Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
We have decided to create another site, but much smaller (less pages), with the main keywords in domain name, and with the site being hosted in Germany, in attempt to rank better in German market. We have selected a subset of the products to be presented on the new site. The main site has approx 3000 pages, the new site will have about 6 pages. We intend to add the new site to the same GWT account and the whois information for both domains is the same.
On the new site we will have a sitewide link to the main site with words alongside the way of "To purchase products, please see our main site www.example.com". Also, each page of the new site will contain a listing of approximately 10 products per page, with some photos and descriptions and "Buy" button for each product. Clicking on "Buy" button would take the visitor to the appropriate product page on the "main" site.
The above would mean that every page of the new site would have roughly 11 links to the "main" site (1 sitewide to home page and 10 links to various product pages on the main site).
The questions are:
1) Should I nofollow the links to the main site, and if nofollow, should all links be nofollow or only links to product pages be nofollow with sitewide link remaining follow?
2) Should the "main" site also link to the "new" site (could potentially put a single link to the main site home page, although makes no sense for the visitor).
On the new site we will have a sitewide link to the main site with words alongside the way of "To purchase products, please see our main site www.example.com".
Personally, I wouldn't...
Should the "main" site also link to the "new" site (could potentially put a single link to the main site home page, although makes no sense for the visitor).
Personally, I wouldn't...
IMO If you're going to build a standalone site, build a standalone site. Sell the products on that site and build it as a stand alone site then if it ranks in Germany as it should you don't have much need for the cross-linking, because German visitors should find the German site, not the main site. This is just my opinion though, so do what you think is best.
However... we are in position where all purchases MUST be done from the main site owing to the way the product availability is handled.
Having two sites updating the same database could result in a customer buying the same product which is not available any more because the customer on the main site has already bought it. With the current setup it is not possible to avoid such window without seriously degrading the performance and therefore impacting ranking and conversions in the other 5 languages.
I cannot say much more owing to T&C so my only question is whether on the new site we should follow or nofollow the links to the main site?
Or if someone thinks we could be penalised by Google for such setup?
I think fopen() (if you use PHP) is the preferred way to do this, and IMO the best option. You could open the pages hosted on the main site and serve them as if they were on the German site. Then you could no index those pages on the main site and they are accessible from both, so there is no difference in anything except the domain name, and your thank-you page could be on the main site if necessary... If that's not an option, iFrame still should be, IMO.
The short version without all the rambling is: If I had to run from one site for sales, while selling on two different sites I think I would opt to 'frame' the pages from the main site on the secondary site somehow.
Otherwise, to answer your question directly: I would probably nofollow the links to the products since they are 'advertising links' and there would be no question they are not designed to artificially inflate the rankings of the main site if they are nofollowed, but might leave the links to the secondary site alone using the text 'German Version' which is not at all spammy or anything artificial, but rather says exactly what the secondary site is. IOW German Version should not be seen as an attempt to manipulate, while German: <a>Great Green Widgets</a> might be...
The main site caches the copy of DB in the memory to allow for the reasonable speed. And this is where the problem lies. Because it is cached in the memory, any updates by another domain (regardless where it is hosted, even if it is the same webspace but different domain name) would not be seen until the DB is re-cached and this creates the product availability window problem.
Basically, the only way around this would be not to cache DB, but this would have implications on site performance - we did tests some time ago.
But thanks on your advice with regards to nofollow, this is what I thought, hence the question asked.
With regards to links anchor - thanks on the warning, but I think we will be OK here as the link anchor is just "Buy now". But your comment reminds me to check alt & title text too and tone these down if required.
this creates the product availability window problem
That's where Option 2, the iFrame comes in. The page is still opened on the original site, but is framed within the content of the secondary site. It's just like the visitor is on the original site, so much so it does not 'count' as content on the site framing the content to Search Engines. All you're doing with an iFrame is telling the visitor's browser to open the page on the other site and include it within your content...
Here's a visual:
iFrame a page and set a size on the iFrame EG style="width:500px; height:300px;" so you're not framing the full size of your browser window and don't put target="_parent" on the source page's links and click a link... (IOW leave the links alone on the source of the iFrame) You'll open the contents of the link in the same frame, even though you are not visiting the other site... The URL will not change but the contents of the iFrame will. ;)
Edited: Wording of the last sentence of the first paragraph to be more specific.
[edited by: TheMadScientist at 5:18 am (utc) on Jan. 25, 2010]
If the links back to the main site are only going to be for the sake of the purchase, then nofollow makes plenty of sense. In fact, I'd keep all the Shopping Cart pages out of the index with robots.txt anyway.
TheMadScientist has it right - your German site will need to stand on its own merit in order to rank. It will need to attract its own healthy backlink profile and links from your current site might help for discovery, but not for ranking.
Tedster, thanks on the input. The cart on the main site is excluded from index already via robots.txt.
I would crosslink exactly as you have suggested but not even bother with the nofollow since as tedster say:
It will need to attract its own healthy backlink profile and links from your current site might help for discovery, but not for ranking.
It may not help for ranking initially however the discovery of a vaild and relevant site from a strong main site and country-specific targetted I have always found to be very healthy.
e.g. With a specific set of 10 interlinked sites I have all using the same company name with different country extensions, whilst example.com is #1 in Google.com, example.in is #1 in Google.co.in, example.de is #1 in Google.de however it is presented in German, likewise with several other extensions and these sites are also linked internally cross-referencing information etc.
IMHO it does make sense to crosslink related domains even when some of them have the same or very close information and, after all, it's not very difficult for G to find out they're related and if you lay it bare for them to see how and why you've done it, I've found it beneficial.
The one caveat I have is that my crosslinking has been built up over 16 years, how much "authority" or "non-threatening" this looks I am not at all sure however it could possibly have a factor, whether significant or not G ain't saying:-)
