Single domain vs. multiple for large site

crosslinking strategy vs. single large site

[lachtzu]

My client is in the process of a comprehensive site redesign, and I'm advising on SEO. They have several divisions within company, and I'm trying to determine should they pick multiple domains or use one domain and put divisions in different directories within site, i.e.:

www.widgets.com (parent gateway)
www.widgets.com/personal
www.widgets.com/commercial
www.widgets.com/industrial

or

www.widgetspersonal.com
www.widgetscommercial.com
www.widgetsindustrial.com

The existing site has been around for a bit and has pretty good PR to the index. My sense is keep the original URL and put the others into directories, so that they don't have to start over in terms of reverse links, but can use the existing PR from the home page. Then, once the the sub-pages start getting more incoming links, split them off to separate URLs and inform the link websites of the change in URL.

This brings up a second question: assuming I'm correct with the initial approach, will there be any SEO value to split the URLs down the road and crosslink the sites, or just leave well enough alone?

[Brett_Tabke]

Take the linkpop boost and stick with a single domain...

[ogletree]

What if you need to have several different domains because you do traditional advertising. I would rather people type in a shorter domain that is exactly what they need than some long URL with slahes or page names. Does Google penalize multiple sites like this. I want my users to type in a specific domain and get the exact information they need. I also want to have links to my other sites if they are interested. It is all one company and the pages all point to each other.

[jimbeetle]

lachtzu,

Go with Brett on one site but consider grabbing the widgetspersonal, widgetscommercial and widgetsindustrial names for any offline advertising purposes if necessary (or wanted) and redirect to appropriate page on main site.

[khuntley]

I always like to remember what the guys with big marketing bucks do when I can't decide on something.

It's fedex.com rather than fedex-international-freight.com and fedex-ground.com (I guess they have five separate companies). And we just go to amazon.com father than amazonbooks.com or amazonmusic.com. You get the idea.

I think this helps with branding the presence of the product/company and increasing awareness.

For SEO, Brett's thoughts are obviously smart. Get known as the place for widgets and the place linked to on the web for widgets. All divisions of the company will benefit collectively.

Kevin

[Kurupt]

I was wondering the same thing ogletree is. What if the company does traditional advertising in different locations over the US? I would think that people who live in Orange County would be more intrested in using a site that has the URL to match their area. As oppose to the company having floridablah.com confusing people reading the ad. OrangeCountyblah.com would be much better for a print ad you placed in the Orange County register don't you think?

[micahb37]

How about subdomains? I know that has been a topic of discussion before, but the relative strength between:

1) blue.widgets.com
2) widgets.com/blue
3) bluewidgets.com

would have to be how relavant the blue widgets are to the red widgets, right?

I think that the reason we dont see amazonbooks.com, etc. is because they derive value from cross-selling/up-selling and (probably) built their technology based on a single domain.

I also doubt that fedex or other large companies worry that much about single vs. multiple domains since many people will link to them naturally.

But what happens when your company has very different verticals it operates in? So instead of red and blue widgets, your company does ballon widgets and elephants?

In that case having separate domains could be useful, since you want people to link to the site that is most relavant. So a subdomain (ala yahoo or about, with very different topics) or different domains seems to make the most sense.

A single domain, to me, makes sense when the different divisions are closely related (ground, air, same day delivery) or where you want your root domain to be the funnel of traffic (amazon - books, music, et al.)

micah

[khuntley]

Some very good points micah, although lachtzu said the divisions were personal, commercial, and industrial which tends to make the one domain a good choice as they likely focus on one general type of product.

In this situation, companies will typically feature the division that is the highest revenue generator on the home page or the generic product type. Obvious links to other directories lead to the other two, similar to Amazon and Fedex.

Although yes I agree that companies with two or three entirely different product types need to deliver separate content.

Kevin

lachtzu, is this the case with your people?

[cline]

I have a similar situation. I have a client whose IT dept. in a bit of home-brew SEO decided that the best thing was to have multiple domains, one for each of the company's specialities. Then came a new marketing VP who wants everything pulled together for branding purposes. Now I'm trying to do SEO for what looks like one site, but as you click on the navigation you go from domain to domain. Each domain has a homepage, but what appears to be the site has no homepage.

My thinking is that if this is the brand strategy they want to pursue, then they should just go with one domain name.

[micahb37]

Some very good points micah, although lachtzu said the divisions were personal, commercial, and industrial which tends to make the one domain a good choice as they likely focus on one general type of product.

My thinking is that if this is the brand strategy they want to pursue, then they should just go with one domain name.

It does sound like one product, which would mean that putting them under one domain would make sense. But in the case of cline's client, if everything is brought under one domain, wont they lose the PR, etc. built up on the other domains?

micah