Calling all SEO's I am really stuck and a bit nervous about this one and really need some help from some experienced SEO's please. I have a client who is a large UK Limited company they have the following websites:- (I have had to put fake domain names to protect my clients privacy sorry) Website A www.premiumdomainname.ltd.uk = PR 4 and 15,200 backlinks This first site is the strongest in terms of backlinks and perfectly describes the business activities of the website. However it is a .ltd.uk domain name and I am unsure of the issues with optimising a .ltd.uk and have had no experience of doing this. The website itself is poor design and outdated needs replacing and complete SEO overhall. Website B www.gimikyname.co.uk = PR 3 and 6,000 backlinks This Second site is the weakest and has the least number of backlinks also it does not 100% describe the business activity so is not a premium domain name. However the website content is excellent and modern in apperance it has also had seo done to the site itself and actually outperforms the first site in terms of visitors and revenue generated despite less backlinks and less PR. OK here is the problem the company would like to run only one website so I must figure out the best option as I see it I have 2 choices: 1) Move the website (content) from B to A and put a 301 redirect on the URL for B to A so the new website would be www.premiumdomainname.ltd.uk but have the contnet from website B replace the content that is currently on this site. This is the best scenario in the clients eyes, however it may cause all sorts of problems in the serps with duplicate contnet also the domain name is a .ltd.uk so long term this could be bad for getting to the top of the 'search engines' for major keywords, however it is also a PREMIIUM domain name and if it was a .com or .co.uk would be worth a fortune. I have no experience with .ltd.uk domains and am not sure how Big G sees them, perhaps this is already reflected in the poor performance of the site now? but I think its more down to the bad onsite SEO. 2) I could Simply 301 redirect Website A to Website B and leave Website B unchanged with the same name. This will definately be the best short term but would be a waste of the potentially premium domain name, and may also cause problems with the serps in that Website A has many more links than B so may look like link spam. Calling all SEO's this is an absolute head F^%& for me and just cant make a decision would really appreciate any help I from the community. Thanks
Honestly the best idea is to leave them alone and run the two sites in tandem, and use them to promote each other. At least now your risk is balanced, and your have 2 shots in the SERP's to rank and can use slightly different tactics on each site. You see Google is a fickle creature, and now more than ever people are waking up with no web presence due to a glitch, penalty, competitor sabotage etc. If something happens when you have one site, it's lights out and weeks wasting your resources on damage control. Personally i'd focus on the biggest revenue earner, and automate the other or even make it fairly static so it requires minimal work and use it to feed the revenue earner. Disbursed and Distributed Risk = Good Single Point of Revenue and Failure = Bad
Thanks, Good advice thanks and probably what I would do if I had a choice however the client dictates and has determined that they only want one site and then they can focus all there marketing and advertising spend on that one focal point along with listing the site on there press advertisments they also feel that the large number of links that Site A has will benefit and increase the profit from Site B. I could go out and buy loads of links or similar but the links Site A has are natural and 'free' more importantly so its a case of best use of those links and that domain name. Thanks
according to my point of view, keep only one website and sale other website..... give a client the best advise you can give and let them make their own decisions.... if they don't want to sell then option B you mentioned in your first post sounds best.....
Thanks, has anybody had any experience of optimising a .ltd.uk domain do they perform as well as .co.uk ??
I have never heard of ltd.uk?? (I thought you were joking) but don't look down on unpopular extensions as some can become really good as its keywords are nice. Example whois.sc and many more hack names.. I would personally use the first to backup the 2nd website using redirection. Many big websites say example xs.to uses a particular .us domain rich in keywords just for the purposes of SEO just lthe same I tried on my site. Registered the first week, indexed in 1 day and listed page 4 in 5 days. Listed in page 2 after 1 week. Keywords domains are really important IMHO. Goodluck..