Hi there, I have a question about using multiple keyword domains that would ultimately point back to one website. This is what I want to do, I just want to make sure it's legal and allowed by Google to do so. I don't want to jeopardize any rankings for the main site in question. 1. Creating mini pages on each keyword domain name that uses the same design as my main site. The only thing would be that I would have a page that used the keywords in a paragraph or two of UNIQUE text only unique to that keyword domain name. All of the links, css, page formatting would be the same as that on the main site so as to not confuse the visitor. They would ultimately be taken back to the main site that I am trying to drive keyword traffic to. I would like to do this for about 7-8 keyword domains. My questions is this: 1. Duplicate Content Penalty - would having the same coding and using the same images / image links get me banned for duplicate content? 2. Would I have to build the entire site on the new keyword domain without being able to pull the images and coding, etc from the main site. This would be a huge timesaver as I wouldn't have to configure all the coding for the main site, upload the images, etc. I appreciate your advice, I just want to make sure that I know how to do this the right way. Thanks!
ah the MICROSITE. everyone does it. Here's the deal. The new site need new content...period. If it is an exact copy with only minor keywords changes....it will never be gain any power. Many people before you have tried to GAME the system. This idea is not new. So if the site in entirely new then you will be ok. One caviat to that....is this thread I posted where i found the top 2 sites in the video game niche were exactly the same. But because they are a huge company (spending millions with Google I'm sure) they are exempt from the Duplicate Content thing.....pretty hipocritical! http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1484371
Thankyou! Do you think if I just used the stylesheets and images that are on my parent website that it would do any harm? The written content on the new domain will be completely new however not the coding, stylesheets, navigational images, etc.
Personally, I would be MUCH less worried about the duplicate content, and if anything be more worried about the chance that what you're doing might be construed somehow by a Googler as some sort of link farm or link wheel should they ever manually review your site for whatever reason. With 7-8 sites, I wouldn't worry too much since it's so few sites. The more content you build out on each of the sites, the less I would worry. There is no such thing as a duplicate content "penalty". Penalties prevent you from ranking well no matter what you do. A penalty will prevent you from ranking on page 1 even if you get a gazillion backlinks from high PR, highly relevant, highly authoritative, and highly trusted domains. No such thing exists for duplicate content. URLs with duplicate content simply have a slightly harder time ranking than URLs with the original version of the content. Google simply devalues the content on the page. So the URL with duplicate content will score lower on those ranking factors based on content than will the URL that contains the original. But those are not the ONLY ranking factors Google is looking at. A duplicate content URL can compensate for having duplicate content by scoring higher than the URL with the original content on other ranking factors... for example, inbound links. Duplicate content ranks on page 1 frequently... even at position 1... Duplicate content can out rank the original version of the content and frequently does because the person who owns the duplicate content does a better job of link building, for instance. Using the same "template" for each (coding, css, images) is less of a concern... I use the Thesis theme for WP blogs. Every site I create with it by default is going to have the same styling unless I customize it. If you have anything to worry about (and I'm not saying that you do) it is that you might be seen somehow as violating a Google Webmaster Guideline concerning participating in some type of linking scheme.