I have a client who has 2 domains to use on a new website. Neither has built up any pagerank.
Domain name 1 is her business name, and domain name 2 consists of her business name plus the location of her customers.
Both domains will be pointing to the same new website.
Domain 1 is the one that is listed in her business cards.
Is it better to have domain 2 as her main domain, with domain 1 as a parked domain pointing to the same site or vice versa?
Also, when people are linking to her, does it matter if it is the main or parked domain they link to, or does the link juice all filter through anyway?
The “parked” domain should not be parked, it should be doing a 301 redirect to the “main” domain.
Which one is better? Domainname2 makes some sense from an SEO point of view, but less so from a usability point of view. Short domains are good, because they’re easier to remember. Just one or two words, ideally. Think Google, Yahoo, Youtube, Facebook etc.
Thanks for the reply. I will set up the domains as a main one and one with a 301.
Both domains are equally easy to remember as the location in the second one is very well known and most of the potential customers are likely to belong there.
If I were to have domain name 1 as the main domain because it is shorter is there any reason to use domain 2 at all? Would it still have value from an SEO point of view even if it weren’t the main domain?
Would it still have value from an SEO point of view even if it weren’t the main domain?
That I must admit, I don’t really know for sure. I’d imagine that if there still is an SEO value in that, it can only be minimal. Getting some links with “businessname location” in the anchor text would be way more valuable, IMHO.
For ease, I recommend just parking both onto the same server. If you are looking for SEO purposes, I don’t see THAT much of a benefit doing the 301 redirect but it could help if you are very much into SEO.
Its better to have domain 1 as the main domain and i would suggest you do some SEO to the domain 2 because it has an edge over the domain 1 in having the location name. Later on you can point the domain 2 to your domain 1 and start working on your domain 1. In short, i’d say prioritize your domain 1 and use domain 2 as your tool.
I think it depends on the business. If you are some local business offering services in your area it is better to go with the domain that has the location. If the business provides services online i.e to all places, you should go with the business name.
I would develop both domains and put them on different servers. The domain with the company name as her main site and the location targeted domain as a feeder site supporting the main business website.
Is there real exact search volume for the location term?
From an SEO standpoint I would use #2 since at least you can geo-target for that city. Really since neither has any PR I would suggest registering a new keyword based domain since you’re basically starting from scratch anyway.
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