Multiple Domain names pointing at one website

[markc-197183]

Hello,

A collegue has asked if we can buy multiple domain names which contain keywords and point them at our website.

Is this good practise or will it be seen as spam? Will these domains actually get ranked?

I'm sure I'm not the first person to raise this but can't seem to find any questions and answers about this.

Thanks

Mark

[StefanJDorresteijn]

I've done something sort of like this before so I'm sure my story gives you some insight.

I have a big forum that I do SEO for a lot and we were looking to rank our new sections for their respected keywords. Now, instead of fighting the big competitors we have by just building links, we decided to make multiple websites with the exactly keywords in the domain names. This way we ended up with 7 .com, exact match domain names. We filled these up with content and did some small SEO on them. After about two weeks they were all ranking in the top 3 for their keywords where my main site was nowhere to be found. We kept the sites there for about a month, and then 301'd them to our main site which led to our main site being in the top 5 after a week, and on rank 1 after three weeks and some extra linking.

When it comes to just having the domain names I wouldn't do it like that, I'd fill them up with content, do some quick link building for them, and then 301 them. This way you'll get their link juice and you don't have to do too much SEO for it.

Notes:

1. Get completely different hosts for the other domains
2. Make sure they're exact match, or at least close to it, otherwise it's not all that useful, they need to give you an advantage
3. Make sure the content you post on the sites is of high quality so you don't look spammy.

I'm not 100% if this is the best way to do it, but this is the way I did it and I had great success with it so I hope it helps!

[seoug_2005]

Hello Stefan,

I read with interest your post and would like you to please clarify -

"Get completely different hosts for the other domains"

Do you mean completely different domains for your 7 websites. If yes, why so ?

[StefanJDorresteijn]

I mean that your main site and the seperate sites you're creating for link juice should not be on the same host. I've seen people link to themselves like that way too much and in my experience it doesn't work out well.

Quick example of how I did the hosting:

1. Main site is hosted somewhere in the middle-east
2. The 7 other sites are hosted with Arvixe, in the US

This way they're not connected in any way and they look like completely different sites that don't share anything.

[martyc]

Interesting strategy Stefan.  Did you link between your 7 exact match domains in any way or just to your main site?  Thanks.

[markc-197183]

Very Interesting - thank you Stefan. Does anyone know what googles take is on this?

[irvingw]

Google's take is you're not supposed to do it.Also,

a) make sure the domains are private registration so no one knows who owns the sites

b) put about 2000 words per page on the site, you can get away with a two page site just make sure both pages have tons of unique content

c) link to your site from the web and let Google find the site on it's own, don't submit it to Google's ADD URL tool - some claim that doing so tells Google that this is a new site, if Google finds it on it's own it doesn't make that determination (again can't be proven 100%)

d) this strategy only sometimes works for some reason, don't count on them all ranking.

[StefanJDorresteijn]

Nothing is linked until I 301

[markc-197183]

Great, thank you all very much.

[sd11sine]

Does this technique still have any value ... or did the google updates catch this

[Everett]

I would not advise buying EMDs for the purpose of linking into your main site, or for redirecting to your site after those EMDs get exact-match external links. Theoretically, if you had good content on the EMDs that you wouldn't mind putting on your main site some day (because catch-all redirects, like an entire site redirecting to the home page, are treated as 404s, according to John Muller of Google) you could gain something by redirecting the EMDs to that content on your main site once the EMDs had some decent links. However, the amount of effort it would take to do this would be significantly more than what it would take to put good content on your main site to begin with.

Google has been lowering the importance of exact-match domains and exact-match anchor text for some time now. Shortcuts don't work forever. I don't mean to sound like some preachy white-hat guy, but even if you could get it to work for awhile you would be risking the reputation of your primary domain. When a site gets banned people often lose their jobs. They go on unemployment. They can't pay their mortgages. They can't afford health insurance. So yea, maybe a little bit preachy. Don't do it. Just my two cents.

PS: I did try this a few times about five years ago on a few of my own personal sites. It didn't take long for Google to figure out how people were manipulating the algorithm by purchasing EMDs and redirecting them for this purpose.