12 replies to this topic

[paintyourlife]

Hi,

Our company sells 5 different products (all around paintings, canvas, prints, photography, reproductions)

From an SEO point of view, is it better to have 5 domains like:

photos-on-canvas.com
oil-reproductions.com
photo-to-painting.com
photo-to-pop-art.com
wall-art-prints.com

Or a single domains like:

OurBrandName.com/photos-on-canvas/
OurBrandName.com/oil-reproductions/
OurBrandName.com/photo-to-painting/
OurBrandName.com/photo-to-pop-art/
OurBrandName.com/wall-art-prints/

?

Let's say there are 20 important keywords for each of these products. Would it be easier to promote a single domain for all 100 keywords, or each separated domain for its 20 keywords?

The advantages I see in separate domains are:
1.) Each one has a homepage that can be optimized for the most competitive keywords, and homepages are the pages easiest to rank, right?
2.) I can use the most important keywords as part of the domain name

With separate domains: there is probably the advantage of having one strong domains...

Of course, there are many more considerations than just SEO, but I this forum is about SEO

Thanks for any advice!

Assaf

[chrishirst]

but I this forum is about SEO

It is, but SEO is not about concerning yourself with such trivialities.


Ask yourself "What would I prefer to see when visiting a 'website'"? then you will have your answer.

[Jill]

1 domain for sure. You want to show that you are a real company who offers all different sorts of art stuff. Don't even consider a bunch of small sites.

[paintyourlife]

Thanks!

[paintyourlife]

Hi Jill and Chris,

What about sub-domains? One for each product? like:

photo-to-painting.PaintYourLife.com
photo-to-canvas.PaintYourLife.com
photo-to-pop-art.PaintYourLife.com
etc?

can this be a good solution both in terms of SEO and of keeping all products under the same domain?

Thanks,

Assaf

[Jill]

You can if you want but it's less confusing to just have them be directories, IMO.

[RoseDigitalMarketing]

I don't want to fall out with the host on my very first post here but I strongly disagree.

Several of the things you want to offer are only loosely related and I would go for a mixture.

These two, oil-reproductions.com and wall-art-prints.com, are different to the other three, which are probably variations on the same theme, so the former should be separate sites and the following would be best as OurBrandName.com/photos-on-canvas/, OurBrandName.com/photo-to-painting/ and OurBrandName.com/photo-to-pop-art/.

As Chris Hirst said, you should primarily focus on what the sites are about, not the SEO consideratiions, although that has to be taken seriously as well of course...

[piskie]

I think I disagree with "our host" more than most.
However in this instance, Jill is as right as it is possible to be.

Amazon started life as an online book store. When they added such things as Music, Photgraphy, Electronic Gizmos etc, I don't think for one minute they considered a new domain/site for each category. Why would they ??

domain.com/categoryone
domain.com/categorytwo
etc has got to be the way to go.

[Jill]

I think I disagree with "our host" more than most.

We seem to agree much more than makes me comfortable lately.

[torka]

I'll throw in my agreement with Jill and piskie. Sounds like everything we're talking about falls into the general category of "stuff you hang on the wall to decorate your space," which would fit nicely into a single website.

Since individual URLs get ranked in the search engines, there's nothing to stop the pages from each being optimized for their specific product.

Administering/maintaing a single domain is likely to be a lot easier than a bunch of smaller sites (says the webmaster who has to deal every day with what is probably one of the most convoluted site architectures on the planet... simplicity of maintenance/admin is something I value very highly, even if I rarely get to experience it for myself. )

--Torka

[piskie]

Yes Jill, I always knew you would come round to my way of thinking sooner or later.

One well structured site that embraces all the categories (virtually always) trumps the alternative of several mini sites
That hasn't changed over many years.
During the same period, so much else has gradually evolved or more recently turned upside down overnight.

[chrishirst]

I think I disagree with "our host" more than most.
However in this instance, Jill is as right as it is possible to be.

Amazon started life as an online book store. When they added such things as Music, Photgraphy, Electronic Gizmos etc, I don't think for one minute they considered a new domain/site for each category. Why would they ??

domain.com/categoryone
domain.com/categorytwo
etc has got to be the way to go.

Actually Amazon started off with subdomains for each of their ranges, books.amazon, kitchen.amazon and so on, it was as their regional sites developed (.com, .co.uk, .it, .fr etc.) that the "minisites" went away. And it doesn't seem to have harmed them in any way.

[Jill]

Actually Amazon started off with subdomains for each of their ranges, books.amazon, kitchen.amazon and so on

But they were still on the same domain.