Multiple domains - 301 redirect question

[dmyre]

I am about to launch a very large site under one domain. Will it be helpful to purchase generic domains to link directly to specific subpages, essentially creating multiple entry pages?

This would be done with the permanent 301 redirect. Will each domain get picked up, and act as a seperate website, or hurt me by acting as duplicate content? Any input would be appreciated, as I'm in the process of laying the foundation for the website.

EXAMPLE:
--------
dallas.com/hotels.php
dallashotels.com forwarded to dallas.com/hotels.php

dallas.com/restaurants.php
dallasrestaurants.com forwarded to dallas.com/restaurants.php

[IWizard]

You are over complicating this just a bit. You should either leave the site as one large entity, and layer it as best as possible for pagerank, OR, you can purchase additional domains and create a network from the individual sections of your site. Forwarding a domain is doing just that, forwarding. If you notice in your server root, you do not need a public_html file for the forwarding of a domain. Hence, the domain is not an actual site in this scenario. If you leave the site as a whole, then you are only manipulating internal pagerank. If you separate the categories into their own separate sites, then you can use internal pagerank, and also external pagerank to help you with your SEO of the main site.

I personally use the second example for my own site network. I have xxx.com as my main site, then I have xxxmusic.com/xxxmedia.com/xxxforums.com/xxxcodes.com/xxxgames.com/xxxtutorials.com, and so fourth and so on.

This gives me a network of sites to focus on specific individual content per site, that allows me to have my own high PR backlinks to forward to my main site.

There is no benefit from buying a domain just to forward it toward a another site for SEO in the context of your example.

Hope this helped.

[cursal]

Originally Posted by IWizard

You are over complicating this just a bit. You should either leave the site as one large entity, and layer it as best as possible for pagerank, OR, you can purchase additional domains and create a network from the individual sections of your site. Forwarding a domain is doing just that, forwarding. If you notice in your server root, you do not need a public_html file for the forwarding of a domain. Hence, the domain is not an actual site in this scenario. If you leave the site as a whole, then you are only manipulating internal pagerank. If you separate the categories into their own separate sites, then you can use internal pagerank, and also external pagerank to help you with your SEO of the main site.

I personally use the second example for my own site network. I have xxx.com as my main site, then I have xxxmusic.com/xxxmedia.com/xxxforums.com/xxxcodes.com/xxxgames.com/xxxtutorials.com, and so fourth and so on.

This gives me a network of sites to focus on specific individual content per site, that allows me to have my own high PR backlinks to forward to my main site.

There is no benefit from buying a domain just to forward it toward a another site for SEO in the context of your example.

Hope this helped.

IWizard has done a nice job of explaining the best way to use multiple domains for "web-netting" ( a network of domains that represent "a one domain strategy")

301'ing the other names serves no SEO purpose. Only if those names were getting type-in traffic would the 301 show any real worth.

[dmyre]

Thanks for the feedback. The only reason the "multiple website" option won't work is because the main site will be utilizing a customized database that would be too expensive to replicate on multiple websites.

[basscaster]

If those domains have quality back links, then yes, 301'ing them will pass search value to those sub-sections. It's always generally a best practice to 301 domains at a single domain. I have never seen any evidence, either in practice or case studies, that prove domain type-in traffic alone provides any SEO value whatsoever. Yahoo and Bing might pick up 302 redirects as a separate site and create dupe content issues, but Google is more efficient about it. So the best route for engines is to 301 any domains you might want to point, no matter the purpose for doing so. Bing and Yahoo might also display your pointed domains in the SERPs if they are run as 302's. Your long term best bet is get links into the main domain, not the redirected domains. Buying domains with solid back links in a related category could also give you a huge boost.