The mantra, "united we stand, divided we fall," is applicable to
multi-location retailers working to secure a position of dominance
in search results. Search engine experts recommend a sub-folder
structure, which means having location and regional microsites
within the same top-level domain. SEOmoz, a leading SEO source,
discusses the pitfalls of multiple domains in the following article
excerpt:
"When to use an entirely new domain? When you don't want it to
rank at the search engines. Seriously, though, a new domain, even
for many of the world's largest brands, is not a particularly good
idea. It's practical for entirely new campaigns, like a new movie
(though if I were Warner Brothers or MGM, I'd opt for
warnerbrothers.com/newmovie) or a new brand, and it's obviously
necessary when building a new company. Other than these limited
uses, however, multiple domains hosting content that could fit on
an existing domain is brand dilution. I'd liken it to retail stores
only taking American Express Gold cards and rejecting AmEx
Corporate or AmEx Blue - overly segmented and dangerous for the
consumer mindset (particularly consumers named Google, Yahoo! or
MSN)." - SEOmoz
Why Keep a Single Web Site?
- Popularity: The key to search engine ranking
is popularity. Leveraging the almost one million visits per month
to the main franchise domain makes each local microsite even more
popular.
- Ranking: If each location has a Web site, this
creates unnecessary competition for the same search engine ranking.
By contrast, pages on an authoritative Web site will always outrank
a new domain or landing page. The authoritative ranking in the #1
or #2 spot for the keyword "massage" with over 700,000 searches per
month would be significantly jeopardized with multiple top-level
domains.
- Branding: Both consumers and search engines
don't have to figure out which is the official Web site. It's
always having one Web site that limits brand dilution.
In part three of this series, we'll address five common pitfalls
that can easily be avoided by having and maintaining a single Web
site.