Splitting a Site into Two Sites for SEO Purposes

[MSWD]

I have a client that owns a business that really could be easily divided into two separate business in terms of SEO.  Right now his web site covers both divisions of his business.

He gets about 5500 visitors a month.  The majority go to one part of his business and around 600 each month go to the other. So about 11%

I'm considering breaking off this 11% and putting it on an entirely different domain name.  I think I could rank better for this 11%.  The site would only be SEO'd for this particular division of the company.  The keywords would not be in competition with each other.

I would of course link the two web sites and watch that I don't run into any duplicate content issues.

I worry about placing the redirects from the pages that I remove to the new pages.  I know Google is not a fan of redirects.  Then I also worry about the eventual drop in traffic to the main site now.  How big of a factor is traffic in rankings?

Other challenges include that the business services 4 major metropolitan areas.

Would you do this?  Have you done this?  How did it work?

Any suggestions?

[Mark_Jay_Apsey_Jr.]

Slippery slope......Short term it is always better to stay focused. Old saying goes "what you focus on you find". One site and consolidating all the value is always the best short term policy.

Long term, if you continue to build SEO value and the sites are truly different, then you are better off with 2 sites. Here is why:

The same principle applies to the strategy of creating smaller well defined adgroups in adwords to increase your relevance and quality score.... You will create a higher relevancy for those keywords if you separate the site. The problem with this strategy is when you separate the site, you will lose some seo value for both sites.....the way to counteract that is you could pass "linkjuice" back and forth to the sites based on what they needed. But if you have a solid strategy and are working hard at SEO, thats like "mental masturbation" (can i say that?)

Several times we took 1 site and created 2-3 sites. SEO values go down temporarily but we counteracted this by developing a bunch of new relevant content, hyperfocused on the specific sites, and when we eventually got the site reindexed, we were already in better shape than when we started. More importantly, similar to your situation, one of the sites had less competition for several keywords and we started to dominate in that category.

Other assorted stuff:

4 metropolitan areas is not an issue. In some ways it is a plus as it gives you 4 geotargeting opportunities to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

redirects are here to stay. As long as google understands why you are redirecting then you are ok.

Hope this helps. Make it happen.

[Dr-Pete]

I don't think there's a "right" answer here, but my observation is that microsites aren't doing as well as they once did. It used to be that, just by having more sites, you did better. Now, as Google seems to be testing the volume know on exact-match domains, devalues cross-linking, and is harsher on duplicate and thin content, it's a lot harder to support separate sites. Factor in that you're splitting your links, social signals and offline marketing/branding, and promoting two properties can really make you lose focus.

That's not to say it's all-or-none, though. Exact- and partial-match domains do still carry weight, and if the niche is unique and separable enough, it is possible to build a strong identity for it. I'd really look at the business side, though, for guidance. Is this a division of the business that really stands alone as a brand? If so, separation could provide broader benefit. If you're just separating for SEO, I'd generally side with keeping the unified site.

The issue with the redirects is that the weight of those pages only gets to exist in one place. So, if some of those pages have inbound links, a 301-redirect will kick start the new domain, but it will also take away from the authority of the old domain. In other words, you may not just lose the traffic itself - you may lose some of the main domain's ranking ability. That depends a LOT on the situation, though (it's hard to speak in generalities).

[MSWD]

I agree that there is no right answer.  I too worry that by splitting it that I would be loosing a lot of the back linking work for that division.  Thereby causing the site to drop in rankings.  It does TERRIFIC for the other division, which is the biggest part of their business.  I really hate to mess that part up on an experiment like this.

I'm still 50-50.  I would love to hear from someone that has done this and hear details about what they experienced.

[mysitesrock]

Interested to know if you ended up doing this and how it has worked out.
Thanks!

[MSWD]

I choose not to split it.  With all that has changed in the SEO world I am glad I did not.  The site has fared well thru all the changes and still ranks well for both divisions.