Alternate Domain Names - Are they effective and if so how much?

Alternate Domain Names

[rooster]

I was wondering how effective is it to purchase domain names with keywords for your particular site really are? I am thinking of getting about 10 domains with my keywords in them, and then have them all point to my main domain name. Is this effective? Is it legal (by way of the SE rules)? What other tricks using these new domain names are there?(ie. Pages with keywords and content on them, and then redirects) Also, how does the SE's look at these domain names? For instance lets say I was selling blue widgets, would a good domain name be - relatedkeyword.com (not sure the proper spelling) but when you bunch keywords together how does the SE's read or rank them? Is it better to put bluewidgets.com over widgetsblue.com ect.

I hope this is clear, I just want some input before I spend some $$$.

Thanks to all

P.S. I had an ASP search engine question. Can I post it in here?

[edited by: agerhart at 6:43 pm (utc) on Aug. 18, 2003]
[edit reason] removed keyword specifics [/edit]

[rogerd]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld, rooster!

A few quick comments: just registering some domain names and pointing them at your main site content won't do anything for you. They will be seen as duplicate content and suppressed (unless one collected so many links that your main site was suppressed). You would have to develop some unique content on each site to get them indexed.

The main effect of keyword domains seems to be from link text, e.g., when someone links to your widgetsales.com domain as "Widget Sales", you get a boost for those words. There are quite a few members here who swear by hyphenated domains, thinking that the SE can parse the domain name to find the keyword. (Generally, SEs will NOT parse continuous words. How would the SE distinguish between "Widget Sales" and "Widget's Ales", for example, if there wasn't a hyphen in the right place?)

Try posting the ASP question in the .Net and ASP forum.

[rooster]

I see, I was not going to reley on this technique alone, but thought I would research it a bit before jumping in. So the benefit would fall as link populatiry, not keyword search. And I would have to use new or changed content as if it was an entirly new comapny of sorts.

Well, you helped me allot, and I thank you for it.