What do i do with multiple cheap domain names I want to use for SEO?

[walterheck]

My domain registrar was having a sale for 1$ per year .com domain names (just for the first year). So I went all out and bought 16 domain names. They pretty much all are two or more keywords that i'd like to rank high on put together. We do dedicated server monitoring, so for instance I bought apachemonitoring.com and haproxymoniotring.com.

Can anyone tell me what the best way would be to put these to good use technically? Options:

• Each domain just 301's to a specific landing page on my main company website

• Each domain is a site on a drupal multisite with just one page that has links to just my company website

• Other ideas?

Thanks in advance!

Walter

[RyanKent]

There is not any intrinsic value to those domains at all. If those were my domains, I would park them and offer them for sale and hope someone is interested.

The solid SEO approach to take when you own a site is to place all your content on your site. You don't see quality sites buying up other domains. It's a poor tactic. In order for it to pay off you need to add quality content to the domain. At best, you can write a very solid 1-page site. You then need to obtain separate hosting for this one page site. The content needs to be good and then you link it to your site. In the end, you would likely be far better off if the quality content was on your main site, and you didn't spend the time and effort on this manipulation tactic.

If you want to buy a bunch of domains, try buying the ones which are similar to your own brand. This is done as a means of protection. If you are Google.com, buy Gogle.com, Google.net, along with any variations you can think of and 301 them all to your site.

[walterheck]

Hi Ryan,

many thanks for your response!

My reasoning is a bit different though: our monitoring service monitors a lot of different things, but I thought we'd use these domains as a funnel to catch people that are looking to monitor specific applications.

What you are saying is that having domains that exist out of those keywords is pointless? I read that domains with keywords will rank high for those keywords?

cheers,

Walter

[irvingw]

If you are just 301'ing them they won't rank because it's not a site and not indexed. If you are doing this for type thru direct traffic that could work if you have really good perfectly targeted keyword domain names like dogdoors.com not online-dog-doors.com but since all good domains are already owned i doubt that is the case.

If making one or 2 page landing page/sites make sure those two pages have a LOT of content, like 2000+ words on each page so they don't seem flimsy to Google.

I agree with Ryan, if looking to create different domains you're better off making pages on your main site that are targeted for those keywords.

"What you are saying is that having domains that exist out of those keywords is pointless? I read that domains with keywords will rank high for those keywords?"

This is true, domain name is extremely important for ranking, but putting them all on the same server is obvious to Google and unless you plan on really investing in setting up all of these domains with unique content on different servers, you're better off putting the keywords in the file name and optimizing it on your existing site. EX. www.bestpetstore.com/dog-doors

[RyanKent]

Walter,

I understand what you are trying to do, and why you are trying to do it. It's a form of Doorway page for your site. You wish to capture traffic searches for "apache monitoring" and other key phrases. You have purchased some domains which are an exact match for the phrases and wish to understand how you can best use these domains to drive traffic to your site.

The answer you are looking for is as follows:

• Most people who take this approach wish to use the site to improve their main site's PR or DA. It doesn't work because Google would recognize the same owner as the site it links to and discount the links.

How does Google make the connection? Well one way is to check the domain registration information. Google is a domain registrar so they have direct access to all the information. Other simple steps are to check the IP of the domain (c-block), the code structure, the content and more. In short, most people who attempt this approach either are not successful or enjoy success only for a short time before having the links devalued. Many do not even realize when they are penalized.

• Some people who use this approach are more focused on the actual traffic and don't care about the links so much. If you had a domain name such as "car insurance" which offers millions of searches each month and is highly competitive, then this approach has value. "Apache monitoring" only has 6600 searches per month and is considering a low competition phrase.

If you optimized a page on your own site for "apache monitoring" and had the benefit of your site's DA, you may be able to rank #1 for the search term anyway. If you spent any time and focus on quality SEO, you should be able to if it is an important term for your site.

The site "apache-monitor.com" presently ranks as #3 for the search. Their page is optimized for the phase with "apache monitoring" in the title, H1 tag and text. Their DA is 37 and PA 46. Your one-page site wont have the benefit of DA/PA so it wont rank as well. If you are going to the trouble of an EMD for a very low traffic phrase, at the very least you want to capture the #1 rank for the term. You wont even be #3 without tremendous resources and effort.

The practice of what you are doing is called Doorway Pages. It's a black hat SEO tactic. You are attempting to drive traffic to your site by creating fake micro websites. The problem is this tactic does not improve the user experience nor search quality. It is designed to manipulate search results and is therefore a violation of search quality. You can read more about it here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66355

Doorway pages were more popular in the past when the practice wasn't as clearly understood and defined. Feel free to correct me if I am mistaken. Your question is very common, but it is based on historical information and times have changed.

[walterheck]

Thanks for the response. I've seen people who hire some cheap content writer through odesk or some such and then add a twitter feed on the page that displays results of a search. I'm not saying i necessarily like that approach, but it is interesting. In the end, all I really want is high quality visitors on my site

thanks for the advice,

Walter

[walterheck]

Crystal clear, guess I'll park most of the domains then

[jamesjackson]

this is a phenomenal answer. thanks ryan

[DougHoltOnline]

One of the best responses I've read on MOZ - great job!