When Should New Content Go On A Different Domain

[Planet13]

Hi there, Everyone:

I am thinking of launching a directory / awards contest, and would like your opinions on whether to put it on our main ecommerce site, or on a separate domain.

The main purpose of the directory / awards campaign will be to generate links / pr / social media awareness, which makes me want to put it on the main site.

However, I am concerned that it might somehow "dilute" the ecommerce nature of the site. While traffic has increased steadily over the last year, we already have a very low conversion rate (only .29% of total visitors buy something).

I am worried that in the new google, that with so much content diversity on our site already, and such a low conversion rate, google will basically stop sending us visitors who want to actually BUY something.

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts.

[Future]

I will recommend same domain (main ecommerce site) in case awards distributed in contest are similar niche as your ecommerce site.

[Planet13]

I will recommend same domain (main ecommerce site) in case awards distributed in contest are similar niche as your ecommerce site.

Yeah, they are similar "in general".

I think of it in terms of backlinks; the type of sites that are likely to link to the awards pages are the ones that I want to link to my ecommerce site.

[tangor]

google will basically stop sending us visitors who want to actually BUY something.

I don't think g's hubris is up to that task... after all even they don't know WHO buys... only that some calculated percentage MIGHT.

That said either sub-domain it or put on other domain. It does not quite fit the main site. MY OPINION. YMMV

[Planet13]

@ tangor

Thanks for the input.

That said either sub-domain it or put on other domain. It does not quite fit the main site. MY OPINION. YMMV

Thinking about this some more, I think that it might boil down to these two things:

1) Keeping on main site would help with acquiring links to main site

However:

2) Putting it on different site (with an exact match domain) might help it rank better.

So, if I could put it in an eact match subdomain, could I possibly get the best of both worlds? Would link juice flow from the subdomain to the main domain? And would having the exact match in the subdomain help it rank any better (and increase click-through rates)?

Thanks in advance.

[tangor]

And would having the exact match in the subdomain help it rank any better (and increase click-through rates)?

Wish I had better answers than given. I tend to keep site-related functions on the site. Most of my experience is one-off, ie. a site, one topic, that's it, instead of one-site, a side-bar, and make it fit.

The project seems to have promise and might be worth exploring. What needs to be considered is that any SE these days has elephant memory so one should be very sure where they are going before introducing something "marginal" to the main site.