Hi, I was just wondering if it's worth registering some domains of the keywords i would like to rank for. Will this help? Would i have to get a website for each with content then redirect or just forward the domain? Scott
Hi, thanks for the reply. Yes some are .com and some are .co.uk. Are .co.uk good too? Will it help with ranking?
No, it's not worth it. In fact, it can be a bad idea. Google isn't 100% clear of their guidelines on what domains should be redirected, forwarded, etc. Having a few relevant domains pointing to an existing site/domain, is not a bad idea, but it will not do much for seo. Aside from some limited direct traffic you may receive. Don't expect much traffic if you are picking them up for registration. Now, building a network of similar sites is not a bad idea, granted their mostly white hat. If done correctly, you should be able to rank them a bit faster. I would advise just sticking to one site. Google likes large, informative sites. Not a network of small sites w/ similar content. My advice, don't bother unless it's on a topic broad enough that would warrant multiple sites. And a topic you'll be interested enough in writing content about. Hope that helps...
I see. Well it was about 12 domains related to what i do. However i can take that down to just a couple. They are quite searched for and would be very hard to rank my site for the keyword itself. So just forwarding them would not achieve anything? But if i made a few sites relating to the domain then linked into my site?
The only keyword domain you will rank for is the domain of the site. Not the others that are directed towards it. The only benefit like I said, is direct traffic from physically putting in the domain. If you hop on google keyword planner, type in the full domain w/ the extension, and see how much traffic it gets. Probably "-". Having a lot of domains directed to a site makes it look incredibly spammy, and a cheap tactic to get traffic. The only other reason, is to have those domains in your possession, so no one else takes them. EMD's are largely dead. Yeah, they are a great way to alert the potential reader off the serps what your site is about, and does give a little juice. Keywords of the domain noted in bold . EMD's no longer translate tooo much on the search engines, now they are more geared towards resale value. Yes, some of the major sites out there are nothing more than a network of related sites, that all link together. That's a question best asked in Link Development . But to put it plainly, don't ever link a "good" site to a "bad" site. So let's say you have the domain Cancer.com. Then you have a few other similar domains, CancerSymptoms.com, CancerTreatment.com, etc. Cancer.com is the real authoritative site here, the one you care about. Then why would you link to what I would assume is a 1-pager site about cancer symptoms, cancer treatment etc. Is this what you are thinking? My sincerest advice, build one authoritative site off the domain you want. Don't waste the money on other domains unless it's in a highly competitive market and you are protecting your claim. At the end of the day, keyword domains DON'T make the site, loosely speaking, it's the keywords contained in the site. Take your 1st choice domain, and start building a site w/ it. Forget about the other domains...there's a good chance they will still be there Edit: feel free to pm the domains in question, I'll take a look at them to get a better idea on the specifics...
An extended resource regarding EMDs (Exact Match Domains) and how positively affect website ranking http://www.domainsherpa.com/exact-match-domains/