multiple location domains vs 1 domain with multiple locations
I was listening to seo 101 about three weeks ago and they talked about multiple location domains vs 1 domain with multiple locations.
Basically if you have 10 stores nationwide would you create 1 website for each location/store or would you generate 1 website that incorporated all stores?
Well this brought me to start a blog post about it. So I have broke this blog post down into two scenario that you could be faced with. Within these scenarios I have given my opinion for each one as they may differ.
Scenario 1
The company already has 1 website setup for each of the 10 stores location?
Background of websites
1. Domain age = 4 years old for website
2. Links to website = 1000 links to each website
3. Each website runs off the same type of control management system but does not have he same feel.
4. Duplicate content on company mandatory information.
5. Each domain is doing well for there specific keywords.
My Suggestion
This situation I would look at keeping the websites as they are. Ideally you would preferably just have one website that would have individual pages for each location.
However with the domain age of each location and the links that are pointing at each website I would recommend using the current website as they are already doing well in the search engines. Generally trying to turn these multiple domains into one domain can cause issues if each website is being maintained differently depending on the location.
Generally though on these websites there will be some duplicate content which can be either geo-targeted to the region or can be no index, followed.
Linking each domain together will be a little more tricky as you don’t want to cause to much interlinking. I would recommend that you link through a ‘Select You Location’ or ‘Store Locator’ page. This would relate the websites together from a usability point of view but mean that there is not too much linking within the domains.
Overall this can be completed but this is not recommended as this could be seen as trying to spam. The best that we can do is treat each website as it is separate and only link where necessary. For Example store locator page.
Scenario 2
The client has 1 website for the company but has not incorporated each location?
Background of Website
1. Domain Age = 1 Year Old
2. Links to Website = 90 Links
3. The website has unique content.
My Suggestion
This scenario is much better for SEO from my point of view as I really think that this is the best way to structure a multi location website.
If your going to include something it is best to do it right first time and not try and mop up the mess later on.
So if he website has no location structure then you can make a specific page for each location. Thus if you have 50 locations then make 50 pages. If you this then you will be heading in the rig directions.
Make sure that each location page is unique and has information about the area. You never know you may get a long tail search that includes your location related content.
You could always place entries in google places or maps as well and then relate the entry to individual pages.
Apart from that as long as the page is well seo’d and relevant links pointing to this page then I cannot see how you can fail.
Conclusion
To be honest overall is long as you follow what google says you cannot cause filtering issues. However if you do follow scenario 1 like I advised I would keep in mind that this is not the best method and this may lead to issue late down the line.
Sometimes the best plan of action is not always the easiest.
