Multiple Domain Names Pointing to One Site
Hi Jill –
I’ve only been subscribing to your newsletter for a short time, so
sorry if I missed the answer to my question.
I have heard through the grapevine that if you buy many domain names
and point them back to your home page, when the search engines find
this out they will shut you off. Is that true at all?
The company I represent has been hounded by a persistent “search
engine expert” who seems to be willing to say anything to get their
business. He claims he once had a client who had 50 domains all
pointing to the same front page. The search engines kicked them out,
and they had to cut it down to only a couple of domains. (My client
doesn’t have 50 domains or even close to that.)
Because of this guy’s expensive service to do “exclusive listings” on
Google and Overture, I’m not sure what to think, but perhaps I’m
missing something.
Thanks for your help.
Michele Riggs
~~~Jill’s Reply~~~
Hi Michele,
The short answer is that it’s very probable that the search engines
did remove the multiple domains that all pointed to one site. Think
about it…why would the engines want to have a whole bunch of doorway
domains in their databases? All they’re interested in are the actual
homepage and its contents.
However, the long answer to the question of removing multiple domains
is that it depends. There are legitimate reasons why a company might
have numerous domains/sites that provide unique content and
information but also happen to link back to the main company homepage.
For instance, take a corporation like Procter & Gamble. You have the
main P&G site, but you also have hundreds of sites for all the
different products that P&G markets. Each different product site has
its own domain name and a unique Web site that also has a link back to
the main homepage. No search engine would have a problem with this,
as it makes sense to set things up this way.
Where companies get into trouble is when they create multiple domains
solely for the purpose of attaining extra exposure in the search
engines. Years ago, this was a common search engine optimization
strategy (although it’s one I always felt was shortsighted). The
logic was that if one domain could bring in some rankings, just think
of how many rankings 10, 20 or 30 domains could bring in.
Another reason for doing this was the belief that keywords in the
domain name were somehow the secret weapon to obtaining high rankings!
Instead of optimizing the visible copy and HTML code of the pages,
many believed that all they needed was a keyword-rich domain (and of
course Meta tags…NOT!). Well, I’m sure many of you who tried this
technique found that this theory isn’t all it was cracked up to be.
Keywords in the domain name will help you only if you’re competing
against other sites that are equally unoptimized. Most engines give
the domain name very little (if any) weight, and place much more
emphasis on keywords used within the copy.
So, Michele, I guess my question to you would be what is the purpose
of your client’s multiple domains? Do they just have one site, but
have a variety of domain names for branding purposes? If all the
domain names are parked at one IP address, this is not going to be a
problem with the search engines, because there’s really just one site.
But if they have a whole bunch of different sites that are simply
there to drive traffic to the main site, then yes, this is trouble
waiting to happen. If the company can explain their products and
services using just one site (in other words, they ain’t no P&G), then
one site is probably all they should have. Get to work on that one
site, and make it the best it can be.
Optimize all the copy on every single page for two or three unique
keyword phrases, and create different Title tags to match. Be sure to
remove all doorway domains and simply park the domain names at the
same IP address as the main site. Then pat yourself on the back for
averting a disaster, and sit down with a nice Merlot!
You may be interested in some previous questions I’ve answered about
multiple domains. You can find them here:
http://www.highrankings.com/issue005.htm
http://www.highrankings.com/issue013.htm
http://www.highrankings.com/issue007.htm#seo5
November 7, 2002
CEO and founder of High Rankings®, Jill Whalen has been performing search engine optimization since 1995 and is the host of the free High Rankings Advisor search engine marketing newsletter, author of “The Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines” and founder/administrator of the popular High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum. In 2006, Jill co-founded SEMNE,
a local search engine marketing networking organization for people and companies in New England.
High Rankings is an internationally recognized search engine optimization firm located in Framingham, MA specializing in search engine optimization, SEO consultations, in-house training, site audit reports, search marketing seminars and workshops. High Rankings has a 100% success rate for substantially improving client rankings and targeted traffic.
Jill speaks at national and international conferences and has been writing
about SEO and search marketing since 2000. She’s been quoted in such
publications as The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report and The
Washington Post. Her articles have appeared in numerous print magazines and
online websites including CIO Magazine, CMS Focus, The Internet Marketing
Report, ClickZ, WorkZ, Inc.com, Entrepreneur, Lycos Small Business,
WebProNews, SiteProNews and others. Jill has also appeared on many online
and offline radio programs such as Entrepreneur Magazine’s E-Biz Radio Show,
SearchEngineRadio and the eMarketing Talkshow.
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