Domain Name Redirect Question

[netsites]

My agency just built a new website for a client who is a franchisee.  It's not launched yet - it's currently under an IP address.  I suggested to client that he buy a keyword-rich domain name for it, which he did. Then he found out that the franchisor will not allow it to be his main domain name. They want him to use a domain name with the franchisor name in it.  But they WILL allow him to put a 301 redirect on that franchisor-approved domain name, and redirect it to his keyword-rich domain name.

He is interested in having my agency perform an SEO Campaign for this new website. But would SEO and link marketing work for a website that has a new non-keyword domain name that 301 redirects to a new keyword-rich domain name?

[StreamlineMetrics]

Simple answer, yes, most SEO tactics would work just fine in this case as long as the 301 redirect is set up correctly.

[jesse-landry]

I am against this whole keyword-rich domain name thing you seem to be  pushing here. I would want the domain name to be branded as the company. Your SEO campaign should be more than enough to get the brand ranking for whatever keywords you are targeting.

That being said, whatever you redirect to, be sure you are building links to the final domain (aka the domain you are redirecting TO.)

Reason for this is as 301s do pass link juice, there is a slight degeneration there. Even if it's less than 1%, what would the point be of losing that juice?

Not to mention the fact that if you are correctly building links and the anchor text reads www.keyword-domain.com and then the user who clicks it lands on www.branded-domain.com they will be ultimately confused. This is unnecessary and somewhat deceitful. You should focus on building initial trust with your users, and this is a bad first step in doing so.

That's my two-cents on the subject. Good luck!

[netsites]

Thank you for answering so quickly!

[netsites]

Thank you for answering so quickly! I respect your opinion, and I know that keyword-rich domain names are controversial (always have been). For many years I've continually seen great results when people use them and market them the right way.  Even if all search engines stop including the keyword-richness of domain names in their algos, the bottom line is, when people link to websites, they will likely use the domain name. If it's keyword-rich, they're using keywords to link to the website.

I intend to correctly build links and the anchor text will often read www.keyword-domain.com and the user who clicks it will land on www.keyword-domain.com. So no confusion there, hopefully. I welcome further discussions.

[jesse-landry]

The keyword in your domain won't really add much because of the anchor text itself, if that's what you're inferring. The link's placement and relevance is the more important factor, always.

Even if they did, the last thing you want is a keyword-heavy anchor text profile... That's the short version of the way I see it.

Anyway I guess I still don't understand what you're asking in this topic. In the original post you mentioned that the "franchisor will not allow the keyword-domain.com to be their primary domain." But then you said people will be landing on keyword-domain.com?

So is it the other way around? the franchise-name.com will be redirecting to keyword-domain.com? If this is the case, have at it! I guess what I'm saying is I advise against building links to the domain that's being redirected and instead all links should be built to the final destination.

But it sounds like that's what you are doing. Forgive my confusion here, I've had a stuffed head all week!

Yeah I don't love exact match domains and I can all but guarantee their effectiveness will be going away. Google has addressed this multiple times publicly and made no effort to conceal the fact.. Nonetheless I think the most important factor is the quality of the site's content and the authority/relevance of the links coming in.

I wish you luck!