301 vs keywords in domain to preserve ranking

[Robdelete]

Hi

I will try keep this short as I have to use a few example to explain what I mean. (These examples are fictional)

My client has a great domain, just say fishtanks.com

When someone searches the term "Fish Tanks" they are listed right at the top as Google is rewarding the keywords in the actual domain name, and obviously a lot of other reasons, but I remember Aaron Matthew Wall's 'SEO Book' saying that having the keywords in the domain definitely plays to your advantage.

Now my client LOVES the fact you search "Fish Tanks" and they are listed first, and they don't want this to change.

The business has grown and they want to rebrand and call itself fishkeeping.com and broaden the scope of the business.

They now offer various products, one of the many being fish tanks.

Now, what I've taken from SEO is that parked domains are evil and Google sees this as duplicate content among other reasons and the best way to do things is to 301redirect your 'other' domains to your primary domain. ie. redirecting fishtanks.com to fishkeeping.com or even better the fish tank product page.

All good, so now my question:

If I 301 redirect fishtanks.com to fishkeeping.com/products/fishtanks
will Google replace the old search result with the new page at the top of search results for the search term "Fish Tanks"?

If yes, then great..

but, if not (my second question) is this when it is acceptable to park domains? Surely it will split ranking with:
fishtanks.com/products/fishtanks and
fishkeeping.com/prodcuts/fishtanks
and both will suffer from ranking near the top.

Thank you for your time.

[g1smd]

No. Google will delist the URL that issues the 301 redirect, and they will index and rank the new URL and its content based on its own merits. The new URL will not automatically retain the same rankings as the old URL - though it might be close (in the long run) if the content is the same or very similar (in the short term the new URL will have lost most of the incoming link connections that the old URL had).

[Robdelete]

Thanks for the reply, so if my client really wants to stay first for that search term "Fish Tanks" then I should keep the domain and park it. Will Google not penalize me for this duplicate content?

[Marcia]

>>so if my client really wants to stay first for that search term "Fish Tanks" then I should keep the domain and park it.

No you shouldn't park it, that would mean starting over from scratch with the new domain. I wouldn't park it and wouldn't change.

I would keep the fishtanks.com domain and continue to use it, and just change the name of the site to something like "Fish Tanks and More" in the graphics and branding - and leave the simple "fish tanks" in the existing inbound anchor text alone.

Then fishtanks.com/food/ (fish food) and fishtanks.com/breeding/ (breeding supplies, books & content) and fishtanks.com/plants/ (aquarium plants), etc. would make perfect sense.

[edited by: Marcia at 7:57 am (utc) on Mar. 10, 2008]

[Robdelete]

Thank you for clarifying that Marcia, that was very helpful:)