Thanks for the insight.  We were also leaning that route.

Just a note: Site B isn't receiving much traffic anymore (maybe 1K visitors a day).  Has been in a steady decline for quite some time simply due to lack of time and effort towards it.

OK - so we currently own two websites that are in the same industry.

Site A is our main site which hosts real estate listings and rentals in Canada and the US.

Site B hosts rentals in Canada only.

We are shutting down site B to concentrate solely on Site A, and will be looking to redirect all traffic from Site B to Site A, ie. user lands on Toronto Rentals page on Site B, we're looking to forward them off to Toronto Rentals page on Site A, and so on.  Site A has all the same locations and property types as Site B.

On to the question:

We are trying to figure out the best method of doing this that will appease both users and the Google machine.  Here's what we've come up with (2 options):

When user hits Site B via Google/bookmark/whatever, do we:

1. Automatically/instantly (301) redirect them to the applicable page on Site A?

2. Present them with a splash page of sorts ("This page has been moved to Site A.  Please click the following link <insert anchor="" text="" rich="" url="" here="">to visit the new page.").</insert>

We're worried that option #1 might confuse some users and are not sure how crawlers might react to thousands of instant redirects like that.

Option #2 would be most beneficial to the end-user (we're thinking) as they're being notified, on page, of what's going on.  Crawlers would still be able to follow the URL that is presented within the splash write-up.

Thoughts?  We've never done this before.  It's basically like one site acquiring another site; however, in this case, we already owned both sites.  We just don't have time to take care of Site B any longer due to the massive growth of Site A.

Thanks for any/all help.

• Marc

My thoughts exactly (and other great points by other comments here).

There are many factors that go into this issue, and of course, I'd love to have say, houses.com or realestate.com for a website that was offering real estate for sale.  But that doesn't mean that I should create some long-winded, keyword-stuffed domain name (real-estate-and-homes-houses-for-sale.com) as that will not do anything for my cause.

I'm sure, as everybody has pointed out, that there is still some consideration into the domain match for the genre in question; however, domain name are basically impossible to come by nowadays for any popular/common item you are planning on building a website around.  I'm sure the search engines have also thought about that.

But in all honesty, look at a lot of the major players in any niche, and majority of them have a unique, highly-branded name that doesn't have anything to do with the industry.  Not to say you shouldn't do it, but with a legitimate link-building campaign and top-notch SEO tactics deployed throughout the site, you can rank for anything under any domain name.

You are correct in that "exact match domain names" are dying out, and that is due entirely in part to spammers (don't they just ruin everything??). It's all about branding now, which means you can basically have any domain name you want and rank for anything you want. Mind you, you're not going to see cars.com trying to rank for telephones anytime soon, but you know what I mean. While it might be tempting, it is not necessary to have your niche keyword in your domain name anymore. Last I heard, Bing was the only search engine actually taking these things into consideration, and that was over a year ago, so I'm not sure whether they still do.

Well, is it content only available to French-Canadian's?  For example, would your company's services be relevant to somebody from, say, Dallas, Texas in the US?  Is any of your services relevant to English speaking people?  And if so, what is the percentage?

Build your site for your clients/customers/users, and whatever makes sense to them.  If only French speaking/reading people will be visiting your site (for the most part), then build everything in French (including URL's), as it will be legible.  For the same reason you a Hindu site might not be relevant to you, regardless of their services (taking a stab in the dark that you might not know Hindu; I apologize if I'm wrong

You know what I mean?  Bottom-line: build for your users and what is going to generate the greatest ROI.

Perhaps the GA code isn't executing in time?  Do you have a slow loading page?  Where is the GA tracking code placed within your page?

The numbers shouldn't be that far off, that's for sure.

Exactly.  I don't think there is much SEO value to be honest; however, on a highly-trafficked site it will definitely help spread the word of your affiliations.

But like I said, don't try and get sneaky with the keywords.  In my opinion, stick to the brand name anchor text.

It's perfectly legit in my opinion, as long as it's honest.  Rule of thumb is only make changes/additions to your site where if penalized, you have a valid, honest explanation.  If you can't explain yourself, well, they'll have no mercy on you.

BTW, here's another example: http://oldnavy.gap.com/

My only suggestion to stay on the safe side would be to not use keyword-stuffed anchor text.  I would recommend using the brand name when cross-linking instead.

Take this site for example: http://www.hometrader.ca/  Go to the footer and see how they link to each of their sister sites under Partners.

"good mix of link directories and natural links"

Exactly, that's what I was missing in my first reply.

You're still going to need those legitimately earned backlinks to go within your link portfolio.  Just replying on 50,000 directory submissions might get you a burst up front, but that will fade away very, very quickly.

I am yet to find any harm in these (assuming you don't post to ones that carry bad links, ie. outbound links to gambling sites, xxx sites, etc).

If link directories were so bad, how come some of them are as respected by Google as they are (PR7/8/9's).

Just don't go overboard, and don't expect a whole lot from them.  Get your keywords right, and use approx. 10 different keywords/phrases throughout.  Also throw in your brand name as a set of anchor text.

So, let's say you found a package to submit to 1,000 directories.  Chop that into 10 different anchor text's (max, and 10 might be pushing it), so you'll now get approx. 100 links to different pages of your site with different anchor texts.  And don't forget to use your brand name for 100 of those.

Like you said, every time I do research on competitor's backlinks, they always, and I means always, have thousands of links in link directories, and are top 3 in the SERP's.  So I have found it hard to believe that it's a bad practice, even though every SEO guru on the planet will try and tell you otherwise.

Perhaps the GA code isn't executing in time?  Do you have a slow loading page?  Where is the GA tracking code placed within your page?

The numbers shouldn't be that far off, that's for sure.

You must look at ranking in the SERP's as a popularity contest, so-to-speak.  Backlinks by way of websites and social mediums are votes and can/will determine your placement in the search results.

Your chosen keywords/phrases might be extremely competitive, as well.  When starting out with a site, it's best to select some niche, lower volume keywords, which are often more long-tail than the aggresive, highly-competitive 1-3 word keyphrases.  Trust me, going for the gusto right off the bat will only leave you more and more frustrated as the years go on.  You can always adjust your keywords down the road once you've established a good roll of backlinks and visitors to continue being more competitive.

And as I mentioned in an earlier post today, don't just focus on Google.  There are other search engines out there as well, and you'd be making a large mistake in focusing solely on Google for SERP's as Bing/Yahoo holds a decent market share, too.

Keep trucking.  SEO is an art-form.  It's not something just anybody can do on a whim and expect to get to #1 overnight.  It might be wise to invest in an SEO team to help get you pointed in the right direction.

• Marc

Yes to your first questions.  Here's the process for each (as I see it):

1. Fix/remove the ability for system to generate ?print URL's and implement canonical tags; open beer and wait 'til search engines sort things out.  Nothing more you can do here.

2. No fix to system so we still have ?print URL's.  In this case, setup the 301's in your .htaccess file; however, as long as the system is still generating these ?print URLs, you will have to keep the redirects in the .htaccess in tact, permanently.

Untested:

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteRule ^([^/]*).html?print$ /$1.html [L,NC,R=301]

Always optimize for the user, not for the bots.

What I mean by that is, create titles that are typically phrases that make sense to people as they'll be more willing to click on that result within the SERP's.

The title tag is simply just a one-liner of what the page is about, just in a catchy way.  If it looks/sounds robotic, people will notice, and in turn, crawlers will notice.

To fully answer your question: unique is always better.  Creating custom title tags whenever possible, outside of the template, robotic style, will warrant you better results.

I am yet to find any harm in these (assuming you don't post to ones that carry bad links, ie. outbound links to gambling sites, xxx sites, etc).

If link directories were so bad, how come some of them are as respected by Google as they are (PR7/8/9's).

Just don't go overboard, and don't expect a whole lot from them.  Get your keywords right, and use approx. 10 different keywords/phrases throughout.  Also throw in your brand name as a set of anchor text.

So, let's say you found a package to submit to 1,000 directories.  Chop that into 10 different anchor text's (max, and 10 might be pushing it), so you'll now get approx. 100 links to different pages of your site with different anchor texts.  And don't forget to use your brand name for 100 of those.

Like you said, every time I do research on competitor's backlinks, they always, and I means always, have thousands of links in link directories, and are top 3 in the SERP's.  So I have found it hard to believe that it's a bad practice, even though every SEO guru on the planet will try and tell you otherwise.