domain name question.

[G. Lasagne]

Probably a stupid question but if you had a domain name of say www.shoes.co.uk and were selling shoes would this help you for seor/ranking. And can you have as many website domain names as you like linking to the same website. only reason i ask is that virtually all my chosen ketywords are available as domain names i.e boilerrepairnewcastle.co.uk etc.

cheers:|

 

[G. Lasagne]

its just i notice b&Q have the domain name www.diy.co.uk and not www.b&q.co.uk

 

[JustOneUK]

its just i notice b&Q have the domain name www.diy.co.uk and not www.b&q.co.uk

You can't have an & sign in a domain. ..they do own BandQ.co.uk

Here's my take on keywords in a domain, hope it makes sense

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Just to clear something up GA. You can have 100 domain names pointing to a site, but only one will matter and that is the main domain. Forwarding lots of domains to get better rankings is a myth that was brought about by people mixing up cause and effect. They would look at a competitor, notice they had 20 domains poitning to their site, and assume that it was the multiple domains that were getting the site to the top.

The reality was that the company had used the black hat method of bait and switch.
1. get a domain
2. build a site
3 submit it and get lots of backlinks
4. 301 redirect the site (and links) to the main domain.

BUT having a keyword rich domain will help you with the correct anchor text, so the short answer is yep, it will make it easier to rank, but the domain name itself will not!

 

[G. Lasagne]

thanks lads so if for arguments sake i wanted to rank my site (i only have one) higher would having lots of domain names (all linked to my 1 site) which were keyword rich help or would i be penalised for using black hat tactics? i only would want to rank my sight and not the other domain names? its not something im considering particularily i was just curious. cheers

 

[OldWelshGuy]

It would be a waste of time and money, you just as well buy books, write the domain names out 100 times on each page and put them in a drawer in the kitchen. Same affect it will have .

 

[G. Lasagne]

great post justoneuk about keyword domains, from what i have read i would say that the answer would be yes it is a good idea, but then again i am struggling to understand a lot of seo stuff. should maybe leave it to the pros.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

GA, don't confuse what you read on Justone's link as being relevant to lots of domains pointing to one site. it doesn't work like that. Domain benefit is one domain, the domain with the site on it.

 

[JustOneUK]

Thanks GasAngel.

If you already have a site then it's best to stick with it, it might be worth getting the domain for your MAIN keyword(s) if it is available (that is if you can decide what your main keyword(s) are), basically to stop a competitor getting it. it will have some value if you actually then put some content on it and build some links to it - but it gives you the dilemma of promoting 2 sites instead of 1. Best way is to get your keyword site right from the start but a lot of businesses like to get their business name into the domain as they want to feel like they are creating some kind of local branding.

hope this helps

James.

 

[Birmingham]

boilerrepairnewcastle.co.uk - if boiler repair in newcaste is one of the main things you do, take this domain name and use it! but put unique content on it rather than redirecting to a different domain. if by linking you mean adding a hyperlink on one site to be clicked to take the user to the other site, that's fine. but if by linking you mean an automatic redirect, that's no advantage for seo but no disadvantage either.

 

[ScottB]

Yeh the microsite strategy is a better way to go (assuming you can justify having a secondary site - i.e. you have enough content to add to it). The SEOmoz article on small business content strategies is a good starting point.

The value in any domain is the content on it and the promotion of that content. So with that in mind, simply forwarding / redirecting a domain to your main site has very little (if any) value because the domain has no content to be promoted. Plus search engines are clever enough to identify redirects that are in place just to capitalise on inbound link benefits of the domains.

Scott

 

[JustOneUK]

The value in any domain is the content on it and the promotion of that content.

Sure, but as I said it gives you the dilemma of promoting 2 sites instead of one.

I would probably put some content on there (with a link to your own site) and then forget about it forever... if someone ever goes there then you will have a good chance of getting a customer. I'd probably do something similar with up to 20 sites if I had a local business niche like plumber/carpenter/builder etc. That's one of the great things about the web (although some might disagree) for only a few pounds per year you can snap up a whole load of domains that your competition might otherwise like to have owned.