What to do with .net version of our domain name?
-
We recently bought the .net version of our domain name. Our plans are to use it for blogging and link to our .com site through it. Is this a good or bad idea? Why or why not? Is there a better use for the .net site?
-
Hi Kinsana,
It's almost always a good idea to start a blog! The more (quality) content you have, the better you will rank. However, I would reconsider your idea for two reasons:
- First of all, you generally want to concentrate the value of your entire website on one domain. This way your current website will all benefit from the SEO value you build with your blog. I'd therefore put the blog in a subfolder (www.example.com/blog/).
- I image it could be rather confusing for visitors to have two seperate websites for one company with exactly the same url (apart from the .net/.com obviously). Imagine a visitor landed on your blog via google and returns to your website the next day by typing your adress in the browser. The autocomplete function will send him to the .net version (based on history) and the visitor might not understand why your website seems to be nothing but a blog. If you are going to use two domains, at least make sure it's clear that one is a blog and the other one isn't.
Personally I agree with Adam, just redirect the .net to your .com and place your Blog elsewhere.
Best of luck!
Sven Witteveen
Expand Online -
-
301 redirect your .net to your.com.
-
Place your corporate blog in a folder (www.domain.com/blog) and not on a sub-domain (blog.domain.com) - this way you're blog will take advantage of the domain's authority.
As for linking back - you can do it this way too. PR transfers withing the domain too
-
-
I would recommend against using it for your company's main blog. Adding a quality blog to your main site is a very helpful way to improve your site. A blog should contain fresh content which is relevant both to your site and recent events. It is a way to bring in fresh traffic. Adding a blog to your main site will help increase the Domain Authority of your main site.
If you split your blog by adding it to another URL, a few challenges are created. First, you lose the advantages mentioned above. Secondly, you are linking from one site you control to another site you control which is not the type of link which Google values.
Otherwise simply redirecting your .net to your .com would be the current best practice.
It is a good idea to control the .net version of your site to better control your brand name. Depending on your hosting set up, you could use it to serve images or other content in parallel. I am not up on the latest site optimization techniques in that regard. Otherwise there is not much additional value owning the .net site offers.
-
I agree with Adam. 301 redirect the .net to your .com so you keep your link juice on your main site.
Many people use the .net versions as a safeguard to prevent competitors from using the namespace in the SERPs, especially on competitive keywords.
-
That's an OK idea. Personally, I would 301 the .net to your main domain and blog on your main domain. I'd rather have all your link juice pointed at the one domain.
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
-
Can I use expired domain content on My Blog
Hello Expert, I wanted to know, can I use expired domain content on my blog channel. I have done many searches on google but couldn't find a satisfactory answer. Please help me to find out this.
Content Development | | vijay77960 -
2 Domains, 1 Brand - Content Marketing Strategy Question
I have a customer that has two separate locations for the same business on two different URLs (both connected via Landing Page). I cannot change this. They are in the powersports industry (snowmobiles, ATVs, motorcycles, dirt bikes, etc). The locations are about 10 miles from one another, essentially sell the same brands & products (there are 1 or 2 exceptions), have the same target audience (local & from out-of-state), and have the same goals. They currently rank #1 and #2 for their industry in their area. They now want a content marketing strategy. I face limitations with the CMS (no blog abilities and technical issues that are out of my control), and content marketing can really only consist of custom graphics & custom page creation. Typically, custom pages are utilized by creating Brand Pages describing the major brands to built out authority in those categories, and then try to branch out from there to create individual product-category pages with more unique content to answer more of a question based on the intent. I am very concerned about creating content that will be too similar between the two locations and will thus compete with the other location, so I am thinking I should devise a completely different strategy for 1 location over the other. Is that a good idea? I think with the smaller location, I choose the typical route of creating brand pages, product pages, etc, and then with the bigger location, try to focus on unique content such as buyer's guide, local SEO ideas about the area, FAQs, testimonials, etc. Thoughts/ideas?
Content Development | | Crichardson19900 -
Country domain but multi-language
Hi all, We are a fullservice internet firm working from the Netherlands. Because of that we are working on a .nl domain. All related domains internationally are taken. Currently on Microdesign.nl we only write dutch, but we have a lot of Magento and e-commerce knowledge which is related to all customers, we also get some international attention for our extensions, themes and content. The thing is, what to do when i want to maintain more languages. (dutch and english). Would microdesign.nl/en or en.microdesign.nl rank internationally. or should i keep microdesign.nl due to the current ranking and get a .com kind of domain working with hreflang? many thanks in your insights.
Content Development | | mdaccount0 -
Wordpress Domain Options
We'd like to add more content to our ecommerce site so are considering adding a wordpress blog. Which domain option is the best for SEO? domain.com/blog blo.domain.com blog.wordpress.com
Content Development | | EileenCleary0 -
Blog on a separate domain
We want to set up a blog to discuss our industry. Is it better to set-up the blog on a domain that we buy and then link to it from our website or set-up a blog on a posterous account or something with a link?
Content Development | | AAttias0 -
Sub Domain vs New Domain
I have an existing blog separate from my main e-commerce site. (mainsite.com). Is there any advantage at all in moving the blog to a sub domain like blog.mainsite? I know putting it in a sub_folder_ is best. I don't want to do that because of security concerns. Handcrafter
Content Development | | stephenfishman0 -
Sub directory vs sub domain for company blog
My company's blog is currently a sub directory - www.site/blog.com but for technical ease we are considering changing it to a sub domain - www.blog.site.com. What are the SEO ramifications of each? Thank you! Best, Sara
Content Development | | theLotter0 -
What qualifies as a authoritative domain?
As SEOMOZ ranks Authority through percentage, at what percentage does a domain become authoritative? I'm looking for guest blogs/websites, which have a authoritative root domain to try and help increase our own auth and in turn rankings. So far I have found a few guest blogs, which have around 40-50% but I kind of think I need to find ones which are more like 70-80% for this to really work. Cheers
Content Development | | activitysuper1