Hi,

New poster! I understand that this thread may seem like it is a duplicate but i assure you it is not!

I have a website that I want to come up in google search results for "Worcester Restaurants." The good news is, we are really close. Google displays "TasteWorcester" (our site, i didn't link it so you know i am not spamming!), as very close to, but not on, the first page of results.

I subsequently bought worcestermarestaurants.com and worcestermassrestaurants.com, and have them 301 redirecting to tasteworcester.com, but now have a delemna.

1 - If i have the domain cloak, then that's duplicate content and the domain will not show up in search results due to this reason
2 - If i have the URL forward to tasteworcester.com, Worcester Restaurants do not match "worcestermarestaurants.com" or "worcestermassrestaurants.com"
3 - We dont want to switch domain names because it has built some brand recognition in the area and for other business reasons.

Does anyone have any suggestions???

Thanks!

And if you think the domain name has a lot to do with it you are mistaken.

301 the other names to the one you are using and forget about them.

Sean since you branded TasteWorcester leave that as your main domain. I think it's a good domain too. You might as well use 301 redirects on the other domains to point to TasteWorcester, but I wouldn't expect any extra search traffic as a result.

Since you want to rank for "Worcester Restaurants" use the phrase in your page title, which it looks like you already are. You could also use it in your tagline, which could help people associate you with the phrase and use it in links to your site.

With the domains unless you had worcesterrestaurants.com (or .net, etc) you probably won't see the benefit. You'll likely gain rank on an exact match domain, but outside of that other factors will take precedence.

Hi everyone,

Thank you so much for these replies.

I agree with what everyone's said, with one exception. The domain name, from what I have studied, is very important (for example, if you search for verizon wireless, there are a million pages, a lot of them with good content (vzw.com, vzpix.com, etc.) that are all verizon wireless, but www.verizonwireless.com comes up first.

I have read on google webmasters blogs (i'll find the link and post it later, sorry!) that the domain name having keywords is also very helpful in having your site match.

Since i wrote that post, tasteworcester has gone from last on the fourth page to first on the third page for "worcester restaurants" keywords. Our ranking in Yahoo! subsequently has already brought us to almost the very top on the search for the same keyword.

Perhaps google is slower to change rankings? It does look like our marketing through SEO is becoming effective, slowly but surely. I am happy that this sort of "Real SEO" is not only targeting traffic for the correct keyword, but generating qualified leads in the process also (Very low bounce rate for those who find our site using that keyword).

Thank you for your comments, i am interested in seeing if anyone has done any more research on keywords in domain names and if it even matters at all.

Thanks!
Sean

Quickly.....

What if i created a page in the image of tasteworcester, with *original* content that related to worcester restaurants, and put it up as the 1 and only page on worcestermarestaurants.com, or worcestermassrestaurants.com.

Google would index that one page, but then see that every other link on that page sent the user to tasteworcester.com. I could see how this may seem like blackhat SEO, which is why i dont just go and do it.

Anyway, I really appreciate everyone's comments. I'm nto trying to hold on to this thing, and truthfully I've taken tasteworcester.com from the 105th page for worcester restaurants and put it on the end of 2nd/tpo of 3rd, then taken an unranked tasteworcester.com for "worcester restaurant reviews" and put it on the front page within 10 days! All with the help of reading posts on this forum and others. We're doing well, maybe i just should be patient

Thanks again,
Sean

Google would index that one page, but then see that every other link on that page sent the user to tasteworcester.com

Slight flaw in the plan there in thinking that the search engines would even index the page.

It's an old, old, old technique, utterly done to death years and years ago.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Slight flaw in the plan there in thinking that the search engines would even index the page.

It's an old, old, old technique, utterly done to death years and years ago.

Ah yes. Thanks again for everyone's comments.

So would I be correct to assume that it is simply convenience to have worcestermarestaurants and worcestermassrestaurants .com if someone happens to "guess" that those exist?

Waste of $20 if you ask me

The domain name, from what I have studied, is very important (for example, if you search for verizon wireless, there are a million pages, a lot of them with good content (vzw.com, vzpix.com, etc.) that are all verizon wireless, but www.verizonwireless.com comes up first.

I'm not sure if you fully read my post above. The search for verizon wireless brings up verizonwireless.com because it's an exact match. Not to mention that Verizon likely has a lot of links pointing to the site and page.

worcester restaurants is not an exact match for worcestermarestautrants. That ma in the middle makes a difference. I'm not saying keywords in your URL play no part, but I think that part is a lot less than what you think. The verizon and worcester searches and results you're describing are entirely different things. You can't draw the same conclusions you're drawing.

Use modrewrite to redirect the secondary domains to the main domain, you will not have any problems with duplicate content.

So would I be correct to assume that it is simply convenience to have worcestermarestaurants and worcestermassrestaurants .com if someone happens to "guess" that those exist?

Waste of $20 if you ask me

Absolutely right on both counts.

The other use for alternative hostnames is for tracking offline advertising, where an alternative URL is used on business cards, posters, flyers, radio or TV ads etc maybe with the addition of a tracking parameter. These then redirect to the primary hostname and the clickthrough / request is logged. This resultant data is then used to determine how effective any particular advertising campaign happens to be.