Purchasing local domains for SEO
-
Hi,
I'm considering buying domains to help build our SEO traffic. But, I'm looking for some advice on whether or not this can hurt us.
For example, if our site is www.brandname.com and the site is all about online education, would it beneficial for us to purchase a local domain like education.boston.com and optimize with unique content so we can point back to our own site (if "education boston" is a high volume keyword)?
Thanks!
-
Great, this is super helpful. Thank you both for the information as well as your suggestions.
-
As Takeshi mentioned, doing this in a sustainable and long-term way is very resource intensive.
I'm generalizing, but I would personally look at building out subpages, whole site sections, and resources on your existing site, rather than new domains. You're much more likely to get links to a subpage or section that has killer resources and information than you are to get them to a new small-ish site. The coverage you're going to get from external efforts, such as writing top-notch articles and getting them placed on respected sites might also be worth exploring as an alternative.
If you can do all of this as well as build out new sites with unique content, then go for it.
-
Building out a second or third site is a resource intensive task. Not only will you have to generate content & links for your main site, you will also have to create content & links for your secondary site for them to have any value. You are effectively doubling your work.
If you have the resources for it, it can be a good strategy for taking up multiple slots in the search results, as well as creating a source of links that your competitors cannot duplicate. However, be aware of the effort it will take you and weigh the costs & benefits.
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
-
How do the powerful links of an old domain help my new domain?
I recently purchased a domain with over twenty years age, a few .gov links and A LOT of .edu links. Of course, the domain is relevant to my site's content. I'm hosting the domain on my shared server and have setup 301 redirects for each page that had external links pointing to it via the htaccess file within the domain's root directory. These 301 redirects, of course, point to my new domain, which is on a dedicated server. Specifically, they point to a directory on my new domain. I've also verified the purchased domain and my new domain on Google Search Console/Webmaster Tools. Finally, I've completed a google site change request for the old site to point to my new site. My questions: Should I also list my old domain on the dedicated server over the shared server or does it matter? Will the backlinks of the old site show up in my new site's links via Google's search console, Open Site Explorer, etc.? Will the backlinks of the old site improve the authority of my domain? Also, keep in mind that I have the 301 redirects pointing to a directory on my new site, not the root page of the new domain. Will the backlinks of the old site help my new domain's authority? In the eyes of Moz I've read, NO. I understand it's just a MOZ metric but from what I understand it also correlates with Google's actual 'authority' metric/method of giving value to a particular domain over another based on the backlinks. How exactly do the backlinks of the old domain benefit my new domain and is there a way to measure this/see the relationship? Thank you for any help you're willing to give!
Link Building | | ninel_P0 -
Where can I go to find the latest links to my domain?
I have checked the link analysis section and looked at link history. I have also checked Open Site Explorer but I can't seem to find a way to just show me the most recent links to my site . . .
Link Building | | BlueLinkERP0 -
Is it better to have a blog under your main website's domain or should the company's blog have its own domain?
Is it better to have a blog under your main website's domain or should the company's blog have its own domain? And if the blog is on its own domain, do links to the main site look good or bad to Google? Thanks! (And please feel free to add any other related advice you might have...)
Link Building | | Linda-Vassily0 -
How long should does it take before I see SEO results?
I am thinking about launching a website connected to Christmas - which gives me less then 2 months to develop and begin ranking for the site. Is this too short a timeframe and I should put off this plan until next year or can I actually begin ranking for low competitive keywords within my timeframe.
Link Building | | theLotter0 -
Parameter In URL passing SEO Value
Helllo I need help understanding the following scenario. We do campaign tracking for number of our sites using urt parameters. These are normally PR links with utm parameters. I am not sure if we should remove the utm parameter and forget about tracking the links completely if it offers an added SEO value with direct links OR we just keep using utm parameters for PR tracking and use canonical tag instead on respective pages. For me SEO value is most important. But i am trying to understand what i am losing or gaining. Kindly sugggest Thanks
Link Building | | CUnet0 -
Forex SEO resources
Hi, We are currently in the process of launching a value-added service website for Forex traders. We have done on-page optimizations and are climbing up the rankings for both Google and Bing. We have first page and top three rankings for most of the easier keywords we optimized for. Thus I think we have stretched our on-page SEO to it's limits and are now considering our off-page strategy. Does anyone here have experience with the Forex space? Can anyone point me to important SEO resources specific to this space? Thank you!
Link Building | | Eladla0 -
Charity / Donation - Website and SEO
I have a prospective client looking to do SEO- they are a charity and have a fixed one time budget. (The budget is surprisingly high) They are looking to have their site ranked for "charities in (our city)" and "dental charities" and any keyword variations. Adwords shows significant search volume and ranking difficulty is moderate per SEOmoz keyword difficulty tool. On page will be fairly simple and well handled, but am looking more towards the authority and link building. I am going to tackle 3 top quality directories, Yahoo, BOTW, and Business.com (as well as DMOZ but i've never had luck). But was wondering if there were any other nationally recognized sources that mozzers know about that would be a good place to start to get some links to the site. The organization is a clinic that provides free dental work to veterans. I have never handled SEO for a charity before, and my first instinct is that getting a link to the site will be much easier to get than if I ask them to give money to the foundation, so they would be glad to do it. Any other guidance would be appreciated. And I can give more details if necessary. Any other tips and insight would be appreciated. Thank you! Ian
Link Building | | itrogers0 -
Does anyone have any experience getting local DMOZ listings?
I have a client with a business that has locations in about 20 different states. Can I get them local listings in DMOZ? If so, how?
Link Building | | DGSEO0