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.
Multiple stores & domains vs. One unified store (SEO pros / cons for E-Commerce)
-
Our company runs a number of individual online shops, specialised in particular products but all in the same genre of goods overall, with a specific and relevant domain name for each shop. At the moment the sites are separate, and not interlinked, i.e. Completely separate brands.
An analogy could be something like clothing accessories (we are not in the clothing business): scarves.com, and silkties.com (our field is more niche than this)
We are about to launch a related site, (e.g. handbags.com), in the same field again but without precisely overlapping products. We will produce this site on a newer, more flexible e-commerce platform, so now is a good time to consider whether we want to place all our sites together with one e-commerce system on the backend.
Essentially, we need to know what the pros and cons would be of the various options facing us and how the SEO ranking is affected by the three possibilities.
Option 1: continue with separate sites each with its own domains.
Option 2: have multiple sites, each on their own domain, but on the same ecommerce system and visible linked together for the customer (with unified checkout) – on the top of each site could be a menu bar linking to each site:
[Scarves.com] – [SilkTies.com] – [Handbags.com]
The main question here is whether the multiple domains are mutually beneficial, particularly considerding how close to target keywords the individual domains are. If mutually benefitial, how does it compare to option 3:
Option 3: Having recently acquired a domain name (e.g. accessories.com) which would cover the whole category together, we are presented with a third option: making one site selling all of these products in different categories. Our main concern here would be losing the ability to specifically target marketing, and losing the benefit of the domains with the key words in for what people are more likely to be searching for (e.g. 'silk tie') rather than 'accessories.'
Is it worth taking the hit on losing these specific targeted domain names for the advantage of increased combined inbound links?
-
Thank you for your excellent response, Alan.
Reviewing my post, I did not explain the situation 100% accurately.
Rather than integrating all our shops, in fact we would just be taking one of the shops we run, our main site, and wondering whether to consolidate with two new shops running on two new domains (these domains being excellent keywords).
An important point is that we changed the name of the site and domain name mid-2011, to a more international name. At first this clearly had an effect on our Google ranking, although having just had the best Christmas sales ever, we feel this has succeeded. (301 redirects were set up)
It would appear that the decision whether or not to integrate now to a unified domain would be affected by this fact. The name of our current main site would not be suitable as an umbrella term for all.
-
Thanks for your suggestion, Shane, this is certainly what we can see as a potential advantage, for that way of going.
-
While Shane is correct in general (less effort to drive links, value and trust to a single entity), deciding whether to go with separate entities or one unified entity under a broader reach focus is always a challenge. When you've had split properties for an extended period, and have invested tremendous effort over time in driving the value, relevance and importance of each separately, consideration becomes even more important.
How much time, effort resources have been invested in the split properties? a few weeks or months? Or years of time and cost? How much would it cost to rebrand each of the individual entities when melded into one? Factor in the need to implement flawless 301 redirects for every single product and page on every single site pointing to the new location. (301 redirects carry "most" of the existing SEO value,weight and strength, yet multiplied over hundreds or thousands of pages, the "slight" hit on each may cause at least a temporary overall down-side to rankings).
Having said that, by bringing it all together, when executed properly, you can still drive the marketing for individual "brands" - if you have truly well designed individual "category" landing pages set up (each one replacing the previous individual entity home pages) and by pointing social media and link building efforts at those individually. Yet you then also open your company up to the opportunity to drive the new umbrella brand. But only if there is truly enough of a broader appeal in regard to what people in your target market(s) actually search for online.
If there is a big enough market at that broader level, not only do you get the ability to reach people who might otherwise have not known about your offerings, you get the ability to cross-sell as well.
If you have serious concerns about the broader market opportunity, or the logistics (especially given the 301 redirect issue, for example), maintaining individual brand properties and implementing an easy to use cross-site navigation feature (that doesn't confuse prospective customers) could be an interim solution that risks less. While it might offer the potential for less long-term reward (that comes from reaching that new audience in a massive push way), it offers less risk, less logistic effort, and could very well prove out whether there's cross-selling value.
Then, after a couple years in the hybrid, if enough cross-selling occurs, that could be the vote of confidence you need to then take the next plunge, melding it all into one.
Be aware however, that you should give at least a couple years in between changes though - having too many hops in a site-wide 301 redirect model will cause more harm than good usually.
-
Hi,
I am in no way experienced with E-commerce as i have never done it, but from an SEO/Marketing perspective.
In my opinion Option 3 would be the most helpful both in SEO and Branding.
Because...
SEO - you have now consolidated your link building potential into one domain instead of spreading it out. Also this way you can get a little more keyword power without resorting to exact match tactics which personally I think are going to "fizzle" out over the next few years.
Marketing/Branding - You have created a better user experience and also the possibility of an up sell.. A person that is looking for a handbag, might also be looking for a matching pair of shoes... So use a "suggestion" algorithm at checkout that suggest "relevant" products. Option 3 in my opinion is also better for branding, as you can easier position yourself better in your filed as a "One Stop Shop" for all your "accessory" needs. If you have multiple different domains, it is hard to get a "brandname" going for yourself - even if you just sell other peoples brands.
I am sure others will have more suggestions, just my 2 cents
w00t!
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
-
Best Permalinks for SEO - Custom structure vs Postname
Good Morning Moz peeps, I am new to this but intending on starting off right! I have heard a wealth of advice that the "post name" permalink structure is the best one to go with however... i am wondering about a "custom structure" combing the "post name" following the below example structure: Www.professionalwarrior.com/bodybuilding/%postname/ Where "professional" and "bodybuilding" is my focus/theme/keywords of my blog that i want ranked. Thanks a mill, RO
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 30, 2017, 10:11 AM | RawkingOut0 -
Should I run my Shopify store on a subdomain or buy a new domain for it?
I'm planning to set up a subdomain for my Shopify store but I'm not sure if this is the right approach. Should I purchase a separate domain for it? I'm running Wordpress on my website and want to keep it that way. I want to use Shopify for the ecommerce side. I want to link the store from the top nav and of course I'll use CTA's in a variety of ways to point to merchandise and other things on the store side. Thanks for any help you can offer.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Mar 28, 2017, 3:50 PM | ims20160 -
SEO for multiple languages [Arabic]
Hello all, I am currently managing a Marketplace that comes in two different languages: English & Arabic. The English website is, fortunately, doing quite well in terms of SEO performances but, not the Arabic one. The website has two kinds of content: Static content: controlled by me. It includes menu items, navigation, static pages etc which is properly translated among the two languages User-uploaded content: It includes ads/news posted by the user which may not be translated to Arabic if they chose not to do it. Now if somebody goes to the Arabic website and check a news item that doesn't have an Arabic translation, it will show the English title. I am assuming, serving content in a different language that is specified in the hreflang is a straight no, right?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 17, 2017, 9:39 AM | MozammilStorat0 -
Help article / Knowledge base SEO consideration
Hi everyone, I am in the process of building the knowledge base for our SaaS product and I am afraid it could impact us negatively on the SEO side because of: Thin content on pages containing short answers to specific questions Keyword cannibalisation between some of our blog articles and the knowledge base articles I didn't find much on the impact of knowledge bases on SEO when I searched on Google. So I'm hoping we can use this thread to share a few thoughts and best practices on this topic. Below is a bit more details on the issues I face, any tips on how to address them would be most welcome. 1. Thin content: Some articles will have thin content by design: the H1 will be a specific question and there will be only 2 or 3 lines of text answering it in the article. I think creating a dedicated article per question is better than grouping 20 questions on one article from a UX point of view, because this will enable us to direct users more quickly to the answer when they use the live search function inside the software (help widget) or on the knowledge base (saves them the need to scrolling a long article to find the answer). Now the issue is that this will result in lots of pages with thin content. A workaround could be to have both a detailed FAQ style page with all the questions and answers, and individual articles for each question on top of that. The FAQ style page could be indexed in Google while the individual articles would have either a noIndex directive or a rel canonical to the FAQ style page. Have any of you faced similar issues when setting-up your knowledge base? Which approach would you recommend? 2.Keyword cannibalisation: There will be, to some extend, a level of keyword cannibalisation between our blog articles (which rank well) and some of the knowledge base articles. While we want both types of articles to appear in search, we don't want the "How to do XYZ" blog article containing practical tips to compete with the "How to do XYZ in the software" knowledge base article. Do you have any advice on how to achieve that? Having a specific Schema.org (or equivalent) type of markup to differentiate between the 2 types of articles would have been ideal but I couldn't find anything relating to help articles specifically when I searched.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 10, 2016, 1:11 PM | tbps0 -
Ecommerce: A product in multiple categories with a canonical to create a ‘cluster’ in one primary category Vs. a single listing at root level with dynamic breadcrumb.
OK – bear with me on this… I am working on some pretty large ecommerce websites (50,000 + products) where it is appropriate for some individual products to be placed within multiple categories / sub-categories. For example, a Red Polo T-shirt could be placed within: Men’s > T-shirts >
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 5, 2015, 12:53 PM | AbsoluteDesign
Men’s > T-shirts > Red T-shirts
Men’s > T-shirts > Polo T-shirts
Men’s > Sale > T-shirts
Etc. We’re getting great organic results for our general T-shirt page (for example) by clustering creative content within its structure – Top 10 tips on wearing a t-shirt (obviously not, but you get the idea). My instinct tells me to replicate this with products too. So, of all the location mentioned above, make sure all polo shirts (no matter what colour) have a canonical set within Men’s > T-shirts > Polo T-shirts. The presumption is that this will help build the authority of the Polo T-shirts page – this obviously presumes “Polo Shirts” get more search volume than “Red T-shirts”. My presumption why this is the best option is because it is very difficult to manage, particularly with a large inventory. And, from experience, taking the time and being meticulous when it comes to SEO is the only way to achieve success. From an administration point of view, it is a lot easier to have all product URLs at the root level and develop a dynamic breadcrumb trail – so all roads can lead to that one instance of the product. There's No need for canonicals; no need for ecommerce managers to remember which primary category to assign product types to; keeping everything at root level also means there no reason to worry about redirects if product move from sub-category to sub-category etc. What do you think is the best approach? Do 1000s of canonicals and redirect look ‘messy’ to a search engine overtime? Any thoughts and insights greatly received.0 -
What are the effects of having Multiple Redirects for pages under the same domain
Dear Mozers, First of all let me wish you all a Very Happy, Prosperous, Healthy, Joyous & Successful New Year ! I'm trying to analyze one of the website's Web Hosting UK Com Ltd. and during this process I've had this question running through my mind. This project has been live since the year 2003 and since then there have be changes made to the website (obviously). There have also been new pages been added, the same way some new pages have even been over-written with changes in the url structures too. Now, coming back to the question, if I've have a particular url structure in the past when the site was debuted and until date the structure has been changes thrice (for example) with a 301 redirect to every back dated structure, WOULD it impact the sites performance SEOwise ? And let's say that there's hundreds of such redirections under the same domain, don't you think that after a period of time we should remove the past pages/urls from the server ? That'd certainly increase the 404 (page not found) errors, but that can be taken care of. How sensible would it be to keep redirecting the bots from one url to the other when they only visit a site for a short stipulated time? To make it simple let me explain it with a real life scenario. Say if I was staying a place A then switched to a different location in another county say B and then to C and so on, and finally got settled at a place G. When I move from one place to another, I place a note of the next destination I'm moving to so that any courier/mail etc. can be delivered to my current whereabouts. In such a case there's a less chance that the courier would travel all the destinations to deliver the package. Similarly, when a bot visits a domain and it finds multiple redirects, don't you think that it'd loose the efficiency in crawling the site? Ofcourse, imo. the redirects are important, BUT it should be there (in htaccess) for only a period of say 3-6 months. Once the search engine bots know about the latest pages, the past pages/redirects should be removed. What are your opinions about this ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 2, 2014, 4:18 PM | eukmark0 -
Keep multiple domains or combine them?
I need some help figuring out if I should combine multiple domains or if I should let them be separate? I have domain1.com, domain2.com, and domain3.com. Well, domain1.com owns domain2.com and domain3.com. And currently domain1.com points to domain2.com and domain3.com from the homepage. They are going through some changes at their business, and now the option is on the table to combine the domains or still let them be separate as long as they link to each other. What is the best way to handle this and are there more things I should go through before making a decision? None of them have a ton of links to them, and they aren't super robust, but would just to have some advice. Thanks a lot
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 24, 2013, 1:15 PM | Rocket.Fuel0 -
Multiple Domain names pointing at one website
Hello, A collegue has asked if we can buy multiple domain names which contain keywords and point them at our website. Is this good practise or will it be seen as spam? Will these domains actually get ranked? I'm sure I'm not the first person to raise this but can't seem to find any questions and answers about this. Thanks Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jul 23, 2013, 9:53 PM | markc-1971830