New domains

[maninderwalia]

Hi!I have a website related to natural stones eg Granite Marble etc.
When I consulted a senior web site specialist he told me that its better to have new domain names like xyzgranite.com or abcmarble.com and redirect to the present site as this would generate more traffic and is easy to promote but what I thought was that its better to optimise the present site specially the pages say xyz.com/granite.htm or marble rather than purchasing new domains.
Whats your opinion?

[MazY]

You are absolutely right.

Whilst it "may" have a benefit to have a domain name with the keywords included within it. It is in no way absolutely required.

Stick with the page names granite.htm, etc and make sure the page content relates to the main theme. You'll be just fine.

[MsSearch]

I'm with Mazy on this one.

For the majority of engines, having a keyword-rich domain will only give you a slight boost and to go thru all the effort to set up many of them for a slight boost, in my opinion, isn't worth it. (Except for Yahoo..where the keyword-rich URL plays an important factor in your ranking)

The main site should be optimized and listed in the engines, especially for brand awareness.

[maninderwalia]

Hi!Thanks both of you for your suggestions.
Result: Stick to the same site and concentrate on optimizing its pages rather than purchasing keyword rich domains.

[ihelpyou]

:thumb:

[JuniorHarris]

Great advice!~ Though a keyword rich domain name might give a slight advantage, it is still very possible for a non-keyword domain name to out rank those domains through effective content and proper optimization. We have several pages which out rank keyword domain names, so focus on the existing site and leverage the existing link popularity and content.

[Babyboarder]

Hi All

Kind of off on a tangent her but ...

So if I have the domain name greatscotlandoffers.com is it worth while or would we be better promoting one url. Would a search engine pick up on the scotland bit of this for example? We currently have about 100 such domains and if they're not serving any benefit we should just remove them and replace them with our generic url thus building the brand.

Thanks in advance

babyboarder

[ihelpyou]

If you use a different Url to promote entirely unique content to the other site, then it is perfectly fine and will help you. If you simply are doing it to get more ranks and will not have very much different on the Urls, then do Not do it.

[MazY]

Yes it would pick it up, in many cases. (Try to rmember that a keyword rich domain name will not always do as well as a relevant site.) If that were not the case then my site vbmedia.co.uk (with no mention of web or promotion etc.) would do appauling in the rankings.

The question I would ask is why go through the hassle of maintaining about 100 domains when you have one (which I know) very good one. Build your brand, concentrate on the one domain and make it the definitive source of information for what you have.

The only reason I would suggest hanging on to the other 100 or so is to stop the competition from getting them. It also gives you a greater degree of flexibility for future expansion.

But as for turning them in to real sites. Not at this stage, would be my advice. Cut down on your admin and prove to the management that it can be done first. Then hit them with the big world domination plans! :D

[Babyboarder]

:cheers:

Advice, as ever, most valuable!

babyboarder