4 replies to this topic

[jcaviston]

Currently, the website I'm managing has 1,000's of pages.

The reason being is that we have 100's or products. These products have various styles, options,hardware options, testing results, etc, which all are lengthy and require thier own pages.

For some of our products, we rank very high in search engines and for others, we struggle (even though we spend a healthy amount on ppc) and have unique/detailed content on these pages.

Recently, we have been toying with the idea of splitting the site into 5 different sites. We would keep our main page, which would list all of our products and provide basic information on the main products.

Then the 5 main catagories of these products would have their own domains... for example: CompanyDoors.com , CompanyGreenhouses.com, CompanySunrooms.com, etc.

Having original content would not be a problem and no dublicate content would take place.

I've read a few articles statin that this isn't a good idea, except in certain circumstances. --- Any thoughts/concerns?

Edited by qwerty, 13 April 2012 - 11:36 AM.
Removed links

[qwerty]

IMO, the only legitimate reason to split the site up would be if you had multiple distinct audiences -- that is, if the people who were interested in sunrooms were highly unlikely to ever have any interest in greenhouses. If your main reason for doing this is search engines and not customers, I think that alone should be a strong indication that this isn't a great idea.

[Jill]

Recently, we have been toying with the idea of splitting the site into 5 different sites. We would keep our main page, which would list all of our products and provide basic information on the main products.

Can't think of any reason why that would be a good idea. Not only would you lose all the authority your domain has built up over the years, but you'd likely confuse your customers with all the different websites.

[Michael Martinez]

It might seem productive in the short term but I think sooner or later it would come back to bite you.

[Webseeker]

From a searcher's point of view, I'd be confused and have reservations about proceeding further.

I'll explain...

Recently, like yesterday, I saw a site that interested me. I was first contacted by them through a wanted ad I had on Craigslist. I found their site to be informative and possibly something I was looking for. Through minor investigations, etc, I saw they had several websites. I had to ask myself "Why?". I also said to myself they should have had just one site and include everything together, but they didn't. Not sure why exactly, but I felt uncomfortable with that and decided not to contact them. I felt there was was something "fishy" going on. Although I realize they had their reasons and they most likely were legitimate in every way, I still lacked confidence and moved on. This from a searcher's point of view. Take it for what's it's worth. The fact they had several typographical errors didn't help matters either.

Webseeker

Edited by Webseeker, 19 April 2012 - 10:17 PM.