I've been lucky enough to purchase a domain name with desirable keywords, and up until now it's just been parked at GoDaddy. Now I'd like to set up the GoDaddy Forwarding feature with "Masked Domain" so that the keyword-based URL is indexed by Google, but when visited the masked site shows my real site inside of an HTML frameset. Can you think of any negative impact this could have to SEO/SERP's? Also, does anyone have experience/data with how helpful keyword-based domains are? This one is pretty short (12 characters including 2 hypens, + .com) so I'm hoping it will help me rank better in SERPS for those keywords. For the organic search of the same keywords, my other (real domain name) site already ranks top-5, so I'm hoping this become a second URL listing that also brings me some traffic. thanks, LC
Hi LC, I can't answer your first question, but hopefully someone will come along who can. As for your second question, having your keywords in your domain name will definitely help with regard to SERPs. I don't have any specific data supporting this, but based on what I've learned about SEO, this would be included under "fundamental". HTH, Sam
Hi Sam, that's very helpful. Thank you! Now, can anyone help with the first question? Namely, is there any SEO harm in hosting a keyword-rich URL website containing the 'real' site within a frameset? i.e.: visible URL: http://www.keyword-rich-domain.com contains frameset with: http://www.myrealsite.com Would this be considered cloaking and hurt rankings for the frameset site and/or the real site? I already rank well for the real site, but I'm always looking to do better. thanks LC
I had that same question. I have a Domain purchased from GoDaddy, and I'm forwarding it while using the mask feature. I'm trying to get it ranked in Google. Currently I am indexed in google and when I check the cache verison(what google sees) - I see a blank page. There is nothing on it. Meaning that Google never saw the page I am forwarding too. So obviously Google doesn't know what I am forwarding to. But I still have one question. If I continue my off-page optimization with this forwarded URL, is it still possible to get go search engine ranking?
You can still have a page rank and be listed in google with it, but your main page isn't going to be seen so any SEO on your page will be useless, well aside from the URL Google, once again, will not pick up your main page you want viewed. You're better off not using the masking.
I have sites that are masked with page rank - http://www.acaiplusbiz.com or just forwarded - http://www.freedomrocks.us The freedomrocks.us site even ranks in google and yahoo (used to rank higher in google). My suggestion though for best is to have a domain with content. thats best. If not an option - then the offsite optimization is your only choice.
If there is nothing you can do about it then ok....I've heard of masked urls getting good serps position
Page Rank is only one factor though, I've had websites that were masked that had frames for forwarding but it's not going to pick up any keywords on the page. The page rank will just be shown from how many places are linking to you. Your page rank is not affected much (if at all) by frames but your overall keyword ranking will be greatly affected because your keywords (other than the one in your URL) will not be picked up. Most good articles on SEO say do not use frames and I have had experience in a website not getting picked up but yet still have a PR.
I have webmasking with godaddy for the domain of http://www.allxclubpro.co.uk/ its allso on the from page of google http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=allxclub&btnG=Google+Search&meta= its all about offsite seo that does the boosting.. Also google loves the godaddy servers
I have a few .info domains that are being forwarded and masked to mini sites on my server but i cannot get the domains listed on search engines, i have tried all sorts, should i use meta date within my html or on the forwarding option on godaddy? Any help would be fantastic.