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I am new to the topic of SEP and I have the following problem:
I optimized one page on my main domain for my targeted keyword and realized that the domain name may have an impact on your ranking in some search engines. So I bought several doorway domain names that are hyphenated versions of my main domain name. (if www.cometomysites.com was the main domain then I bought www.come-to-my-site.com, www.come-to-my-sites.com , www.cometomysite.com etc. as doorway domains)
So here is my question: if I just place a flash page with some HTML reference on the doorway domains that all link to the main domain. Is this then considered as some kind of spamming ?
I could not find an answer to this any other thread and am thankful for any hints ...
I think that if you are using the domains like this that you may run into some trouble.
When you say Flash page, you do mean actual Macromedia Flash, or like a splash page?
I am speaking of a Macromedia Flash page.
Would a redirect from all the doorway domains help here ?
The original domain is, www.widget.com, with a bunch of other keyword specific domains like www.widget-keyword.com, etc.
You have developed a Flash page on each of the keyword specific domains and are now pointing these towards the original domain.
Is this correct?
If this is correct, then this is not good, and I will tell you why, but I want to know if I understood the situation correctly.
It is not as naive as just to put www.widget-keyword1.com etc.
My problem is rather that I have the URL www.widget4you.com and want to link to this domain from www.widget-4-you.com and from www.widgets-4-you.com or www.widget-for-you.com .
So I splitted up the URL with hyphens and am wondering now if this is some form of spamming if I link from there to the main domain www.widget4you.com
First of all, if the domains with the hyphens are mainly Flash, then they are not search engine friendly. You need to set them up with real content that is relative to the keywords that you are targeting.
You may run into a cross-linking penalty, but some slip by without getting it. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't be careful though.
Keywords in the domain name do not have that much to do with ranking, and although they are a bit of a help, if you concentrate on other aspects of SEO, you will not need these other domains.
Additionally, if you had keyword specific domains, and not just ones with hyphens, you could split up the site and target each keyword with an individual domain instead of with a sub-directory.
This means that domain name grabbing for the sake of covering all the various ways to spell a URL are in vain.
But just redirecting from www.widget-4-you.com and the other newly bought domains to www.widget4you.com should solve the problems as well I assume. ;)
Go ahead and activate all of the domains you have. But, pick one domain as the main domain. Put a robots.txt denying all spiders for all but the main domain.
Have all of the subsidiary domains redirect visitors to the main domain. Or, have all the subsidiary domains show a splash page (in flash is ok) with anything you want and a timeout redirect or link to the main site.
You can do whatever you want here because you have made this site invisible to the search engines via robots.txt.
Since you are only opening one domain to the search engines, you are in no danger of spamming or having duplicate content or anything.
You promote only the main domain to the search engines. It is not enough to only submit the main site. You must use robots.txt to deny spiders access to the subsidiary domains. Otherwise, the spiders will, somehow, discover your subsidiary domains, spider it, and open you to duplicate penalty issues.
The goal here is to protect your brand and catch visitors attempting to directly address your site but mis-spelling it.
Another goal is to
Doing this has no SEO effect, but as Jack pointed out, protects the name branding.
ilweik should do something like what I suggest first and stabalize that.
Then, he might consider seo advantages from these domains. He might, then, consider custom pages for each subsidiary domain focusing on a different aspect of the business. Maybe, each subsidiary site would focus on a different dimension of the business and all contain a link to the main domain. But, that would be later, after gaining wisdom in this regard.
You must use robots.txt to deny spiders access to the subsidiary domains. Otherwise, the spiders will, somehow, discover your subsidiary domains, spider it, and open you to duplicate penalty issues.
So I simply don't link back to the subsidiary domains from my main domain and protect them from being spidered via robots.txt . Thanks Jack_Straw
