Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Apache Setup:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName abc.xyz.com
DocumentRoot /usr/local/www/abc
</VirtualHost>
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName foobar.com
ServerAlias barfoo.com
# use a rewrite rule with a 301 (Moved Permanently) redirect code to forward all traffic to the primary site
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^(.*) [abc.xyz.com$1...] [R=301]
</VirtualHost>
Question: As I've understood the meaning of Code 301, from a search engine's point of view abc.xyz.com should inherit the full "weight" of foobar.com and barfoo.com ranking-wise? Is this assumption flawed?
Additionally, the domain name is one of a couple of hundred factors that matter to Google; it is by no means "the highest influence on the page rank"
Think about it:
1. PAGE rank :)
2. Content is king ;)
On your main question, if you've moved the content "as is" to a new domain (or subdomain, makes no difference), then there's a good chance that most of the 'value' will follow with a correct (and tested) 301.
There are no guarantees - and it would always be safer to leave the content on a good domain, than move it to a weaker one. Always.
And if you've rebuilt or significantly altered the site recently, or at the time you moved it to the new domain, then you may get zero benefit (or little) from the 301.
I'm not a technical person, but my understanding is that you'd need a separate 301 for each domain you intend to forward. I could be wrong on that.
[edited by: eRAZOR at 10:29 pm (utc) on Nov. 22, 2007]
if it has no PR, then it is just another obstacle in the way of visitors reaching your site.
It does nothing.
If you want to divide your content among a multitude of domains, that's fine - but it means separate seo and confusing navigation.
Much, much, much, much, much better to have all the related content on one site and use folders; logical navigation, one marketing plan, one SEO plan, and all incoming links are to ONE domain.
How can multiple domains (or subdomans, makes no difference), top that?
if it has no PR, then it is just another obstacle in the way of visitors reaching your site
Think again, Quadrille. If it's the sort of domain that attracts type-in traffic from people taking a guess at a domain that might relate to the topic they're interested in, then it's not an obstacle, it's a stepping stone that helps them find what they want.
I know that miss-spelled domains can earn a few cents a year from adsense, and someone who has the .com can steal a bunch of visitors from the .net or .org site. And I'd always advise 'defensive' buying of domain names; but that's to stop rivals getting them, not in hopes of type-in traffic.
Seems to me that if you have a 'good' domain name, then using it would trump any complex 301 shenanigans, and get SE traffic too. And that's surely where most type-ins occur, so a well optimized site will catch them at source, not depend on errors.
I can't see that using a 'good' name just for type-in traffic, while creating subdomains for content has any logic. What am I missing?
random sites they find
If it's a meaningful keyword domain or close misspelling being redirected to relevant content, the user's path won't feel random.
In fact, it can make the user feel clever.
I know that search keywords matches in a domain name has the highest influence on the page rank
You are talking about ranking in the search results here, but that's not PageRank. PageRank is independent of any words or content - it's determined only by links with no semantic value attached.
If the supporting domain is new but 301 redirected to a subdomain, then there's no PR value. There's also no keyword value, except for the type-in traffic. Some domains do get good type-in traffic (and most of those are already owned and parked with ads by domainers because of that.)
If you 301 redireect a domain but then continue to promote that domain name in some way (getting backlinks and so on) you're playing with potential trouble. In my view, your idea has value only to the degree that there is type-in traffic for the supporting domain. There is no other angle here, no help toward the getting the target subdomain to rank well in search results.
I've seen quite a few examples where on highly competitive terms, SEOs are 301'ing the supporting sites to the target site, but keep on promoting the supporting site.
You saying that this could lead to trouble is that right? I think its a good way to hide where you get your links from and other SEO secrets so to speak.
However, I'm very interested in your take, as in the long term I think you're right, but i don't know quite yet why?
Please explain.
[edited by: tedster at 6:16 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2007]
[edit reason] remove specifics [/edit]
However, I'm very interested in your take, as in the long term I think you're right, but i don't know quite yet why?
Because Google is sweeping the index clean of such cr@p 24/7.
One thing every other makeshift SEO forgets is that they too 'employ', or at least 'draw in' SEOs to give some tips on what to look for. There's no trick they don't know of, only tricks they are yet to have an algorithmic solution for... ( but good luck for anyone trying to promote redirected domains). That's not SEO that's another acronym, starts with an S and has 4 letters.
...
Oh btw, on the issue of redirects.
If you redirect a well established top level domain to another top level domain, any rank, pagerank, backlink influence will be re-discovered ( not merged, but slowly re-discovered ) for the new one. ( Routes that go dead, I mean URLs for which the new domain gives a 404 will not pass anything of course. )
In my experience however, if anywhere in the equation there's a subdomain, the redirects won't pass (full) value. They just don't.
I get what the OP talks about, what I don't get is that how can this be presented as if it was some new idea? *grin*
This is old news, and doesn't really work, unless the original, to be redirected domain was strong enough on its own. As for the type-in aspect, that's what domaining is about for the most part. What you do with your domain name ( park it, build a site on it, redirect it ) may vary though.
But...
...
Since you're aiming at type-in traffic, why care about the influence on SEs? Buy every domain you think will bring you at least $11 a year in profits, redirect them to your real site and that's that. SEs don't come into this equation. *Unless* the domains that you redirect ( the ones with the type in traffic ) already had some good, on-topic links, and you're redirecting from top level domain to top level domain... for full effect at least.
On the issue of promoting them further once the redirect is in place.
Why... exactly?
- The links you build for these redirected domains will be added to the *target* URL by default
- Meaning the 'keywords in the domain' don't play a role at all
- Not that their influence is that great, neither that keywordkeyword.com is understood by Google at this point.
- I repeat, it isn't
- As an above comment states, it's keyword-keyword. But don't buy it just yet.
- It'll take an extra few days ( or even weeks ) for the links to pass on any influence
- Not sure that unless you are spamming or posting the link in an FFA directory, who would allow it to pass either
Would make sense if you'd want to detach the domain later, but even then, all, and I do mean ALL of the links would be re-calculated one-by-one, trust-clock reseted, possibility of dupe content during the deindexing of the previously targeted 'main' site...
In general what you descrive is a method that's very cunning except usually for every $ you make it costs $1.15
...
If I'm not too indiscreet, what would be the purpose of these... networks exactly?
I mean are you in retail, are you an affiliate, are you planning to launch an informative site on commercial topics ( ie. review site, directory, whatnot ), or... what?
...
edit: descrive [answers.com] ... sounded right, somehow. Gee, you learn something new every day... even from a typo
[edited by: Miamacs at 12:19 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2007]
[edited by: tedster at 6:20 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2007]
Here's my most recent attempt to explain the various fallacies upon which the keyword1-keyword2 domain redirect idea is based.
Can there be too many 301-s?
Will redirecting several domains to a site cause problems?
[webmasterworld.com...]
