Hi all, I am new to the forum but would love to ask your opinions on a new SEO optimised network that I have been thinking about. At the moment it is entirely fictitious but please could you give your opinions. I have a bicycle shop www.bicycle.com (this is not my site its just for the example) . This is my main shop which has keywords bicycle,bike,shop,buy etc. I then have subdomains: racing.bicycle.com mountainbike.bicycle.com and i have manufacturer domains gt.bicycle.com bmw.bicycle.com trek.bicycle.com Now I set up domains that sell bicycles londonspecialistbikeshop.com newbikeshop.com cheapbycicleshop.com I get them a pagerank and keyword optimise them for easier keywords like 'london specialist bike shop'. The domains all have the following pages: londonspecialistbikeshop.com/racing/ -- > Links to racing.bicycle.com londonspecialistbikeshop.com/mountain/ -- > mountainbike.bicycle.com londonspecialistbikeshop.com/gt/ -- > gt.bicycle.com londonspecialistbikeshop.com/bmw/ etc londonspecialistbikeshop.com/trek/ etc And all of these pages back link to the main sites sub domain. With the same specific anchored URL. ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Each smaller site would be different and cater to the niche it serves. It would be updated daily, for example londonspecialistbikeshop.com will have locally targeted exclusive content to keep people coming back, it wont just be a clone. This i think would be the ideal network to develop www.bicycle.com's ranking in all search engines. There is a problem however that I would like to be discussed. Some of the data will be the same throughout the network, like prices, reviews and pictures of the bikes. How does google and the other search engines view this? THANKS!!! I hope we can all have a good debate
Personally i would make your pages bicycle.com/bmw Sub domains are seen as new sites and you have to work them up just like any other domain, whereas if they are on a subfolder the link juice spreads better and doesnt leave you with a tonne of subdomains, although thats up to you.
Thanks for the info Glen, you read my mind because that was another question I was going to ask. What do you think about the overall strategy? will it work?
subdomains are new domains but are you going to host these web sites on the same hosting area or a different hosing account? if the ips are the same, it will a good effect for your site
I've engaged in these extensive networks of domains/subdomains for SEO testing, and it's alot of work getting backlinks and fresh content for them all. Honestly i find putting it all under one domain is better like Bicycle.com/racing Bicycle.com/bmw When you start getting alot of unique pages and backlinks you can start achieving "authority" domain status. Meaning you throw up and new page, and it ranks instantly for competative terms and stays there. This is something you will find hard achieving with multiple smaller sites. Pour all your efforts in to the one domain, you will do one thing excellent instead of 10 things average. When this one domain starts to dominate, then you can think about a second and use the first to boost it up and so on.
Thankyou for the feedback all. Hi there trichnosis, well the main site will be hosted on the one IP address, the other multiple smaller sites will be hosted with different providers with their own IP addresses. I have actually heard that backlinks from sites with different IP addresses are what google is looking for. Is this right? Thanks sweetfunny that was very informative, I am trying to think out the box here for a solution to quite a specific market (its not bicycles ) It will be very hard to generate exclusive unique content for the small sites but I think I have solved that. The smaller sites will all be affiliates with a complete product range to sell. I have been developing a sort of website plug-in. The affiliates will all be able to connect to the main site via a socket and download product details, links etc in an xhtml format. So the site they own will be completely under their control, the design and even how the product range is presented will be their responsibility. Thats hopefully the reason why the affiliates/smaller sites will all have their own exclusive design and content. The main sites will actually be owned by these affiliates, and direct type in traffic with no affiliate code attached will be redistributed through the network. So following your advice sweetfunny, when the plugin is finished, all I have to do is develop the content of the main site. The affiliates will look after themselves. Hopefully this will bring domain domination (love the phrase)!
I agree with this. Unless you want to sell link, you should keep your subdomains as folder... p.l.u.r.