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Using multiple domains to own a niche
Janeth from geeksonsteroids.com and I got into an interesting debate on Webproworld about using multiple domains to own a niche. I can build a website in 5 minutes and (with a few pots of coffee) could even make enough content to use it to promote another website that I also own. Is this good search engine optimization or algorithm manipulation?
So you buy the website Mom’s Jewelery and Diamonds and let your expert start blogging once a day about how they work with diamonds and what to look for when buying diamonds and answering questions online.
I do not see it as spam, Matt Cutts has a blog he post in and writes stuff about Google.
Is that spam?
Is Matt Cutts a spammer?
My response:
That is where you are wrong Janeth, what you would be doing there is trying to influence search engines via multi-domain cross linking. Why not just put the blog on a subdomain of the main website and make a “news” area that can be displayed via RSS feed or not at all?
BUT now I am not so sure, what do you think about using multiple sites to promote your stuff?
What about Matt Cutts, isn’t that in a exactly what he is doing? Help me out here!
March 9th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Even a single website can be spam, but I can think of a lot of reasons to run 7 websites on the same topic.
Maybe I’ve got 6 friends that love ice hockey as much as I do, but I’m the only one that knows how to build sites. I shouldn’t run only one site just because multiple domains *might* get ranked well, I should do whatever I want.
If I don’t have any friends (hah) but I do have 7 sites on the same topic, maybe each one was designed for a specific purpose.
If I want 7 sites I’ll make them, and you should, too. Even Google says design your sites with users in mind, not search engines.
March 9th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
* smacks you upside the head *
Dude, you know better than that. Janeth is technically right, but as usual she’s using it to justify the wrong activity.
There is nothing wrong with multiple sites on a single topic as long as the sites represent a different point of view and target a different userbase. Matt’s site clearly targets SEOs, whereas Google’s site targets everyone. There is obviously some overlap but they are clearly two different sites.
The problem with Janeth, as usual, is that she has a snake’s application for a legitimate concept. Allow me to demonstrate with a simple query:
Spam
See, what she is doing is setting up “related blogs” on separate sites to feed her silly little Geeks on Steroids site. As search engines bust on this sort of things, her business goes ba-WHOOSH! and so do her “clients”.
Now that I’ve said this, I fully expect the venom of the spitting cobras to invade this blog.
Hey Aaron, I dare you to call out the whole Rat Pack next. ;)
March 9th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
It’s probably a good idea for anyone running a shady operation to use multiple domains. Of course, when the multiple domains are interlinked, they’re easier to detect, but if they’re not interlinked, then when one site gets banned, they’re probably not all going to be banned.
March 9th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Janeth is fully aware of incoming links and I gave both her about page and her domain full on links above even at the risk of being associated with a bad link neighborhood. Let’s see if we can get her over to defend what you clearly point out SEFL.
As I said to her over on Webpro she is doing extremely weak SEO.
Janeth is a good one to call out because she defends herself fiercely over there.
Maybe I will do this type of thing once a week.
March 9th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
So a few weeks after your credibility posts and the importance of using your real name online, yours is no longer on any of the posts. Aaron = admin? Or more people? I am confused as to who has been writing the posts for the past few days.
And sorry for using URLs in my previous post. Before the edit it read something like this…
“If I don’t have any friends (hah) but I do have 7 sites on the same topic, maybe each one was designed for a specific purpose.
ice hockey gear
find ice hockey leagues
ice hockey forums
etc”
March 10th, 2007 at 2:42 am
I see nothing wrong with it. I can certainly understand the “ethical”aspect of it, but in all reality it could be a wiser business decision than one might think. I hate to say it, but in some instances it is a necessary step to take to compete in a niche. I would not try and hide it because Google already knows this and while I do not think we will ever get confirmation, I beleive they devalue mini-net link strength. Banning a site is talked about way too much and I think some people beleive that devaluing (rank drops) means ban. So cross promoting mini-nets is not really a good thing in Google, but it is a different story in MSN, and Yahoo. Old mini nets own serps especially in Yahoo.
March 10th, 2007 at 4:06 am
This place does not look very friendly. It seems that members like SEFL (whom I have never heard of) like to call anything he/she does not understand spam.
And Aaron wants to say that Geeks On Steroids is associated with a bad link neighborhood. Google seems to really like Geeks and sends me a good bit of traffic each day.
You may be able to find old blogs I created but when was the last time I posted in any of those?
I have tested stuff at one point to see what would make a site rank and what would not but I no longer do that.
I build sites for my customers and not for the search engines. If I feel that building a site because one of my designers would like to start blogging and talk about different ways to design a site then I will do that.
I get traffic from SMO, PPC, Advertising and we are about to start selling websites here in Colombia. I never had the opportunity to make a living anywhere but online. I started with no money and very little knowledge of the English language. We have been aggressive in the past with both SMO and the search engines. But we have also made good money off both.
I think you should build the site for your visitor and let Google do what they will. If you feel that it is in the best interest of your clients to have another site online to talk about a specific topic then build the site.
I build for customers and not the search engines.
March 10th, 2007 at 5:33 am
I’d prefer for your sake if you didn’t, Aaron. You don’t just get her, you get the whole Pack. And that’s something that you’ll really have to watch and prune as necessary.
As far as your name showing as “admin”, I think it’s pretty obvious who admin is. corey, I was actually going to call you out on the links issue myself separately (particularly that ice hockey gear one), but I wanted to see how Aaron handled it first. To his credit, he handled it brilliantly.
March 10th, 2007 at 6:29 am
Corey – It posts as admin when I am logged into wordpress, when I am not I just type on my name but will fix that if it bothers you. Yes, no spamming my blog with keywords and URLs please, even though they are nofollowed Yahoo! and MSN don’t know how to handle it.
SEFL – HA!!! There is no reason to fear a pack of angry geeks, my neck is thicker than all of them combined and I enjoy a good knock down from time to time. ;)
I also enjoy good debate about SEO and so far there are few who are willing to which shows a lack of credibility and cowardice in this so called “community”. Janeth is not a coward.
March 10th, 2007 at 8:23 am
And that’s where we have to disagree. I believe the whole pack is a bunch of cowards. That’s why, when you’re in with one of them, you usually get the three major perpetrators with the occasional guest appearance from a scumbag du jour who wants to stick his/her nose into it (usually a “his”).
I’m with you in that I love a good debate as much as anyone, as long as the two parties can reasonably and logically talk about the issues at hand. But there’s a fine line between a debate and a flame war, and they cross the line at every opportunity.
I’ll back you if the fight’s here, but you may be on your own other than that.
March 10th, 2007 at 9:24 am
Janeth posted above but the thing was held in moderation so we didn’t see it, sorry.
I can not argue with what you said in here Janeth and I wouldn’t have linked to your site to pass along a little juice if I believed it was major spam. What you said on Webpro could mislead newbies into thinking this idea was hot and it is not.
Thanks for clarifying BUT can we argree that making an entire blog that promotes a main site with tons of linkage is weak SEO? I would think that would be the easiest thing to detect by algorithms correct?
If you look at the bottom of some of my sites I often aggregate my own feeds to get them crawled, I believe this is legit cross promotion but to launch multiple websites/blogs to own a niche would be on the spammy side so would not be a good idea to use on “client” sites.
March 10th, 2007 at 9:37 am
I agree with the fact that it can go to being nothing more than a spam site pretty fast but I disagree with the fact that no matter what it is spam.
But the biggest problem I see with it is that it will take away from the marketing of your main site unless you hire someone for marketing just that site.
Then it is still taking away from the main site because they could be marketing just your site.
The biggest advantage I see is that the site is on one topic and not spread out between different topics.
But it is hard to say rather it would be worth the effort or not.
March 10th, 2007 at 11:54 am
I try to keep everything on as little domains as possible. It’s easier for me to focus that way. I do have various websites and services that are related, but they each have their own site to not totally overwhelm a user with too many features.
March 10th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Good advice Tim, this also applies to individual products. I sell a type of product (rain barrel) and recently designed a new one of the same variety. Wouldn’t you know that I sell less if I put the similar products on the same site with my old design?
When people have too many choices they do not buy so I am now forced to make another site that will sell a different variety of the same exact (but updated) product. In the future people could say, “Hey that is not fair that this guy has the top two positions for this product”! I will have to kindly point out this fact.
My concern about having multiple sites is that search engine algorithms will devalue. If I was to include multiple links from one to the other I would expect there to be an algorithmic devaluation or a simple ignore. If I link over to tell people to check out my new design I would expect that to be seen as only 1 relevant, related link.
There is sometimes good reason to have multiple domains to separate like content, yes…100% agree, good point.
March 10th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Aaron, I thank you. You’ve managed to pick a manipulator who also rocks the high comedy party as well! Dude, you truly are the shizzle.
Today, actually.
http://www.searchenginefriendlylayouts.com/JDBS/geeksonsteroidsblog.jpg
And before that…yesterday.
http://www.searchenginefriendlylayouts.com/JDBS/ranked1dotnet.jpg
http://www.searchenginefriendlylayouts.com/JDBS/ranked1whois.jpg
Those sure look like your blogs to me.
Then build a site (that’s one), and let your designers all post to it (assuming you’re telling the truth and you actually have other designers working for you.)
http://www.blogger.com/profile/2930587
There are two blogs for Website marketing, one for affiliate marketing, one for press releases, and then you’ve got Geeks on Steroids and Ranked1.net (so far…I’m sure there are others, but this is enough.)
The beauty of the blogspot.com blog setup is that if any of the blogs get banned from a search engine or a “social media outlet”, you don’t lose out. You can just create another one and the real sucker is blogspot.com .
Some interesting stuff associated with the IP for ranked1.net, which normally would mean nothing except that the nameservers for these results are ns2.geeksonsteroids.com and ns3.geeksonsteroids.com (so Janeth would have to have some knowledge of what’s going on, or at the very least be guilty of hiring a scuzzball server admin…either way, there’s some dirty stuff going on here.)
Search MSN
The reason I post this isn’t because it’s related to the blog topic directly, but to Janeth herself (although there are a couple of blogs in those results, if you do a bit of digging). Things like directories that require a reciprocal link, Viagra, weight loss (she owns that domain, by the way).
And since she at least claims responsibility for the building of the Viagra thing (even if she doesn’t own it), she does know it exists on her server:
http://www.geeksonsteroids.com/porfolio/pages_mt/endles/index.htm
Some of these types of things (reciprocal link directories, low-content blogs) are the types of things that search engines are quite rightly putting the clamp on. And because social media sites are much easier to “optimize for” and less stringent as far as detecting and banning those sites and owners who would manipulate their systems, we start to see a trend whereby former SEO spammers make their way over to the SMO field and start spamming there.
I just hope the StumbleUpons and the Diggs of the world figure it out (although Digg’s starting to get wise to it.)
March 10th, 2007 at 7:24 pm
That’s some mighty good detective work there man, Janeth? :)
March 11th, 2007 at 4:20 am
Most of that stuff is old except for two post one on my geeksonsteroids.com blog which is my main site. And the other on my ranked1.net blog which has one post on it.
You guys said you wanted to debate something but it seems you want to make personal attacks.
SEFL is a nobody trying to make a name for himself by making personal attacks.
If you want to give me credit for all the sites we have designed then that is fine with me.
I am finished posting on a blog that has members that do nothing but make STUPID personal attacks and has an Admin. that can tell how stupid they are.
I am a spammer because I posted on my own blog.
Get a life
March 11th, 2007 at 7:04 am
Ok thanks for sharing, I do not think there can be anything further added to this post. Closing…
Update: Opened comments again after much thought about shutting the conversation down. If people want to yell at each other they are on their own. :)
March 20th, 2008 at 5:30 am
It got a little hard to follow the thread, so I’m just going to answer the best I can.
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with using multiple domains. For example, I have a company in industry X. When I do a search on the main keywords for my industry and the city I live in, another website shows up in Google on the front page. What’s on that site? Nothing. It is a domain I bought a year and a half ago that is sitting on a parked page. However, because of exact keyword matching on the industry term and location, it shows up in the top few results.
If I take that site, and I develop a little bit of content that is localized…what’s the problem? Nothing. If Google sees fit to allow a parked domain page with ads to show up then why not a legitimate business.
Basically, unless you go overboard and are doing things that…well, let’s say we should know what is right and wrong…Google doesn’t care. Heck, they don’t even know.
A lot of people start blogs on other sites because they don’t want all the activity, content dilution, etc. on their own site. Your main site is brand and identity. Like johndoejewelers.com…you’re promoting your store, your products, etc. If you started a new domain called diamondjewelry.com…you could just talk all about diamond jewelry, keep it informal, use it to educate, and to “subtly” market your store. People who type “diamond jewelry” into a search are going to find that site. Probably would never find your store.
Further case in point, one of my client’s is a publicly traded global company with earnings over $250m/yr. They are using 40 domain names in their website. They haven’t been penalized. All those domain names are exact to product, vertical, or brand name. It is not really a good long-term strategy for branding and marketing…but it may have worked for search. Note: I didn’t advise them to do this, and I’m currently going to be working to bring everything back to one domain. Just too hard to manage and market…and I think they’ll get better results down the road.
Finally, just look at a lot of SEO practitioners like Rand Fishkin, Aaron Wall, etc. How many of them just have one website? Nope. They have a company site, a personal bio site, etc. It’s all about the site’s goals.
Don’t worry about Google.
July 1st, 2008 at 7:58 am
Hi, My name is Maia Sylba and I am owner of Creative bites interactive studio…just starting with my web design, 3D design and animations business and I would like to know if using multiple domains can really help to promote your site or it is always the best to use good old payed advertising?
I will appreciate any kind of help:)
Thank you
Maia