Domain forwarding

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi

Is it ok or bad practice to domain forward shorter more memorable snappier domains used for promoting a website to a longer domain where the website actually lives, such as:

Promoting in social media profiles, emails and offline literature a domain with forwarding set up like:

www.brand.com

To the main website:

www.brandincludingprimaryproductrelatedkeyword.com

And if ok (not bad practice), since its the forwarded domains that are being promoted they are hence the links most likely to be shared on social media and other websites so will they be treated like 301's and 'link building' for those will pretty much equate to link building for the main domain (or not) ?

Many Thanks

Dan

[TomRayner]

Hi Dan!

It's not bad practice at all, in fact it's something I often recommend.

If you have a long domain name like the one you mentioned, a short one can be useful for a number of reasons, namely print as you have mentioned.

What might transpire is that people may start identifying the company with that name more and more, which leaves a dilemma of whether or not to simply use the new domain.

For that reason, in addition to what you said about the 301s which is spot on, it's important that any links you acquire for that new domain are done in the same way as the main domain.  In short: ensure its quality.

[dschapira]

It is a particularly good idea for Print media, since users will have to manually enter the domain name.  In that case, shorter is obviously better.

In online media, where a user can simply click, we've found better results using the primary domain name.  That being said, as long as you aren't doing 301s en masse to the point that Google will think you are exploiting/gaming the system, it is not a 'bad' practice.  Keep in mind, though, that while 301s SHOULD ensure that any link juice developed for the re-directed URL is passed on to the main URL, there is always the risk of less-than-100% transfer, or no transfer whatsoever.

Make sure you consider the risk/reward ratio for this strategy.  Will you generate enough additional penetration because of the use of the shorter re-directed URL to offset the risk of diluting or getting marginal results of out the links/articles/etc?  If so, go for it.  If not, be safe and use the primary URL.  Whatever you do, remember that as Tom said above, quality is key.

[Dan-Lawrence]

Thanks Tom , so just to clarify re 301's, link building/growth to the promoted domain should still have a beneficial effect pass on to the primary hosted domain ?

cheers

dan