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The next two are something "like" country-resorts.com and country-watersports.com.
The company also owns other web sites selling high end vacation products. However, I was just planning to have the navigation work like this:
Index page: www.country-vacations.com
The Nav Bar would have 6 links:
1) Country Resorts (linked to country-resorts.com with individual sections and in depth information for each different "resort" as well as a price page.
2) Country Watersports (linked to country watersports.com) with links to the various watersports offered and a price page.
3) Watersports Information - In depth information about specific watersports.
4) Country Activities - Overview of tourist related activities.
5) Resort Inquiries
6) Watersports Inquiries
I calculate that in total, the site will be approximately 200 pages of sales information for both the resorts and watersports and about 50 to 70 pages of pure watersports information.
Is it a problem to have the three domains set up this way? The customers are very different. Those looking for "resorts" will not be looking for "watersports", but they both fall under the same company umbrella.
(added) so that nobody gets confused, the words "resorts" and "watersports" are not the actual words. I was only using them as a "for instance".
[edited by: heini at 11:41 am (utc) on Nov. 23, 2002]
[edit reason] Liane: example delinked - existing site / thanks! [/edit]
DaveN
Thr trouble may start if the two other sites link back to the main site.
Nick
Thr trouble may start if the two other sites link back to the main site
Gulp ... I was planning to use the same nav bar throughout the site as all the general "country specific" information would be on the company name site which would not contain any sales info whatsoever. The reason for this is that the country specific info is common and relevant to both sets of visitors.
Am I shooting myself in the foot before I even get started?
(Thanks for answering by the way ... its been a while since I posted this.)
Dave N. Are you saying I "can't" do this or are you asking if I can? Not really sure what you mean.
IMHO this is an exceptional startegy not because of link popularity or PageRank but more to develop niche market diversity.
In linking to external site via your nav bar it may be very beneficial to not link to default page of second/third tier sites but use a keyword.html page from the common link hierarchy.
This allows the default page of the other domains to be very specific and unique to better target "the markets" specific interests through a main splash page where these very specific market can enter vice all pages targeted to all markets within your overall design.
Specific Promotions e.g. through banners - discounts, sales without interfering with the more generalized targets e.g - all of vactions/tourism visitors. (e.g. - banners are click on more often when the specific visitor has that specific interest).
Therefore a default page targeting only country vacations will receive only visitors interested in country vactions and the banner will recieve more interest.
In addition, this allows you to develop market specific corridors for example: complete packages to a region, that may be only available to a specific group of visitors, and then eventually leading back into your main sites infrastruture.
If you will a physical "doorway page" that actually has both visitor and search engine value.
Nick_W wrote: Thr trouble may start if the two other sites link back to the main site.
In my experience there is no problem at least in following my above suggestions. Your Nav Bar links to everything but the default pages.
The backlink go the default pages (e.g. - noting ownership and copyright statements) no crosslinking problems what-so-ever.
to develop niche market diversity.
That is exactly what I am attempting to do. I am concerned that my only business site (which is responsible for 100% of my income) may someday fall out of grace with Google.
The last update, I lost 2 PR points for no apparent reason. (So did 90% of the other sites in my category though, so I'm not too worried.).
I do not cloak, I use straight HTML with a smattering of CSS (in the nav bar only) and from what I know of "spam" ... I am not guilty. The site is clean and has been since the get go.
However, search engines change their algos and business models (all too frequently for my liking) and I am just trying to create a broader market for myself by expanding into two additional market areas which compliment what I already sell.
However, the customer base is entirely different for all three markets ... even though they are each related and country specific. It just seems a natural progression for my business which will also add a "safety cushion" for those times when I do something stupid like leave up a duplicate or orphan page. (Something I have been known to do in the past and have suffered the penalties.)
Now, because I am a yachtie and a salesperson first and a webmaster ... well somewhat below that, can you please translate:
In linking to external site via your nav bar it may be very beneficial to not link to default page of second/third tier sites but use a keyword.html page from the common link hierarchy.
What is a default page of a second/third tier site? keyword.html page from the common link hierarchy.?
The last update, I lost 2 PR points for no apparent reason. (So did 90% of the other sites in my category though, so I'm not too worried.).
Pretty much happened across the board (all sites)... although PageRank is a benefit of this style of strategy the focus is the visitor specific needs, therefore Google will love it.
What is a default page of a second/third tier site? keyword.html page from the common link hierarchy.?
Default = index.html, home.html, or default.html as commonly use or any other extention e.g. - .htm.
Common link hierarchy is generally the pages that you have selected to represent your main nav bar selections.
So if:
your second tier domains are:
country-resorts.com
country-watersports.com
from your primary site the nav bar links to:
country-resorts.com/country_resorts.html
country-watersports.com/country_watersports.html
This frees up both index.html pages to target only those visitors that are interested in (noting their search query) "country resort", focusing only on their specific search criteria, and promoting as if this is your only focus.
If they are indeed interested in country watersports as "added value" then the click-through to the primary site.
Also in Google more likely than not if search term is "country resort", which is possibly a highly competitive phrase both sites will likely appear as being competitive sites but the default page of country-resorts.com will be more targeted you this users interests.
If each second tier site contain some information specific to that domain you can receive legitimate listing for each domain in different categories.
If all domains are identical in design this is much harder to justify the second tier listings.
>Thr trouble may start if the two other sites link back to the main site.
We've all heard the horror stories but sometimes I wonder if this is really true.
The other day I had reason to visit "Big Corporate Candy Site" to find some information. Of course, they have a links page to their individual product sites -- at least 40 different domains. In addition, many of these product sites are linked from internal pages of the main site.
The footer on most of the pages in the product sites has a link back to the main site.
They all share the same class C IP, maybe the same server.
And most, though not all, have a PR of at least 5.
Some of the product sites have unrelated external links, some have few or none. Some of the product sites interlink with other product sites, some don't. Some of the product sites are in ODP, some aren't.
So, when the likes of us are worried about Google penalizing extensive interlinking this is the way many of the majors with multiple brands implement their web strategies -- and they are not penalized for it.
So, this very murky area becomes a bit more murky for me.
Jim
I am just a salesperson who (because costs to hire pros would make the project impossible for me) has learned (with a lot of help from members of WebmasterWorld) how to build her own web sites.
Trying to figure all this out and not getting my site(s) banned or penalized for just trying to expand my business is a little ridiculous ... don't you think?
It seems that there are varying positions on what I had hoped would be an easy answer ... but it seems there really is no definitive answer for this particular question.
If I put myself in my customer's shoes, I would just go ahead and build the three sites (looking the same but slightly different ... after all, it is all the same company but with different divisions and customer bases) and then link them together using the nav bar. However, that seems to be contrary to the warnings I am seeing here. Drat!
I obviously need to sit and think about it before doing anything else. Thanks for the input everyone! :)
