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"A promotional domain and web sever will be set-up for the sole purpose of placing your site at the top of the major search engines. We will select a domain name for you based upon the keywords appropriate for your offering. While we own this domain, it will be rented to you on a month to month basis solely as your promotional domain. We also place special software on your server to "cloak" the pages so competitors can not steal our top ranking code. "
I remember those good old days well... I ended up owning my employer's domain name, because I was the only one who could figure out how to register it for 'em. :-)
Dan
Joep
A promotion domain is a great way to protect the client from any possible se wrath. Even better if the domain is setup in the clients name (most often it is not done this way - I won't do it).
Given the two different methods of billing; either on a cpm basis or a Pay Per Click (preferred) basis, promo-domains are excellent for:
1- tracking. Never a question as to what the optimizer is producing. Anything that comes through the domain is generated by the optimization concern.
2- security. If the optimzer tries any leading edge stuff that may be risky, the home domain in insulated from any se retribution.
3- ability to try things with design and display that you would not care to risk on the home domain.
The fine print: I would look at the details very close and at what you really want. If it is targeted, measured traffic, then a PPC domain can't be beaten for assurances.
If you are after just optimization and "hope" that traffic will increase, then a flat rate home domain optimization is the route you should go.
Promo domains are here to stay. I think they are a good thing for clients, and certainly relieve the optimizer of any and all performance questions. The toughest thing for me to do is point to traffic and say 'I generated that for you' to a client. With a promo domain, I can pass them the logs and say, 'Here is what I generated for you" right down to the unique IP.
>How is it done?
The way I do it, is to just buy a domain, and setup on a separate host. I take the home sites content and optimize it and usually dump in in the root of the new domain. The pages are all setup on redirects. Not a spider, then it gets sent to the real domain.
I don't do a thing to the clients home site at all. That is left 100% alone for them to do with as they please. This is about targeted traffic.
When the contract is up (right now, I'm working on 6month to 1 year contracts), I will sometimes offer the client the redirect domain for free. The problem with that, is that I remove all the programs and cloaking on the domain, leaving it in a pretty sorry state for the home site. If the transition is not handled right, it could be the end of the cloaked site.
If working PPC: where the client is purchasing targeted keyword traffic from me (I only do a little of this), then when the client is done, I keep the domain. No other way to do it without the optimizer getting short changed. Goto doesn't give you goto.com when you stop buying traffic - why should I when doing Personal Pay Per Click Optimization (3pco)?
But what I still do not understand is why they cloak also on the client's server.
With a promotional domain do you use frames or redirects for human visitors and do you match title and keyword with the human pages too?
Joep
I still do not understand why they cloak on the client's server and at the same time use a promo domain.
Or did they misspell?
Or am I a ---- idiot.
Regards
Joep
you are not an idiot, i think their wording is inconsistent. What is unclear is whether you want to use their service or offer a similar service yourself.
I think they are one of those outfits that give you a control panel to build your optimized pages or sometimes they have a generator that produces them based on your keywords (bad idea). The cloaking is on their server, they just seem to start calling it "your server" but they mean theirs. Also note that they start calling your pages our pages.
If your are optimizing for clients then follow Bretts advice and set up promotional domains. If you are optimizing your own you have the option of using promotional domains or cloak your real site and go with that.
