Is One Large Site Or Multipule Smailler Sites Better? Options

[Omega]

I need input on how to structure our new website(s) domain structure. We have a current site, let’s call it currentsite.com, which has been around for many years. The site is being completely redone. Our company now has two additional product lines (along with the current product line (productline1) that is on the current site). While the three product lines pertain to the same industry, they each have their own brand (though, the two newer product lines are referred to as productline2 by productline1 and productline3 by productline1). We decided that each product line would have it own site, plus we would have a corporate site; the sites have a similar structure and share the same database, but have different style sheets. The corporate site does not have a lot of content; rather it is designed to direct users to the product line sites.

I am trying to figure out how to structure the domains for the four sites. The plan is to make the currentsite.com be the corporate site; this is the domain that will be most advertised, so people come to this site and see all three product lines. Now the question is do we:

1. Make the product lines sites currentsite.com/productline1, currentsite.com/productline2, and, currentsite.com/productline3 OR
2. Make the product lines sites productline1.com, productline2.com, and productline3.com

Note: Even if we went with option one, the product line sites would be accessible through the productline#.com urls, but they would be redirected the currentsite.com/productline#. All that being said, which option would you recommend from website design and SEO points of view? Would it be better to have individual sites or would it be better to have one massive site with all the content? I am not sure which option would help more with SEO. Thank you for your help.

[phaithful]

I would say most SEO professionals would advise you to go with option #1. It's typically better to accumulate your links to 1 domain if you want to consider ranking well.

With regards to the redirects, it would be advise that you make sure those redirect as 301 redirects.

With that being said, there are plenty of reasons to create separate sites.

A couple to consider are:

1. Your main site is already an industry leader and ranks well within the search engines. Having additional sites in the space could increase your foot print on the SeRPs.
2. The product lines logically make sense from a marketing and consumer perspective to have their own sites (e.g. Scion.com is a separate product line of Toyota.com)

It comes down to a business decision and the future plans for each of the product lines.

Regardless, if you have 1 site you can always 301 redirect the pages from the main site to a new site, and vice versa. Just realize that you'll probably lose some of the link value along the way, and there will be a transition period where the engines will need to catch up, and you'll ultimately see a dip in search traffic during that transition period.

This post has been edited by phaithful: Jan 7 2008, 07:10 PM

[Ruud]

If Amazon can sell books, clothes, diapers and groceries without starting a whole slew of sites than why can't we?

The classic idea is that it is "easier" to promote one site and have every page, section and product on that site benefit somehow and somewhat from all the incoming links and attention. This way even a boring "about our CEO" page receives some juice...

Can it be done in another way or should it be done in another way?

Yes -- and maybe.

A good test, for me, is to argue against having one site. What can I achieve better with multiple sites why?

It's rare that there is a good, valid answer to that -- but it happens

[Ron Carnell]

It's called market segmentation.

Books or electronics, Amazon is selling very different things, but to very similar people. Their audience is largely homogenous, so they don't need (nor should they promote) different web sites.

On the other hand, you probably shouldn't try to sell Rolex and Timex on the same site, because you're essentially talking to two different audiences and each requires a very different message. People don't spend twenty grand on a watch just because it keeps on ticking.

Speak to the needs of your audience. When your message starts to dramatically change, because your audience has changed, then you likely need a new podium from which to preach.

[bwelford]

That's an excellent point, Ron. In a similar vein, I often wonder whether websites should really try to sell to retailers and consumers from the same website. Perhaps it's better to have almost a complete segregation of the two sets of appropriate web pages, with whatever cross-linking is appropriate. This would mean that the typical retailer or the typical consumer would 'stay within' the website space defined by their own web pages.

[phaithful]

Barry, I agree and I think most of the net agrees with you as well. You rarely see B2B and B2C information commingled. I would say largely the consumer doesn't know or even care about the retailer information.

However, I do have to say that I would sometimes like to see more B2B information available on some sites that I might want to do business with. Typically I have to resort to looking in the footer or resort to the contact us page and then get shuffled around just to get basic "brochure" like information.

[saschaeh]

Im currently working on a site that is B2B but has cross over to B2C. There are also multiple product lines and now there is the 'Green' Line of all those categories (environmentally friendly).

http://green.mydomain.com was an option but then that is not good for SEO as it acts as separate domain in which case why not get a separate domain and brand yourself as being the 'green' supplier of all these products.

And this is my point: Is it not also good to have your niche rather then being to much? Its alternative thinking to what we saying here. You can promote yourself as beeing the definitive 'Green' range rather then the everything range that has some green. If you know what i mean. (poet and i dont even know it)

Easier to promote one site but it is also easier to promote one niche.



This post has been edited by saschaeh: Jan 8 2008, 01:03 AM

[randfish]

I strongly vote for one large site in almost every case. The only two exceptions I'd make are:

1) There's no way to intelligently combine the content categories to a great disparity of focus between them (e.g. cat food and network hardware probably don't fit on the same site - though the right kind of site might be able to pull even that off)

2) You're planning to sell the properties individually in the future

Other than that, the benefit of combining links, branding, mindshare, authority, trust and domain age is simply too strong to resist using a singular domain.

[A.N.Onym]

Even if you market to retailers and consumers, you can have a single site, but limit what they can see with navigation and clear labeled links from the homepage. If the visitors can't go to another site section, why bother with a second site? That's how I'd see it done, anyway.

However, if you are selling products to radically different target markets, then, perhaps, a separate site or even brand might be in order. Then again, as Rand said, it might be better to find a way to stick to one site, because, eventually, you'll switch to a single site anyway.

Then again, Rand, don't you think your opinion ("that, the benefit of combining links, branding, mindshare, authority, trust and domain age is simply too strong to resist using a singular domain") holds true only until Google changes its algorithm on trust or adds/changes other significant factors? Do you think it's reasonable to hold on to this point of view?

This post has been edited by A.N.Onym: Jan 8 2008, 08:16 AM

[Autocrat]

Okay.. so what about a main parent site, then sub sections, each in a subfolder/subdomain?
Make each with it's own distinctive design/iamgery... yet with a cetnral line/theme/feel to retain a general brand image...

Would that not solve the general issue of compatible/linear products/services?
(A main portal with numerous serperate sub-sections???)


Yet how would that be perceived by SE's?


Further, what about having seperate Domains for each Sub/Child... as well as the main parent route?
How would that be met by SE's... and Clients/Visitors?



There are more than a few ways to tackle it... but it's attepting to calculate what the Visitors will think/feel/react to, and then the SE's (because we are hoping the SE's have got it figured to emulate the visitors!).

[saschaeh]

Further, what about having seperate Domains for each Sub/Child... as well as the main parent route?
How would that be met by SE's... and Clients/Visitors?

I know some guys that do that. Have a main site with everything on it and several other websites that only pertain certain parts of that main website.

The site im talking about is Travel: Main site is entire country with all regions. The other "sub-sites" are only specific to region. These sites then in turn link back to main site. They also do by travel category. so they have a site only to adventure which links back to main site.

They do very well with the SE's.

This post has been edited by saschaeh: Jan 8 2008, 10:36 AM

[Ruud]

Then again, Rand, don't you think your opinion ("that, the benefit of combining links, branding, mindshare, authority, trust and domain age is simply too strong to resist using a singular domain") holds true only until Google changes its algorithm on trust or adds/changes other significant factors? Do you think it's reasonable to hold on to this point of view?

I can't think of a modification to their algorithm that would make division of assets, investments and attention a better option than consolidation -- in general.

10 solid links to one and the same site are and will always deliver different value than 10 solid links to 10 different sites.

Likewise a 10 million dollar ad campaign for one brand or one product gains far more mindshare than 10 one million dollar campaigns for 10 brands or products.

The principle of cumulative returns makes, in my mind, one strong brand/site always a better bet than 10 medium ones.

[Autocrat]

Not 100%... it makes 100% sense, and then some, yet....

Niche marketing seems to pay of better than gross marketing.
Advertising that leads to absolute specific pages appear better than landing on a be-all/end-all site (people may feel better in the hands of a "specialist"???)


Seperately there may be the problem of certain SE's apparently not liking sites that link to each other on the same server/ip/address etc.


Lots of little things could build up... and that is the general approach I think most of us use... yet is that the only way, or are there alternatives that none of us have encountered, as we have always follwoed established trends/techniques...?
(Just as important, who would be willing to risk a site or tow to test out alternatives that are very different from the norm?)

[Feydakin]

We are planning to build a second site specifically because we need to keep our markets separate..

We sell relatively high end customer jewelry.. Our average sale is nearly 5x the national average for jewelry sales.. We are now expanding in to a more mass market, lower price point series of products and don't want to mix those two customers very much..

Our high end customers will see the lower price point jewelry and assume all we sell is "junk" while our mass market customers will see our higher end things and assume that they can't afford us, or that we are overpriced.. We actually have this issue in our B&M store all the time.. Our solution has been to separate the parts of the company based on market reach rather than type of product..

For a real world example, we are an authorized Rolex dealer.. At one point about 4 years ago we carried Rolex and 4 other watch lines priced at various levels below Rolex.. One day it was decided that we would do nothing but Rolex and closed out every other watch in the store.. Then we doubled the number of Rolexes we keep on hand.. Rolex sales tripled.. There are a lot of factors that contributed to that, but one of the core reasons was that our Rolex customers that were going to Chicago and Indianapolis started shopping with us more since we stopped selling "junk"

This doesn't apply to every business, and certainly not every situation.. But I think that it is far more important to focus on market rather than the product when making this type of decision.. If the same customer will buy both products, keep them all in one location to make it easier for your customers to shop.. If they are different market segments then put them on separate websites and target your marketing to each market..

This post has been edited by Feydakin: Jan 8 2008, 08:12 PM

[randfish]

I 100% agree with Ruud - it's hard to imagine that any search engine would ever try to give more value to separation of content and links onto multiple sites. Besides all the algorithmic reasons, I also think that investing your full time and effort into a single brand is going to have a far better cumulative return than operating multiple sites and businesses (but that may just be a personality trait, not a business "truth")

[EGOL]

You are in a war and if you attack with 50 troops against a position held by 500 you just wasted 50 troops. However, if you are a good general you might be able to mount a smart attack and beat them with 300.

Don't divide your troops.

[phaithful]

You are in a war and if you attack with 50 troops against a position held by 500 you just wasted 50 troops. However, if you are a good general you might be able to mount a smart attack and beat them with 300.

Don't divide your troops.

I can't completely agree with that example. If you know your environment and have a good strategy a small number of troops can defeat a large massive army... take guerrilla warfare for example. But that's neither here nor there.

I think all the advice given above is perfectly sound, but I think there is a 3rd option to Rand's exception rule that most don't consider because they don't have the exposure: large site SEO.

3) If you already have a prominent domain that currently performs well in the majority of your targeted keywords, it is worth your efforts to develop subsequent sites to increase your footprint in the SeRPs and reducing the footprint of your competitors.

If you look carefully at some very competitive verticals (e.g. Consumer Goods, Real Estate, Insurance), you'll notice some companies who own 2+ sites that cover similar / same topics will rank well for the same keyword term. This allows them to occupy 2 or more positions in the SeRP.

Some of these companies own these sites from acquisitions (e.g. IAC, Shopzilla & BizRate, Shopping.com & DealTime) but others purposely create new sites for a slew of reason. But the point is, there are times where it is beneficial to spawn a new site... primarily when you already have the dominant site out there.

This post has been edited by phaithful: Jan 8 2008, 08:22 PM

[yannis]

This doesn't apply to every business, and certainly not every situation.. But I think that it is far more important to focus on market rather than the product when making this type of decision.. If the same customer will buy both products, keep them all in one location to make it easier for your customers to shop.. If they are different market segments then put them on separate websites and target your marketing to each market..

The above quote in my opinion sums it up. From a SEO point of view there is no doubt that keeping all your eggs in one basket is a better approach. However, from a business point of view it is better to niche out (provided you appealing to different market segments). I wouldn't market Rolex watches together with cheap watches at a $1 each.

The conclusion?...It depends!


Yannis

[Omega]

Thank you all for the responses. I ended up doing a modified version of option #1. I made each of the product line sites subdomains of the main site; i.e productline1.currentsite.com. Based on the responses, it seems that there are advantages and disadvantages to either option, so I choose the one that I felt would best serve our company.