Forwarded domains and search engines

[debbidoo]

Hello SEO bods :)

A client has asked me a question and I'm not sure of the answer, so I thought one of you lovelies might step in and enlighten me :D

The client has registered a few domain names which are all keyword-rich, and he wants to forward all of them to another keyword-rich domain, which will have content on it.

How do the search engines view that?

Let's try an example. Say the site that will actually have the content on it is cakes-and-buns-emporium.com, and the domains the client is forwarding to that are sticky-buns.com, chocolate-cakes.com and bun-and-cake-shop.com.

Let's say a visitor searches Google for "sticky buns"; theoretically, will sticky-buns.com (which forwards to the populated site) come up in the results? (assuming the right sort of optimisation and link building have been carried out, that is). Or would Google be most likely to show the populated site, which would have been optimised for the phrase "sticky buns" amongst others?

I'll be interested to see the answers to this :)

Thanks for your time,

Debs :)

[ComputerCoders]

Although the authority is in the domain name, the well optimised sites which might or might not contain the keywords would rank higher. You couldn't use a doorway page because that is blackhat. The could, however, use the new domain name as a completely separated specialism of the main business. The disadvantage of this would be that you'd be halving your efforts on two separate sites.

My advice would be to stick with the one site unless you're genuinely branching off into different but related areas.

[Vision2]

If your client is determined to utlise multiple domains, just forward them for time being, or deploy sites with specific product sets on them, rigged up (linked) to the master site.

Building up a few sites for different product ranges with a master site which deploys many froma branded site point of view is sometimes worthwhile, as you can build up a brand domain and keyword domains without dumping 10's of thousands other things.

obviously, be careful of duplicate.

It's all relative through :)

[debbidoo]

Hmm it's a bit more complicated than that. Perhaps the example I gave wasn't a very good one...

The client already has a website covering all of his services. He's just added a new service to his portfolio, and has added a page about this service to his main website. He also wants a separate website (1 page plus contact page) on a keyword-rich domain, describing this new service, with similar content to the service-specific page of his website (but not the same, because of duplicate content issues).

In the meantime, he's discovered that people search for this service using a variety of keyword combinations, so in addition to the new website we're about to build for his new service (1 page plus contact page), he's registered a few extra domains with the keywords jiggled around a bit. And now he's not sure if he's done the right thing.

We discussed the possibility of forwarding these new domains (which he doesn't want to populate with content) to the 2-page service-specific site, and that's when we discovered that neither of us were sure whether there would be any search implications for this or not.

I hope that makes a bit more sense :D

Thanks for your input so far - appreciated :)

[Vision2]

not overly, suggest he creates some new sites if there is enough to warrent it, but sounds to me like he needs to invest in his first site more than anything else.

[OldWelshGuy]

This is the 4th or 5th time in 2 days this has come up. Has some clown sorry, i meant 'guru' covered this in his/her newsletter or something?

Domains mean absolutely nothing on their own, it is content on, and KW rich natural links that make the difference.

[debbidoo]

Sorry James - my bad. I didn't check for other posts, just posted the question in a hurry.

No, as far as I know it wasn't prompted by any guru :D I guess it's just one of those issues that comes up a lot, eh? Opportunity for you to write a nice juicy blog post on the subject - don't miss it ;)

D :)

[crossdaz]

Domains mean absolutely nothing on their own, it is content on, and KW rich natural links that make the difference.

Sanity returns :)

[OldWelshGuy]

Sorry James - my bad. I didn't check for other posts, just posted the question in a hurry.

No, as far as I know it wasn't prompted by any guru :D I guess it's just one of those issues that comes up a lot, eh? Opportunity for you to write a nice juicy blog post on the subject - don't miss it ;)

D :)

Twasn't a criticism, it was an observation..

@dazzy " sanity returns"? ME.... SANE :D

[Vision2]

IT + sane == no chance :)