[Pro] point to a domain or use a domain?

Freeway
1

That subject might not be worded correctly, but here’s the question:

I’ve just created a site that links to 4 different pages from the home page. Each of those pages (and the home page) actually have their own domains, but I’ve created the site as one FW doc.

Which is best - to upload the whole site into the home page domain and point the other domain names to the relevant page on that site, or do I split up the FW doc into separate sites and upload them to their own domains individually?

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2

I’d recommend the break-up so you don’t get confused. Not saying you’re easily confusable, but that it might prove to be easier. It depends though if the pages relate to each other, but why would you put it in all one document if it went to several domain names?

Is it a situation where it’s all one hosted server that has several domains that go to it?

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3

Dan J

Yes, they will all be hosted on 1 server.

The home page contains links to 4 different products which all have the same page layout and style albeit different colours. Ordinarily, I would have produced this exactly the way I have (in 1 doc) but the client has now said that they have domain names for each of those individual products. Now, the only disadvantage that I can think of to splitting up the site is the file name of the home pages. If I split up the site, they each have to be called index.html, whereas currently they have a descriptive file name that will be read by the search engines.

Am I correct in this thinking or are there other matters which I need to take into consideration? In fact, am I correct in thinking that a domain name can be pointed to any individual page on an existing site?

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4

Each hosted domain will have its own root-level directory (folder) for
the files. Each folder needs its own index.html in order to load
without a filename (the folder-only URL pattern). I don’t think that
keywords in the filename will be elevated with respect to the index
page of the domain. I think that the domain gets a bit of extra juice
since it is the highest level of the site. As long as these domain
names are well chosen, and the index page is written and constructed
to illuminate the relationship between the domain and the subject
area, then you should be fine.

As far as Freeway goes, you will probably stay least confused if you
make each site its own document, and use external links to navigate
between them.

Walter

On Mar 28, 2010, at 12:23 PM, neil.west1 wrote:

Dan J

Yes, they will all be hosted on 1 server.

The home page contains links to 4 different products which all have
the same page layout and style albeit different colours. Ordinarily,
I would have produced this exactly the way I have (in 1 doc) but the
client has now said that they have domain names for each of those
individual products. Now, the only disadvantage that I can think of
to splitting up the site is the file name of the home pages. If I
split up the site, they each have to be called index.html, whereas
currently they have a descriptive file name that will be read by the
search engines.

Am I correct in this thinking or are there other matters which I
need to take into consideration? In fact, am I correct in thinking
that a domain name can be pointed to any individual page on an
existing site?

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5

As long as these domain
names are well chosen, and the index page is written and constructed
to illuminate the relationship between the domain and the subject
area, then you should be fine.

Hmm, thanks for that Walt, but therein may lie a problem. Because these potential index pages started life as product pages, I’ve basically used graphic content by taking existing print literature PDFs and importing them as images - utilising styles that couldn’t otherwise be created by FW. In other words, they’re not created in a SEO friendly way. Now that didn’t really bother me because they weren’t the home page of the site, but also because I was able to put suitable key words into the file name. If I take the same pages and make them into index pages, the only SEO info they will have (without redesigning) will be keyword metatags and alt text (no HTML text). Redesigning isn’t really an option as they need to match the product packaging and literature that customers are used to seeing. Would you still recommend that splitting the site is the best option?

Neil

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6

This is the temporary URL if it helps explain my problem:
http://www.smite-a-mite.com/test/index.html

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7

I don’t recommend setting up each product as its own domain or even
subdomain. You dilute your SEO rankings that way in my opinion. I
would use a single domain and individual pages/folders for each
product under that domain. If you want to do something else in a
“micro-site” at those domains or sub-domains, then fine. Maybe a blog,
maybe a user forum, those are both well proven to drive traffic to the
mothership.

Walter

On Mar 29, 2010, at 5:03 AM, neil.west1 wrote:

Redesigning isn’t really an option as they need to match the
product packaging and literature that customers are used to seeing.
Would you still recommend that splitting the site is the best option?

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8

Thanks Walt

So, to be clear… the client wants their customers to read www.xproduct.com in an advert, tap it into their browser and access the xproduct page on the www.xmanufacturer.com web site. I’m not sure if I’m reading what you’re saying above correctly, do you think it would be detrimental to the search engine to do it this way, rather than bringing all visitors in through the home page? Would it therefore be better for the client to point all their domains at www.xproduct.com and allow the customers to drill down to their chosen product instead of being sent directly to the relevant product page?

If this is the case, can you tell me, in laymans terms, why? - I’m going to have to report back to the client (who handle their own hosting) and would like to explain the advantages one way or the other.

Thanks

Neil

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9

To do precisely what the customer is asking you to do, then you would
need to do a 301 redirect (301 means “moved permanently” in HTTP) from
xproduct.com/ to xmanufacturer.com/xproduct.html. A domain name may
not point to a page, only to a server.

A 301 redirect is as slight a hit as you can take on your search
engine ranking as possible, but to be clear, it IS a hit. You are
advertising one address and returning a different one. If your inbound
links from other parties’ sites are all to the xproduct.com domain
rather than the xmanufacturer.com/xproduct.html (or more likely
xmanufacturer.com/xproduct/index.html) then you are scraping off some
ranking on each of these inbound links.

Now if the customer puts out a magazine ad that points to the
xproduct.com domain, that will not impact your search engine ranking
one bit, I would imagine, unless the online version of that magazine
also includes the link to the product domain.

If you want to have a separate site for each product, that’s great. If
you want to have another site for the manufacturer that points to the
individual product sites, that’s also fine. But if you expect to keep
those sites all together in Freeway, you will be unhappy. It’s just
barely possible, but it will cause you incredible frustration on an
ongoing basis.

Your very best bet on the Freeway side of things is to rebuild your
individual product sites as stand-alone Freeway documents, and
maintain your existing site as the corporate site. You’ve already
invested effort in making those individual product pages as keyword-
optimized as you are able, so don’t throw that out. Link directly to
the product sites using full external links, and indicate near the
link that this is “for more information”.

When you do this, take the time to make these product sites as HTML-
ful as you can, and make sure that they do not duplicate the existing
product pages in the corporate site in any significant way. Improve on
where you are, don’t just put the same content up twice. Getting
caught at that will likely get your ranking downgraded.

Walter

On Mar 29, 2010, at 10:18 AM, neil.west1 wrote:

Thanks Walt

So, to be clear… the client wants their customers to read www.xproduct.com
in an advert, tap it into their browser and access the xproduct
page on the www.xmanufacturer.com web site. I’m not sure if I’m
reading what you’re saying above correctly, do you think it would be
detrimental to the search engine to do it this way, rather than
bringing all visitors in through the home page? Would it therefore
be better for the client to point all their domains at www.xproduct.com
and allow the customers to drill down to their chosen product
instead of being sent directly to the relevant product page?

If this is the case, can you tell me, in laymans terms, why? - I’m
going to have to report back to the client (who handle their own
hosting) and would like to explain the advantages one way or the
other.

Thanks

Neil

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