Breaking a Big Website into Multiple Unrelated Sites
-
I have a big cluttered website that I want to simplify. There is content for patients, researchers, therapists who are looking for grants, etc..
Would it be a bad ideas to turn these into 3 or more, completely different sites with each focused on their specific demographic? Or should I just figure out how to organize the one site better?
Thanks for your help!!!
-
Really great question and there really isn't any one right answer here. In general, from an SEO perspective, I lean toward one consolidated website that is really well organized. That way all of your SEO efforts benefit one domain. For example, instead of building links to three sites, you can concentrate on building links to one website. Even if the content for patients gets more links (let's say), if everything is on one domain those patient oriented links will still help the content for therapists earn rankings because they'll contribute to overall domain strength.
Along with the SEO though, my other question would be if there is any great harm in having one website serve multiple audiences? There are numerous examples of companies who are able to do exactly that with their content. Doing so requires a strong information architecture to clearly define what each section is, who it is for, how sections are labeled, how you navigate to various sections, etc. Totally doable, and good IA tends to also be good for SEO too. That said, in some cases one audience group might be distracted/offended/annoyed by content that is intended for another audience group or maybe there is just one set of content you'd rather one group not see. Do you have any situations like that? Have you surveyed users for their opinions about the content to identify these pitfalls?
Of course, the other question to ask here is if there is a strong business case for dividing the sites apart? It doesn't sound like it based on your question, but I want to throw that idea out there. I've worked with some organizations where they have one department focused on a certain audience group. To simplify dev and maintenance, the business case is pretty compelling to split the sites apart. Still though, in a lot of cases it is easier to have one website because then all dev, design, branding, etc. budgets (of time and money) can be focused on the one domain vs. divided across multiple domains.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Duplicate content on the same site
We have a client who wants us to use the same piece of copy twice on their website. Once to promote a workshop and once to promote a conference talk. We feel this would be bad practice from a user perspective, but we were wondering how search engines would regard this? Thanks Ian
Content Development | | Substance-create0 -
Multiple listings for the same product - how to avoid duplication?
Hi everyone, We are working on an e-commerce site that has three different physical stores that each hold different products in stock. A listing is created on the website for each product in each location but if the same product is in all three stores the images and description are duplicate content We can't have one product page and tag locations to it as this would then require keeping two different stock systems updated, but is there a way to avoid the three pages being duplicates of each other? Many thanks for the advice!
Content Development | | A_Q0 -
What are the effects of posting on a blog site using copied content from your site if you source the site on the blog site?
I have noticed that some of my pages from my site are posted to different blog sites and directory submissions they are word for word what is on my site but at the bottom of the page it does list my site as the source and there are links in the text back to my site. Is this going to negatively effect my rankings or is it ok since my site is sourced in the article?
Content Development | | steve2150 -
Is Publishing Content from a Book to your Site Considered Duplicate Content?
It is a book we don't own, either. Would you need to somehow find the original and rel=canonical it? Or is this just all around bad to do? Thanks.
Content Development | | ThridHour0 -
Filling Up Content For A New News Publishing Site
Hello, SEO Gurus. I have a client whom I've been working with for a few months now, and part of our service offering is to publish and promote fresh, daily content on his site's blog. This strategy has been a huge success thus far, he is very happy with the content, etc. Now, he is getting ready to launch a second site, which will be a news publishing site for his industry niche, and we will once again be providing the content on a daily basis: we're going to be producing 10 to 15 articles a day. It's a big operation for us. The client, however, is concerned that he doesn't want the site to appear "thin" on content in the early going, and asked if it would be possible to populate the new site with the articles we wrote on the other site's blog. My gut reaction to this is that it would be an exceedingly bad idea to do this. While we are the ones who authored the original content (and we've used author tags and publishing markup), the best bet is to simply start fresh. Besides that, seeing as we'll be pumping out tons of content on a daily basis, it won't take long to fill up the content coffers. That being said, I just wanted to run this past you all and see if anyone had any alternative ideas on how to use the old content without it being duplicate content. I was thinking that maybe designating all of the old articles with noindex, nofollow could be an option? Many thanks in advance for your time and attention. Sincerely, Mike
Content Development | | RCNOnlineMarketing0 -
Can you help me with my options on publishing others' news releases on my site?
I wish to add a "News" section to a highly-read, highly ranked blog I have. The News pieces will not be in the same flow as my regular posts. I'm contemplating what the best way to do this is, and would like some advice, please. I see these options: Option 1. Pay textbroker type people to rewrite news releases and post them into the news flow. Pro: indexable content. Con: expense. Option 2: Have a Submit News form on the site for vendors to submit their news stories. I would have to ask them to rewrite their stories to avoid dup content. Pros: Easy for me, no cost. Cons: Will still get dup content I bet, a lot of companies won't take the time to do it, and I will have no control over quality. (I really doubt this option will work). Option 3: Post news releases from companies in their raw format, and mark them as no index (even if I don't noindex, they won't move up the SERPs anyway, so why not just noindex them). Pros: very easy, all the news I want. Cons: not creating any indexable content. Bonus question: If I do Option #3, and I place an adsense ad on the page, will it work the same as if it was an indexed, non-duplicate content page? Your thoughts?
Content Development | | bizzer0 -
Suggestion for E commerce Site
Hi ! We own a E-commerce Store. we have forum and blog & video too. like:- blog.store.com forum.store.com Store.com/videos Now to make it more content rich planning for Q & A on it. Do you think building one more sub-domain (answers.store.com ) is good or Folder (store.com/answers) or should use forum for this. Actually we are selling cosmetics and on chat people asking us many questions. we want to use those question as content. I'm not sure how we should manage it. Thanks
Content Development | | vinku0 -
I have submitted my url how much time u guys will get to reveal my site site up ??
i have submitted my url how much time u guys will get to reveal my site site up ??
Content Development | | TQR0