Before You Buy That Domain Name

A common misconception is that having multiple domain names will increase your site’s search engine rankings. It’s not uncommon for a business to own their name as a domain, as well as several keyword-specific domain names.

While that’s not a bad idea, don’t buy extra domain names with the thought that you’ll point them to your existing site for an SEO boost. It just doesn’t work that way. 

Search engines index content – web pages, not domain names. Yes, your choice of domain IS important, but for SEO purposes, only the domain your website sits on matters. Extra domains pointed to the site don’t really hold any content, so there’s nothing on them for a search engine to index. Therefore, they have NO impact on SEO … unless you’ve pointed those extra domains to your site without a proper 301 redirect. In that case, those extra domains can hurt your rankings.

If your site shows up on both mydomain-one.com and mydomain-two.com and all the pages work regardless of which domain has been selected, you’ve got a duplicate content problem that needs to be fixed ASAP.
So what can you do with one or more extra keyword-specific domain names?

1. Go ahead and forward it to a specific page on your site, then use it with an Adwords campaign.
2. Point it to WordPress.com, Blogger.com or Posterous.com and use it as a secondary home for your content. These sites tend to be indexed quickly, and if you post quality content to them, they’ll eventually provide a payoff – offering the potential of high quality links that you control and can point toward your main site. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but well worth the effort.
3. Use your extra domain for a mini-site to promote a well-defined niche within your product / service line or to promote an event or information product.

Bad SEO practices can hurt your efforts. Not just for a day, either. Be sure you know what you’re doing before you waste a lot of time working in the wrong direction.

Have you had to correct a bad SEO decision? How long did it affect you? Don’t be shy – leave us a comment and tell others how to avoid making the same mistake!