain since 2013 but it has only been live for the past few weeks. We want to redesign & repurpose the page to continue to sell custom canvas art but will eventually include other merchandise like mugs, tshirts, etc which wouldn't be custom. Would it be best to keep art.ourwebsite.com since is a shorter/more memorible & older sub domain or would it be best to update the name to something that encompasses our new products? Our marketing team has suggested yourart.ourwebsite.com
Technical SEO | | sb10301 -
Fluctuation in Ranking for the keywords
We were ranking well for most of the keywords.These keywords were at first page i.e mostly @ 1st and 2nd position in Google.But we have put the following tag ie no index tag for our pages by mistake and after that the ranking fluctuated & fell down in Google search results as our pages were out of index in Google .We have removed the noindex tag after encountering the problem.Now I can see my pages are cached & indexed in Google after submitting to index in Google webmaster tool.Can I regain my ranking for the keywords and within how many days I would regain my previous ranking?
Technical SEO | | vivekrathore0 -
Why is there duplicates of my domain
When viewing crawl diagnostics in SEOmoz I can see both "www.website.com" and a truncated version "website.com" is this normal and why is it showing (I do not have duplicates of my site on the server)? E.g.: http://www.klinehimalaya.com/
Technical SEO | | gorillakid
http://klinehimalaya.com/0 -
Prospective new client it by webspam looking for new resource
Background:
Technical SEO | | tcmktg
Prospective client recently hit by webspam update. (I have verified hundreds of low-quality links, porn links, backlink exchanges etc.) They want us to step in and remove bad links and start over. Question:
What is the best way to examine all the links to determine which need to be removed? We can create the report from open site, but how can we identify the bad links? Here are the site metrics. 5000+ linking domains, so in this example we need to research the 5000 links, and possibly send notifications to thousands of webmasters to remove the links? Open site states about 25,000 total links, but root links are shown below. Yikes. Domain Authority 75
External Followed Links 112,000
Total External Links 115,000
Total Links 150,000,
Followed Linking Root Domains 3,900
Total Linking Root Domains 5,300
Linking C Blocks 2,7000 -
Domain authority not showing on root domain?
I was going through our site earlier w/ the mozBar (still learning the tools, new here) and saw the attached image. There were far more links to the subdomain (#s on the left) than the root domain (#s on right). This is strange to me, because we are not using any subdomains. All links point to either our root domain or subfolders off our root domain. Is this hurting our ranking for the root domain? Not sure what's up with this. Zz9j0.jpg
Technical SEO | | askotzko0 -
Vanity Virgin Domains
Hi, I've acquired a vast amount of domains related to my industry over the past 2-3 years. The domains themselves are keyword rich, and likely to be highly searched in their respective terms. Most of the domains are virgin names, some are expired and re-registered names. I can appreciate re-registered names likely retain little value, but I'm wondering, if one was to setup each of the virgin vanity domains as a 301 re-direct, and add the redirected domains as a new submit to google, would there be any keyword relevance, or would this likely be a wasted effort or result in a penalty? I initially registered the domains to protect intellectual property, or prevent others from benefiting from the competitive terms (evil, I know), but I'd like benefiting from them, rather than renew each year and have them site there and do nothing. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | ispone0 -
"To keyword or not to keyword" in the URL string?
We are debating on whether to use primary keywords in the URL for every page for a new client for the sake of SEO. What is the feeling in the Community on which version is smarter? Version 1: www.abccompany.com/miami-moving-company/about-us www.abccompany.com/miami-moving-company/contact-us etc. etc. Version 2: www.abccompany.com/about-us Thank you for your thoughts!
Technical SEO | | theideapeople0