Multiple Domains Are Bad For SEO
I get this question and see this with a lot of my customers over and over again; Customers that I will do SEO for will own multiple domains for the same business.
This is not me saying that they have related domains, I mean the same business and same offerings or services on multiple domains.
Usually I find this out while talking to my customers when we discuss the strategy and plan of action, and they tell me about these domains and want me to see if and how I can integrate these extra domains while I do the work on the main site.
Please tend to have this notion that the more sites they own for the same product and/or service, this somehow will give them an edge to rank higher on the search engines.
I always have a problem talking about this while trying to explain to them that this idea is a bad one.
Secondary domains will most likely going to have identical content and that is a bad thing when it comes to SEO.
However, there is a way around it to effectively use multiple domains.
There are two main tactics commonly used while owning multiple domains.
Some people are worried that their competitors will buy keyword oriented domains thereby jeopardizing their own website.
This in turn leads to a panic, and people start buying out domains.
The idea here is that if they own these domains, their competitors will not be able to beat them in the ranking game.
While this may sound plausible, it will have no effect on your SEO at all, nor do I think this will have much of an effect of blocking out your competition.
It is impossible to think of every competing domain and buy every single one of them.
Plus don't forget the initial cost and maintenance of all these domain names.
All you need to do is wary about one thing, offer a better content and get more relevant links back to your site.
If you do for whatever reason decide to stick with this tactic, you have to make sure that all of your other domains are redirected toward your main domain using a 301 redirect.
Some companies think by having multiple domains on the first page, you can get that much more traffic.
Well, in theory that may work, at least for a while, however there are some drawbacks to this.
If you have a single physical business location, it's not a good idea to have multiple websites.
You'll confuse your potential and existing customers, and I personally would avoid multiple websites with the same physical address.
Google doesn't like multiple sites from the same business and may consider it I consider this to be spam and in turn penalize the site.
Because you should have original content, and can't re-use the content from another site, you will have to write all new stuff.
I know how hard it is to write original content, and not to mention the allocating time to get it written.
Here is the next problem with double branding.
Does one site become primary (high-end), and the secondary (low-end)? Do you keep prices and services the same? What names are you even going to use on the sites? I am sure you have a phone number, so how would you answer the phone, using what business name? Of course there could be some exceptions, such as targeting different audience.
But this double branding effort comes with a lot of risks and extra work.
The only real exception hat I have to having multiple domains, is if you have your business in different countries.
It's an exception because all of the problems above do not apply when you get into other countries.
on contrary, in order to have the best results in international SEO, you'll need to have a country specific domain.
If you're doing business in England, you will have a hard time ranking without a.
co.
uk domain.
One final point that I would like to reiterate, If you really intend to own and run multiple domains and get these sites to show up in the search results, you will have to double your SEO work.
As you will find out over time, there are no shortcuts, or quick rankings that you can get, even if you are already ranking well for your main website.
In fact, a new site will be significantly harder to rank than a site that has history and authority already established.
this is why I highly recommend that all of your efforts should go towards the primary website before attempting to work on multiple domains at the same time.
This is not me saying that they have related domains, I mean the same business and same offerings or services on multiple domains.
Usually I find this out while talking to my customers when we discuss the strategy and plan of action, and they tell me about these domains and want me to see if and how I can integrate these extra domains while I do the work on the main site.
Please tend to have this notion that the more sites they own for the same product and/or service, this somehow will give them an edge to rank higher on the search engines.
I always have a problem talking about this while trying to explain to them that this idea is a bad one.
Secondary domains will most likely going to have identical content and that is a bad thing when it comes to SEO.
However, there is a way around it to effectively use multiple domains.
There are two main tactics commonly used while owning multiple domains.
Some people are worried that their competitors will buy keyword oriented domains thereby jeopardizing their own website.
This in turn leads to a panic, and people start buying out domains.
The idea here is that if they own these domains, their competitors will not be able to beat them in the ranking game.
While this may sound plausible, it will have no effect on your SEO at all, nor do I think this will have much of an effect of blocking out your competition.
It is impossible to think of every competing domain and buy every single one of them.
Plus don't forget the initial cost and maintenance of all these domain names.
All you need to do is wary about one thing, offer a better content and get more relevant links back to your site.
If you do for whatever reason decide to stick with this tactic, you have to make sure that all of your other domains are redirected toward your main domain using a 301 redirect.
Some companies think by having multiple domains on the first page, you can get that much more traffic.
Well, in theory that may work, at least for a while, however there are some drawbacks to this.
If you have a single physical business location, it's not a good idea to have multiple websites.
You'll confuse your potential and existing customers, and I personally would avoid multiple websites with the same physical address.
Google doesn't like multiple sites from the same business and may consider it I consider this to be spam and in turn penalize the site.
Because you should have original content, and can't re-use the content from another site, you will have to write all new stuff.
I know how hard it is to write original content, and not to mention the allocating time to get it written.
Here is the next problem with double branding.
Does one site become primary (high-end), and the secondary (low-end)? Do you keep prices and services the same? What names are you even going to use on the sites? I am sure you have a phone number, so how would you answer the phone, using what business name? Of course there could be some exceptions, such as targeting different audience.
But this double branding effort comes with a lot of risks and extra work.
The only real exception hat I have to having multiple domains, is if you have your business in different countries.
It's an exception because all of the problems above do not apply when you get into other countries.
on contrary, in order to have the best results in international SEO, you'll need to have a country specific domain.
If you're doing business in England, you will have a hard time ranking without a.
co.
uk domain.
One final point that I would like to reiterate, If you really intend to own and run multiple domains and get these sites to show up in the search results, you will have to double your SEO work.
As you will find out over time, there are no shortcuts, or quick rankings that you can get, even if you are already ranking well for your main website.
In fact, a new site will be significantly harder to rank than a site that has history and authority already established.
this is why I highly recommend that all of your efforts should go towards the primary website before attempting to work on multiple domains at the same time.
