Hi,
We've enlisted the help of an SEO expert in Minnesota for our large website.
It's basically a National site, but then has different templates (and SOME different content) for each State site within it. So it's like 51 sites in 1.

Anyway, this guy wants us to buy multiple domains with keywords we're optimizing for, with every state name in the domain. For example, forks-minnesota.com forksminnesota.com and so on for every state. And then he wants us to 301 redirect those domains, not just to the main site's domain, but to the directory that contains the State site that corrolates with that domain. So forks-minnesota.com would redirect to www.ourdomain/forks-mn/

I personally thought I'd read that this isn't going to help at all, and could possibly hurt us. Has anyone run into an issue like this before and come up with a good solution? Should we get the domains, but only redirect to our main site? Will it hurt to redirect to the state directories? Or is this just his way of getting us to pay him more money for registering domains?

OR, is this a legitimate worthy way of increasing our page rank?

Anyway, thanks for any help.

Hi,
We've enlisted the help of an SEO expert in Minnesota for our large website.
It's basically a National site, but then has different templates (and SOME different content) for each State site within it. So it's like 51 sites in 1.

Anyway, this guy wants us to buy multiple domains with keywords we're optimizing for, with every state name in the domain. For example, forks-minnesota.com forksminnesota.com and so on for every state. And then he wants us to 301 redirect those domains, not just to the main site's domain, but to the directory that contains the State site that corrolates with that domain. So forks-minnesota.com would redirect to www.ourdomain/forks-mn/

I personally thought I'd read that this isn't going to help at all, and could possibly hurt us. Has anyone run into an issue like this before and come up with a good solution? Should we get the domains, but only redirect to our main site? Will it hurt to redirect to the state directories? Or is this just his way of getting us to pay him more money for registering domains?

OR, is this a legitimate worthy way of increasing our page rank?

Anyway, thanks for any help.

In my honest opinion - pure rubbish.

It's wasted effort and resources.

The domain names do nothing without their own independent links to each - which usually requires content development of some sort - assuming you are not going to repurpose the existing content into the new domain and host.

Even then [if move content] it's a trade-off taking a large website turning it into a smaller site with a bunch of other small websites to induce link pop of your own making... which means you don't need to request or get permission, and you can manipulation the 'exchange' however you wish - because they are yours [an SEO lower quality shortcut]

Best bet - focus efforts on the primary website, better site architecture, more complementing content, and good old fashion 'not totally your control of links' via: PPI, reciprocals, and innovative ways of tying 'copywriting' to 'link exchange'.

Thanks Fathom,

That sounds like it's on par with what I've heard before. I appreciate you taking the time to respond, as it will help save us a lot of time, energy, and money.

I agree with fathom - I'm not sure the tactic would *hurt* - I suspect it would actually help a bit, link text wise.

But it would help a bit at the expense of other things helping a lot more. It's a waste of effort for the gain, and there is a resulting loss in efficiency that I'm pretty sure would not be made up for.

Kind of like being penny-wise and pound foolish.

In theory, with a ton of time and resources, you could make that work, eventually. In the meantime, with far less effort and far more focus, you could do a lot better by focussing your efforts on the basics.

The tactic could be useful to someone with a site that is pretty much fully SEO'd and has so many links they are at the point of diminishing returns. At that point, the gains from the effort may very well be worth it, and the tactic quite useful, done right.

If you think about SEOing your site like tuning up a racecar, fathoms suggestion is like making sure the chassis is light, tuning the engines and suspension, practicing turning tactics etc. These can take off many seconds and even minutes from your time to the finish line.

The link tactic is more like spending all your time tuning the computerized carb control. It might only take off .005 secs.

If your car is totally ready, then that tune up might win or lose the race for you. If your engine isn't tuned, suspension not set up and you are out of practice, then you have just wasted a huge amount of time doing something that won't help you a bit as you come in dead last.

I would do what fathom says and get your main site going the best you can before worrying about anything else.

Ian

I agree with fathom - I'm not sure the tactic would *hurt* - I suspect it would actually help a bit, link text wise.

I agree with fathom too... and, if I read you correctly, I think the tactic might well hurt you.

First, if you're really talking about 301s... when a domain is 301ed, it no longer exists. So it doesn't matter what the domain name was, unless, as fathom says, you develop each one first and get relevant links to it.

Why not just get keyword relevant links to your main site instead? They'd do a lot more good.

The part that can hurt you is all those 301s pointing at your main domain. I have it on pretty good authority that Google can see them on a web map very easily... and that they look like an attempt at manipulation because in fact they are.

Why not just get keyword relevant links to your main site instead?

Ya SEOs sometimes takes the most bogus route to save themselves the cost of asking someone else to do something simple... like link. ;)