Single domain or Multiple Keyword Domains

[daenterpri]

I do a lot of affiliate marketing for aftermarket truck parts and I also run a lot of community/forum type websites for trucks. On the affiliate marketing side of things, I usually will find a very good keyword rich domain name for a product, and build a site around that product. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't, but I typically feel like I have an advantage because of the very keyword rich domain names.

Lately it's become a lot of work setting up these individual sites and promoting them. I try to do a good job, and provide quality content. I've considered moving these sites to one central site, like, one of my more popular truck community/forums and maybe start using sub-domains or sub-folders instead. They are all truck related, but they are all completely different parts. Some for performance, others being accessories.

Does anyone have an opinion on this? I've read on here multiple times about the advantage in focusing all your link power in one place, but I feel at the same time that I would be missing out on the power of the great keyword phrase domains I've been using. If I combined all of these sites into a single community site, the site's content wouldn't be as targeted, right?

I would appreciate any advice I can get. Thanks,

Andy

[wildnerakademie]

Well, this is not so easy to clarify. Google will make more changes in the future about those keyword-domains. One one side, you have important words in the domain, but on the other hand you have users that need to remember the domain. Here is an example: instead of "great-social-media-network" it's called "facebook". Get the picture?

Google likes brands - so be one.

Take all in one place in subfolders - not subdomains.

Mmake it big. Concentrate in one place.

Take a short domain (see mytrucks.com)

[AlanBleiweiss]

I agree with wildner-akademie - become THE authority site on all things related to truck parts.  With proper content organization (sub-folders), the long-term value will be worth the effort.

One great example of how this works so well - Real Estate - for nearly every city in the country, Trulia and Zillow consistently come up in the top five results. It's all in sub-folders.  And neither one has "real estate" in the domain name.

[marcelo-275398]

Single keyword domains or microsites are really difficult to keep up to date.

I would advise focusing your energy on one domain building up the authority and managing it well. Look at well developed life style blogs or news sites, these cover a variety of subjects however still perform well for a variety of very different keywords.

[MarieHaynes]

Keyword rich domains are not as powerful as they once were.  Check out Matt Cutts video on whether or not it is important to have keywords in a domain (linked to below).

If these niches are somewhat related then I would have one main site and do folders for each part.  So, I'd have:

truckparts.com/part1

truckparts.com/part2

This way, when you build links back (or if someone links to) a parts folder then the whole domain benefits.

watch?v=rAWFv43qubI

[EGOL]

You have been lead to ask this question because of the workload of keeping many sites current and dealing with their shopping carts.   SEOs would complain about this for entirely different reasons.

I used to run lots of little "hotdog stand" websites.  They did OK.

But then I built a big site and it defeated all of the hotdog stands and all of their competitors.

A big site can become an authority in many niches.  A big site creates lots of opportunities for cross-selling.

Why not build mytruckparts.com and sell everything there.   Redirect all of the hotdog stands to the big site.

[daenterpri]

Thank you everyone! This is really helpful.

[daenterpri]

Thanks everyone! I really appreciate the help!

For the last few years I've had a website called husky-floor-liners.com. It was dedicated to specific brand of floor liner. Earlier this year, I decided to make the site bigger to incorporate further brands of floor liners and mats, so I turned it into floormatsandliners.com, and redirected all the old URL's to the new ones. Would it be bad to move that site, yet again, to a subfolder on a site of mine like truckprofile.com? Then have the content of floormatsandliners.com moved to truckprofile.com/floor-mats-liners?

And then should I have the brands and parts structure be like: truckprofile.com/floor-mats-liners/husky/floor-liners?

Thanks!

[AlanBleiweiss]

While consolidation is good, too many 301 Redirects in too short a period of time can be a hassle.  I'd suggest building out other content initially, and letting the floor mats site build up some value over several months before considering a migration of that.  Jumping too soon on a recently redirected site could cause too much loss of original site value as it passes through two hops.

[daenterpri]

Thank you, that's what I was wondering. Ok, I'll start working on a central site in the meantime.

[daenterpri]

Will Google freak out, or will there be any other issues if all of the sudden I'm doing all these 301 Redirects from 20 sites to a single website?

Thank you,

Andy

[AlanBleiweiss]

that's a very good question.  You may want to post it as a new question so we can get fresh eyes on it.  Personally I haven't ever done so many sites at once so I too am curious to find out if others have this specific experience.

If not, you may very well end up being the gunea pig.  In that case, I would suggest not doing more than one or two a week.

[AlanBleiweiss]

that's a very good question.  You may want to post it as a new question so we can get fresh eyes on it.  Personally I haven't ever done so many sites at once so I too am curious to find out if others have this specific experience.

If not, you may very well end up being the guinea pig.  In that case, I would suggest not doing more than one or two a week.

[daenterpri]

Will do

[Jabba123]

Just wondering, did you post this question as a new question as I'd be interested in the answers? (I did a search but could not seem to find it)

[AntonioCasamassa]

Definitely go for the one domain approach in a bid to create a larger digital footprint, I too used to have multiple single domains targeting a keyword or two and now after the last Google Panda update these keyword rich domains aren't as effective as they once were.