Domain Name Evaluation

[Smart_Start]

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[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

This is a bit of a loaded question.

Are you looking to redirect URLs to your company's main domain? If so, I would only choose a very few relevant domains with good metrics. I would then conduct a backlink audit on those domains to make sure that they are not in the risk of getting a penalty or passing bad link equity to your company's website.

I would not recommend redirecting 500 domains to your company's website or leveraging those to duplicate content efforts. You should only need a branded domain and maybe a couple variants to redirect to your company's site. I wouldn't worry about your competitors from this standpoint unless it's branded or a product name.

To your point: "Based on my research with SEO it seems like there is no advantage to owning a large amount of domain names for one single brand trying to rank for a handful of keywords. I have informed the company that it would be better to spend the time to work on building a single domain value." This is true - if you want to rank for keywords, focus your efforts on valuable content building and marketing - not shortcutting by buying a list of a lot of domains that rank for keywords. It just looks spammy.

Let me know if this helps or if you have any other questions - hope this helps! Good luck!

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi John

I think Patrick makes some very good points in relation to your questions and I agree.

Focus you efforts on building one strong site rather than diluting things with multiple sites.

Again you may wish to keep some of the 500 domains if they are brand or product specific to protect them from competition leverage. Otherwise I wouldn't worry about others picking them up if you let them go. I have been in a similar situation in the past and I let most go and never regretted it.

However I would also check the 500 domains in order to see if there are any gems hidden among them. I would do this by using URL profiler (http://urlprofiler.com/) and dropping the list of domains into it once hooked up to Moz etc - this would give you a good overview including elements like domain authority. If you happen to have several domains with high domain authority you may wish to keep these. As Patrick says you would need to be careful and preform a relevant backlink audit once you have quickly narrowed things down with URL profiler.

Hope this further helps you

[GlobeRunner]

John, generally speaking there is not SEO advantage for owning a domain--you need to actually use it and put content on it, and build it's authority and trust up. There are keyword rich domains that are easier to build a site on if the content is appropriate, though. For example, Keyword1.com would be helpful if you are going after Keyword1.

When it comes to domains, we generally recommend looking at the keyword (without the TLD) to determine its overall potential SEO value... and look at CPC and monthly search volume statistics. At this time, unless the domain is a one-word popular keyword for your niche, any TLDs other than .COM are probably not going to be worth keeping. But you need to evaluate each one.

Take a look at running the domains through Estibot.com, it does a halfway decent job at determining value based on CPC and Keyword Volume numbers as well as some other factors.

If there is a domain that you think your competitors will buy if not renewed, you may want to consider renewing it. LIkewise, if there is a domain that you think has value but doesn't have value to your company right now, then you may be able to sell it.

[Smart_Start]

I really appreciate the responses. Good to know I am on the right track. It helps to have confirmation so that I can make a case with the Executive team.