15 replies to this topic

[jammin' Jake]

Hello all - I've got a quick question that I'm confused about. My organization currently operates three websites of different services/products we offer. One website is our key website with the majority of my time and focus going to it. This site centers around our consulting services which are composed of three key activities. I'm getting decent ranking on MSN (pages 1 and 2 for most keywords), but no traction on yahoo or google. My employers would like to start three new websites for these three aspects of our consulting services to focus on each individual consulting service.

My question is, would I be living dangerously to link these three sites to each other and ultimately to our main webpage. I have read a little about linking circles and I am concerned that the engines might dissaprove of this and see it as a form of spam or whatever they dislike. So, do I link b/w them or use them as "wholly owned subsidiaries" so to speak.

Also, are MSN results anything to get excited about? I doubt I'm getting a lot of traffic from MSN with its low % of total searches, but is it fair to assume that I am doing something right in terms of SEO?

Thanks to any help offered. You guys are great!

Life's a Garden....Dig it!

[Jill]

My question is, would I be living dangerously to link these three sites to each other and ultimately to our main webpage.

No, not at all, but why separate websites just for separate services?

Is there a reason beyond the fact that you think it will help the search engines?

[LeftoverJoe]

I would keep them all part of that main site. I think you can dilute yourself by having multiple sites. Have you considered subdomains? Or just subfolders of the main site? I n my opinion splitting your content up into three different sites without a compelling reason is actually a negative.

[Procellous]

I also wonder how the links between the sites would be viewed by the search engines. I am assuming that these new sites would be hosted on the same server and ip address?

By keeping it all on one site would you not be building on the page and trust rank that you have already built?

[Randy]

The question to ask your employer is if they're going to pay you three times as much or hire two more people, because getting three sites to rank well is going to be three times the work.

[Manish]

Matt once wrote in his blog about similar topic.

"I could take care of 1-2 websites rather than 100s of them".

If you have 3 websites then it would certainly won't matter much.

One more thing you could link it in a manner so as to make it look natural! Like site a links to b and then to c.

[Jill]

One more thing you could link it in a manner so as to make it look natural! Like site a links to b and then to c.

I wouldn't suggest doing anything to make something "look" natural. Either do it naturally, or don't do it at all. Trying to make something look natural (when it really isn't natural), is an attempt at search engine spam and is usually best avoided.

[jammin' Jake]

Hello - Thank you all for your responses. Here is some follow-up. The primary motivation for branching the three services off onto separate websites is primarily a customer perception move. As consultants, we are expected to be "experts" to a certain degree on a given topic/service. Our concern is that by having a myriad of services listed on our main website, we might appear to be trying to "be all things to all people". Essentially we are looking for some focus and separation of services without diluting our perception as a trusted advisor for a single line of services. I believe we will be hosting these sites on separate IP addresses, but not sure...

The idea of subdomains is an interesting idea. I will search the forum for some threads, or if anyone could direct me to any other good info that would be much appreciated.

Thanks again!

jake

[Jill]

It really doesn't sound like a good idea, Jake.

[skr325]

If the consulting practices are similar to one another -- Managed Services, Project Management, Citrix Consulting -- the by all means drop them in one bucket. If they are different -- Technical Project Management, Cooking Classes and Dog Obedience Training, then you've really got 3 businesses and they should be separated.

Do what's right for the business and the web will (um should) understand.

sak-daddy

[Tim Bach 2]

This sounds like an illustration of a web2.0 idea called a microsite... Which I suppose could be an effective way to do it if you're willing to treat them like 3 (or 4, if you have a main site) separate sites.

Personally, I like the idea of using subdomains myself.

[chrishirst]

Microsites a "web 2.0" idea ???



and welcome to HR Tim Bach 2

[hulio]

Like Jammin' Jake, the company I'm working for is also splitting out our services into 3 separate brands under a single umbrella - so there will be four sites. They are all related, however our target demographic is different for each - individual purchase, corporate incentive, and high end (for lack of better term). We've found that in the 16 years we've been in business that when all brands were under one domain, it became confusing to our clients/users. So based on their feedback, we've made this decision to create the separate sites to better target and direct our clients.

And believe me, we've been in deliberation over this for more than a few months - more like 3 years - so it's been something that we've looked into thoroughly.

Doug

[Jill]

hulio, that sounds about right. You are doing it for the right reasons...business ones. It's the companies that do it because they think it's better for search engines, that get into trouble with it.

[piskie]

Just ask yourself:
"Do Amazon have one site for Books, Another for CDs, another for DVDs, another for Digital Cameras etc etc................?"