Multiple domain names, one site

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I'd appreciate your thoughts on the best way, from an SEO perspective, to use a number of different domain names with one site.

As an example, if I have a site at greatwidgets.com, and I also own great-widgets.com and greatwidgets.com.au, rather than just redirect the 2 extra names to the main one is there a way I can apply them to the same site without incurring negative SEO (duplicate content etc)?

I'm assuming here that simply having the names resolve to the same site (as opposed to redirect) would in fact be a mistake?

 

[findtim]

a 301 redirect will not give you any value from google, in the brisbane meetup i was pushed on this subject but i have yet to be proven wrong.

my opinion is you use the lesser doms as landing pages. this will give you google value.

i suggest you go to www brightonflorists dot com and try to purchase something, you will note when you eventually get to the end it FLICKS you over to p e t a l s dot com au

i think this is a good example of what you are suggesting. otherwise PM me.

 

[CyberClick]

my opinion is you use the lesser doms as landing pages.

Ditto. Though I call them push pages, as they push traffic and rank.

 

[DavidL]

I reckon just 301 them to homepage. If you are going to use push pages (like the name, cyberclick!), I think it makes sense to use domains that are more specific, not just variations of the same name.

So use domains like BlueWidgets.com.au to push traffic & link juice to the blue widget section of your GreatWidget.com.au site.

Developing three sites greatwidgets.com.au, great-widgets.com.au, greatwidgets.com etc is just tripling your workload for little gain IMO

 

[snoopy]

Agree just do a redirect, the terms are all the same & so is the content so a whole lot of separate sites is unlikely to go down well. Would be different if the .com was an international site and the .com.au targeted at Australian buyers.

 

[patrickshi]

I normally just use re-direct.

 

[atom]

Many thanks for the input guys. Based on this I think I'll use a combination of redirects and landing/push pages depending on the individual names.

 

[zhenjie]

Not a fan of push/landing pages after penguin/panda. Rather spend the effort on making the main site top notch

 

[findtim]

Not a fan of push/landing pages after penguin/panda. Rather spend the effort on making the main site top notch

i've had no trouble with them through panda/penguin, everything i have done has stuck if not improved.

one thing i will add is that if you watch a matt cuts video then always make sure you know what date it was produced, its useless watching something he said last year.

tim

 

[Blue Wren]

I'm not the OP but thanks for all the replies everyone; it has been very helpful to get experienced input on this question.

 

[FirstPageResults]

a 301 redirect will not give you any value from google, in the brisbane meetup i was pushed on this subject but i have yet to be proven wrong.

Assuming you mean only when a domain has no history?

 

[findtim]

Assuming you mean only when a domain has no history?

yes, but even then its value will weaken over time and google will eventually ignore it.

tim

 

[thelostagency]

Yep don't do landing pages unless you keep them separate and don't link back to the main site, but then only really useful if you are buying traffic via PPC or pushing links through social. Much better to just redirect them all to the main domain. Also make sure they are 301 redirects and not 302 as the later will cause you duplicate content issues, there are plenty of free tools to check the redirects.

 

[eBranding.com.au]

Redirects are the way to go (301 redirect). As Snoopy suggested, it's only worth developing separate sites in very specific cases, like local and international sites (and even then is it really necessary?).

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Example (all .com domains):

TennesseeWhiskey

Also own MoonshineWhiskey and MoonshineWhisky - these are related terms, but they're simply redirected to the site (which has some content about moonshine whiskey).

I don't think it's useful to create additional mini-pages to link to TennesseeWhiskey. My view is that you should be building the value (content etc) on your main site, creating 'mini-landers' is a waste of time and resources. The google juice from a tiny lander site is worth next to nothing and could actually see your site penalised due to quality issues or content duplication (or both).

I get more value from having the related content on my site, and the related term domains redirected to TennesseeWhiskey.
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I have brands where I own all the major extensions and relevant ccTLDs, and will always use one core address (usually .com), and redirect all the others (.net, .org, .com.au etc) to the main address.

At the end of the day, if your building an online brand - then getting all the extensions is about brand protection, not improving search ranking or getting more visitors, because there are much more effective ways to do that.

 

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Great stuff, thanks guys, this has been a big help.