redirects for seo?

[ChokePoint]

i own a bunch of keyword phrase domains related to my niche and was wondering what the best way is to make use of them....

is it possible to get these domains to rank in google just by indexing them and using a redirect to my main content site or does each domain have to be built out into its own mini-site before google will index the url.

i am only trying to get each domain to rank for its actual keyword phrase but i'm also trying to avoid having to build a bunch of very similar half-ass sites that might actually turn off the people i am trying to redirect to my main, very nice, money site.

what is the best practice for using multiple closely related keyword phrase domains?

thanks to anyone who can help - i feel like this is kind of a noob question but i also feel like i am never going to stop learning when it comes to IM, SEO, etc...

[HuskyPup]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld ChokePoint

If you want to get them indexed you really need a unique splash page for each name otherwise you'll just end up with a duplicate demotion and end up at the end of the SERPs or maybe not there at all.

Some try and use URL forwarding and change titlebars and meta descriptions however the search engines are too sophisticated for that to work these days.

Why not URL forward them for the moment, explained here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

and then as you go along devlop each site with a decent splash page focussed around that keyword but with all navigation links etc going direct to your main site.

Do not try and hide the domain ownership, that will more than likely get you a penalty.

[jimbeetle]

devlop each site with a decent splash page focussed around that keyword but with all navigation links etc going direct to your main site

Sounds suspiciously like doorway pages, HuskyPup. Are you sure you want to recommend this approach?

[ChokePoint]

i'm listening but hope someone can authoritatively say which is correct - thx for the replies so far - but to be more specific i am doing SEO work for a client and he is the one with all the domains and doesnt know what to do with them and i know they have value because they are all exact match kw phrase .coms with anywhere from 58-900 monthly global searches so i figure if i can find a nice way to bill him for making use of these extra domains that he is now paying to continue his subscription to for another year then we can both make money and be happy. ultimately i know he would be really pleased if i came up with any viable solution to having these domains other than leaving them parked.

would it be considered "doorway" to have a highly optimized squeeze page to offer a free report and then link off that download page to the main money page rather than use the squeeze page itself as the source of the redirect link?

[HuskyPup]

Sounds suspiciously like doorway pages

Single page keyword domains are a very common approach for many companies who've bought such names and need to do something with them other than a URL forward and the search engines know this if it is done responsibly.

Ensure that the on-page information is relevant and as unique as possible together with any applicable images and also that the name registration is not hidden. Don't overload the titlebar and meta description and not too much on-page text, keep it as simple and clean as possible so that a user can transfer straight through to the meat on main site.

Finally, do not expect too much from this approach, these type of pages will never succeed like a fully developed site but can aid in gaining extra traffic.

[dailypress]

also be aware when redirecting domains to websites/pages with Google Adsense

[ChokePoint]

thx husky - thats what i was lookin for.

also thx daily- main site has no adsense but thats good to know as well.

[Robert Charlton]

I agree with HuskyPup that, if you build the one-pagers, registration info should be kept open and that there should be no appearances of spamming... but I think that the single page approach inherently looks manipulative. Read the Google Webmaster Guidelines about doorway pages.... [google.com...]

Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination.

Whether deployed across many domains or established within one domain, doorway pages tend to frustrate users, and are in violation of our webmaster guidelines.

Google gives you some wiggle room here in that they say "poor quality", suggesting that good quality might be OK.

In order to rank at all, though, these one-pagers will need to get links from somewhere. Possibly, if they contain some extraordinarily good and unique information, you might be able to attract natural links to them, enough to overcome Google's aversion to the setup.

Otherwise, the usual temptation is either to interlink them, or to link to them from the main site, or to link to them from common sites you control. With any of these arrangements, though, whether you control the linking or not, it does start to look like a closed link network (something else Google feels is manipulative), which is likely to be algorithmically filtered, if not utimately penalized. If the backlinks into these sites are completely independent and have had a chance to develop over time, then you might be OK.

If you really, really knew what you were doing, you might develop independent sites on the best of your domains, good quality sites that are more than one-pagers, and I feel you'd want to keep them separate and to be extremely prudent about how you used them and when.

I'd recommend not promoting the domains at all, and simply 301 redirecting them to the main site. No actual manipulation and therefore no appearance of manipulation, but also no SEO benefit and no problems with Google. The SEO benefits are questionable anyway. Hope for some type-in traffic from the domains, and be happy your competitors aren't using them.

[Robert Charlton]

PS to the above, to expand and clarify an important point about which there's a lot of misconception....

Keyword domain names that are 301 redirected have no SEO benefit in and of themselves. What may be beneficial is keyword anchor text in links currently existing on the web that point to those domains.

To get those links, you generally need either to have had relevant content online under those domains... or you need to be in control of the links. Google doesn't like your promoting a lot of domains and then removing and redirecting them, and Google can spot this on a link map.

If you were in control of the links in the first place, there's no point going through the charade of putting up a domain that had keywords in it and then taking it down. You're much better off just building relevant content on your main domain and getting links with relevant keywords to that content.

[wesmaster]

Choke,
In the past I have found success with buying existing websites that already rank well for my target keywords (and might have my target keywords in their domain) and 301 redirecting them to my existing website (that ranked "OK", but not as well, and does not contain my target keywords in the domain) for the same keywords. I basically jumped to their position in the SERPs once Google accepted the 301. In fact, once I even "rented" a guys domain (301 redirected to mine) for 3 months in order to accomplish this. I jumped to his spot in the SERPs, his website disappeared, then months later after his domain was back to hosting his website he showed back up, but I remained pages in front of his domain, on the first page. And years later I'm now #1 for my keywords.

Now, it's been a few years since I've done this, but I'm doing this on another website right now (just paid for the domain/website) and will be able to report if it still works. But, I'm being cautious and moving the domain/website content to my server for 90 days, adding a banner ad w/ link, and will only then 301 redirect after 90 days is up. My only reason for doing this is because I want to lessen my risk in case Google has changed how they handle such redirects. I can get some valid traffic through the banner ad for 90 days then take the risk, probably cutting my financial risk in half. I'm also having the original website owner "move" the website in Google Webmaster console to my domain after the 90 days is up. We'll see how this works out.

[g1smd]

success with buying existing websites that already rank well for my target keywords (and might have my target keywords in their domain) and 301 redirecting them to my existing website

Several "well known" SEOs have got their sites banned by doing this in the last few years. It's a high risk strategy.

[HuskyPup]

@wesmaster

I'm pretty sure 301s do not work in that manner any more, my main registrar's control panel for url forwarding is, in fact, a 301 redirect and whenever I have 301'd a name I have not seen any noticeable benefit from a site name that ranked well...as I say, I am not 100% however this is Google's take on a 301:

[google.com...]

Perfectly acceptable, clean and above board.

[wesmaster]

I'm pretty sure 301s do not work in that manner any more...

I officially did my most recent redirect, mentioned above, about a week ago. The purchased domain, which contained 3 keywords that I am targeting, was #8 in G SERPs. It's important to note that this domain was registered and in the SERPs for 4-5 years. After the redirect, not only did the destination domain replace the redirected domain in the SERPs, it bumped the destination domain all the way to #1 for the 3 keywords. Now, the destination URL is relevant to the 3 keywords, so that helped it to put my site at #1. On top of that, the destination domain jumped two pages, from 4th page to 2nd page for the first two keywords of the 3, which (the 2 keywords) is the ultimate SEO goal for this website.

It's still early, and G could change their mind, but for sure the redirect did exactly what I expected it to.