Domain Purchases!

[Brumdesign]

I am a website developer and designer and I know all about the basics with regards to seo, webmaster tools, content and meta tags!

I am currently re-building my main site from the ground up and is nearly finished! Within my site I have a section with 5 pages that's designed for potential clients who are thinking about hiring a developer like me to build them a website. This section I have named _'So you want a website!'._It's designed to make people think about what, why and what they want their website to achieve as well as how much it costs to have it built.

My question is this.... I have just purchased the domain soyouwanta.website with the intention for it to basically redirect to the named section above! I hear it's good to have similar named domains to redirect to main sites and is good for seo! How do the search engines treat new domains to redirect to main domains and how do I add this to webmaster tools?

Looking forward to your answers.

Phillip Dews

[DirkC]

You can use the domain as a vanity url - but in terms of SEO it has no real value as it's redirected to your main domain (especially if it's brand new & has no existing links and reputation).

Redirected url's are normally not indexed - Google is indexing the url behing the 301. In webmastertools you don't have to do anything special. You could indicate a change address (settings GSC) on the soyouwanta.website  domain  - but as the new domain is not indexed and doesn't have content I don't think it's useful to do so.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I hear it's good to have similar named domains to redirect to main sites and is good for seo!

I echo Dirks comments that there is no value in doing this and I pretty sure there never has been this benefit. A URL redirected to another carries no weight with Google.

As a vanity URL, no issues with doing that at all. I do see this fairly often where a targeted URL like this on a business card, then forwards to the main website itself. It's a nice way for people to remember you.

-Andy

[EGOL]

I hear it's good to have similar named domains to redirect to main sites and is good for seo!

A lot of people who write about this type of information are poorly informed.  In my opinion, you are listening to the wrong person.

I agree with the opinions given by Dirk and Andy.

I normally don't chime in like this when great advice is offered, but in this case, I think that it is an important thing to do because the advice here is so different from what you read elsewhere.

[Brumdesign]

Hi Dirk,

That's what I thought anyway! I suppose I could always do something with that domain and put the mini website I talked about on it as a separate entity and build it's reputation over the coming years and months hey!

That would probably be my best bet over using it as a vanity url, I could always change it back once I have built it up with links and a reputation after a year or so!

Thank you for responding back to me buddy! All the best

Phillip

[Brumdesign]

Thank you Andy to taking the time to respond buddy!

Have decided not to use it as a vanity url and actually put a website on it first! Have a good day!

• Phillip Dews

[Brumdesign]

I too agree with them both EGOL, and again thank you for taking the time to respond to my question! as I have said above I will be putting a website on that domain and link back to my main one from it! Can always use it as a vanity url in the future!

Thanks again and have a great day buddy!

• Phillip Dews