Hi All, Is the following acceptable with Google and is there any major SEO benefit? I have a site called xyz.com For each of my key products I buy another domain called product-name.com and set each one up as a subdomain of the main site as a mini site all about that particular product. Am I right in saying PR will pass around as it normaly would if it were all one site? Is there any real benefit from the product name being the main url as opposed to an extension of it? Thanks Steve
It doesn't sound like you aren't talking about sub-domains, but new domains that are linked to by your new site? PR can pass, but having cross linked sites with the same host (same class "C" IP) can be seen as a link farm and the google patent talks about detecting this. PR, in itself, won't help you rank better, it's relevant links. Google can detect that these links on the same class "C" are linking to each other, and can also see that they are owned by the same person/entity and be discounted, ignored, and some believe penalized. If you are going to try and cross link a number of sites, you should use different hosts and set up three way links (instead of just exchanging links between sites).... i.e. operate each one like they aren't owned by the same person. There is nothing wrong with having a link from one site you own to another - but it sounds like you are talking about a number of domains to link to the main site for the purpose of SERP's - which is something entirely different.
I have 2 sites at the moment which are on one hosting account the url's are siteone.com and siteone.sitetwo.com although the second is seen as sitetwo.com, I thought this was a subdomain? If so, could I do what I'm asking? and would there be any benefits? If I am completely wrong about a subdomin, what are they and what is the point of them ? Thanks, Steve
A subdomain is bluewidgets.siteone.com and redwidgets.siteone.com. You probably have cpanel which allows addon domains and they show in your control pannel as subdomains, but are really two different domain domains being hosted on the server with the same IP or class C. The basic idea behind google's algorithm is that a link pointing to another site is a "vote" for it. When google see's two different domains linking to each other, and these domains are hosted on the same class "C", it assumes that they have the same owner and it really shouldn't be counted (or should be discounted) as a real "vote" because they are owned by the same person. The chances of having two independent, unrelated sites linking to each other and hosted on the same IP are extremely small. As a registrar, they can also check to see who owns the two domains to see if they are indeed related. Getting a bunch of different domains and then linking them to another domain with the same host is a red flag and could be seen as an attempt to manipulate SERPS. Unless you are hoping for type-ins, you would be better having different hosts - as it would be harder to detect that the domains are related and much more likely to be counted as a "vote".