Multiple sites - ownership & link structure
-
Hi All
I am in the process of creating a number of sites within the garden products sector; each site will have unique, original content and there will be no cross over. So for example I will have one on lawn mowers, one on greenhouses, another on garden furniture etc.
My original thinking was to create a single limited company that would own each of the domains, therefore all the registrant details will be identical.
Is this a sensible thing to do? (I want to be totally white hat)
And what, if any, are the linking opportunities between each of the sites? (16 in total). Not to increase ranking, more from an authoritative perspective.
And finally, how should I link between each site? Should I no follow the links? Should I use keyword contextual links?
Any advice ideas would be appreciated
Please note: It has been suggested that I just create one BIG site. I've decided against this as I want to use the keyword for each website in the domain name as I believe this still has value.
Thanks
-
Yes, one of my exact match domains outranks a much stronger domain even with thin content and zero marketing efforts. It don't think it should and I don't think it always will outrank stronger domains.
-
Thanks EGOL, much appreciated.
-
Sounds like it has to be an exact keyword match for the domain to be effective according to EGOL. I have some exact keyword domains and I will have to look into this too. I sounds like it is okay to add a link to a main site as long as it is a no follow from the responses so far. Hopefully more info is forthcoming.
Boo
-
Most of the sites that I own are exact match keyword domains. I think that they still have some bonus value in the search engines but I believe that they were cut significantly in February 2011.
If you have domains like GardenFurniture.com or LawnMowers.com then I might agree with you and use the method that you propose.... however, if you have domains like LawnMowerReview.com then I would strongly vote for putting everything into one huge site.
Anybody can register a domain like LawnMowerBob or LawnMowerSomething... why should google give extra credit for that?
In my opinion the "exact match" keyword domains are effective, but "keywords in the domain" are nothing special.
And... any linking that you would do between your sixteen sites would be more dangerous than valuable.
That's just one opinion... but my opinion on this is firm enough that I would use it as a rule for my business.
-
Thanks Brian...should have checked webmaster tools befor posing the question!
As I replied to EGOL the reason for the individual sites is that I wanted to get the primary keyword for each in the domain (for example gardenfurniturereview.co.uk, or shedsreview.co.uk) and build focussed authoritative sites for each. Do you think the keyword in the domain is still relevant?
-
Thanks EGOL, the reason for the individual sites is that I wanted to get the primary keyword for each in the domain (for example gardenfurniturereview.co.uk, or shedsreview.co.uk) and build focussed authoritative sites for each. Do you think the keyword in the domain is still relevant?
-
If you go to Google Webmaster Central, you will see a mantra of non-following interlinks for sites under your control. The amount of risk you are undertaking with interlinking depends how you do it and the how your link profile looks overall. Do-follow contextual links in the footer would be the most risky and a bad idea. If you put a single do-follow link to another store/site (using the store name in the anchor) in the "About Us" page, you may be safe but I have read reports of getting a -10 for doing even this.
Ultimately, the more you leverage your sites for juice - the more risk you undertake (pardon the stating the obvious).
BTW, I concur with EGOL about doing one big site. I've done it both ways and everything is so much easier if you focus on a single store. Better to spread your icing nice and thick over a cupcake than thinly over a sheet cake.
-
If you create one big store your average shopping cart value will be higher because people who need garden furniture might also want something for their plants. And, one big site would impress the visitor more and be much less work for you to maintain.
And what, if any, are the linking opportunities between each of the sites? (16 in total). Not to increase ranking, more from an authoritative perspective.
huh? Authoritative perspective?
Wouldn't one big site be more authoritative?
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
-
Improve Site Performance by Removing/Replacing Widgets & Plugins?
We completed a Wordpress redesign of our website in December. The project took about 8 months. Important URLs on the new site are performing slowly according to Google Page Speed Insights. For instance, a key product page gets a score of 18 on mobile and 61 on desktop. Home page scores 37 on mobile and 80 on desktop. My new SEO believes the website is hindered by an excessive number of plugins and widgets. That reducing the number of these may increase performance. Also, my developers were unable to get WT3 Total Cache to work with our InMotion server and have used about 3 plugins for cache. We purchased a real estate theme (wpcasa) and heavily customized it. Any suggestions for improveing performance? If we recoded the website from scratch without a pre existing theme (using the existing design) would that speed up performance? Is there anything we can do remove complexity and improve URL download speeds? We are in a very competitive niche and we need decent performance in order to rank. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
Alan1 -
Is it bad for SEO to have a page that is not linked to anywhere on your site?
Hi, We had a content manager request to delete a page from our site. Looking at the traffic to the page, I noticed there were a lot of inbound links from credible sites. Rather than deleting the page, we simply removed it from the navigation, so that a user could still access the page by clicking on a link to it from an external site. Questions: Is it bad for SEO to have a page that is not directly accessible from your site? If no: do we keep this page in our Sitemap, or remove it? If yes: what is a better strategy to ensure the inbound links aren't considered "broken links" and also to minimize any negative impact to our SEO? Should we delete the page and 301 redirect users to the parent page for the page we had previously hidden?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jnew9290 -
Multiple Keywords for a site
I have a client that is OBSESSED with KWP ranking (don't go there...I know) This client offers multiple services, dog boarding, dog grooming, dog training, dog daycare and dog walking. Essentially these are our focus. She ranks on page one for all of these words (locally of course) BUT she wants to rank in positions 1 and 2 for all of these words. Here's my rub, with her limited budget, we focus on 1 word (and associated long tails like "dog boarding in the south loop) and it takes a couple of months to zoom up to positions 1 or 2 (not counting map pack....she wants ORGANIC) While we're focusing on this 1 word, the others maintain their ranking or slip a few spots (like from 6 to 😎 Conversions average about about 1 a day, organic traffic is roughly 1000 hits a month. In your opinion is it better to split this focus between the 5 target words every month, more slowly building ranking, but maintaining it for longer periods of time. Or do it the way we have been chase dog boarding, then chase training, and so on. It just seems like we are CONSTANTLY chasing something while something else falls. Thanks Tracy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lkilera0 -
Linking from a corporate site to a brand site.
Is there an SEO impact to a large corporation linking from a corporate and/or a divisional site to a specific brand site with it's own top level domain? We would like to keep the traffic coming, but not if it will be seen as a black hat tactic. My guess is that Google will be smart enough to see that the corporation owns the brand and at least not penalize us, but I am wondering if anyone else has this experience? Google Analytics is calling it self-referral.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mrbobland0 -
Help needed for a 53 Page Internal Website Structure & Internal Linking
Hey all... I'm designing the structure for a website that has 53 pages. Can you take a look at the attached diagram and see if the website structure is ok? On the attached diagram I have numbered the pages from 1 to 53, with 1 being the most important home page - 2,3,4,5, being the next 4 important pages - 6,7,8... 15,16,17 being the 3rd set of important pages, and 18,19,20..... 51,52,53 being the last set of pages which are the easiest to rank. I have two questions: Is the website structure for this correct? I have made sure that all pages on the website are reachable. Considering the home page, and page number 2,3,4,5 are the most important pages - I am linking out to these pages from the the last set of pages (18,29,20...51,52,53). There are 36 pages in the last set - and out of this 36, from 24 of them I am linking back to home page and page number 2,3,4,5. The remaining 8 pages of the 36 will link back to pages 6,7,8...15,16,17. In total the most importnat page will have the following number of internal incoming links: Home Page : 25 Pages 2,3,4,5 : 25 Pages 6,7,8...15,16,17 : 4 Pages 18,19,20...51,52,53 : 1 Is this ok considering home page, and pages 2,3,4,5 are the most important? Or do you think I should divide and give more internal links to the other pages also? If you can share any inputs or suggestions to how I can improve this it will greatly help me. Also if you know any references for good guides to internal linking of websites greater that 50 pages please share them in the answers. Thank you all! Regards, P.S - The URL for the image is at http://imgur.com/XqaK4
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | arjun.rajkumar810 -
Do I have to tell WBT site moved to a subdirectory on another internal site?
I am moving content from one site to another and redirecting the DNS from www.oldsite.com to www.newsite.com/old-site. I have put the 301 in place but I wanted to make sure I have to also tell Webmaster Tools to change the old site to the new domain? We still want the old domain name to answer and redirect to www.newsite.com/old-site. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | GeorgeLaRochelle0 -
I currently have a client that has multiple domains for multiple brands that share the same IP Address. Will link juice be passed along to the different sites when they link to one another or will it simply be considered internal linking?
I have 7 brands that are owned by the same company, each with their own domain. The brands work together to form products that are then sold to the consumer although there is not a e-commerce aspect to any of the sites. I am looking to create a modified link wheel between the sites, but didn't know if my efforts would pay off due to the same IP Address for all the sites. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HughesDigital0 -
One site or five sites for geo targeted industry
OK I'm looking to try and generate traffic for people looking for accommodation. I'm a big believer in the quality of the domain being used for SEO both in terms of the direct benefit of it having KW in it but also the effect on CTR a good domain can have. So I'm considering these options: Build a single site using the best, broad KW-rich domain I can get within my budget. This might be something like CheapestHotelsOnline.com Advantages: Just one site to manage/design One site to SEO/market Better potential to resell the site for a few million bucks Build 5 sites, each catering to a different region using 5 matching domains within my budget. These might be domains like CheapHotelsEurope.com, CheapHotelsAsia.com etc Advantages: Can use domains that are many times 'better' by adding a geo-qualifier. This should help with CTR and search Can be more targeted with SEO & Marketing So hopefully you see the point. Is it worth the dilution of SEO & marketing activities to get the better domain names? I'm chasing the longtail searchs whetever I do. So I'll be creating 5K+ pages each targeting a specific area. These would be pages like CheapestHotelsOnline.com/Europe/France/Paris or CheapHoteslEurope.com/France/Paris to target search terms targeting hotels in Paris So with that thought, is SEO even 100% diluted? Say, a link to the homepage of the first option would end up passing 1/5000th of value through to the Paris page. However a link to the second option would pass 1/1000th of the link juice through to the Paris page. So by thet logic, one only needs to do 1/5th of the work for each of the 5 sites ... that implies total SEO work would be the same? Thanks as always for any help! David
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | OzDave0