Seperate Domains or Website Directories?

[tomraffe]

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I have several comparison websites and was wondering if from a SEO perspective would it be best to use seperate domains for every comparison site or use a single domain with seperate folders. For example should I have

comparecarinsurance.co.uk
comparehomeinsurance.co.uk
comparelifeinsurance.co.uk

or should I use

compare.co.uk/carinsurance
compare.co.uk/homeinsurance
compare.co.uk/lifeinsurance

Obiously the domains above are just for use in this example...

[tbp]

With google liking generic keyword domains and giving them extra weight, I would definately use a different domain for each subject rather than a folder.

You can then link all the sites together, giving each site links from another relevant website which should also help a bit with your ranking.

[tomraffe]

Thanks for that. I will give them consistent branding and layout so they look like the same site, just using different domains for each service.

Would it be any advantage to host the site on different domains AND in different folders?

[accelerator]

I agree, definitely use different domains. At each domain, use of keyword rich file names or folder names will help with your SEO. Note that I usually use dashes to separate keywords within my file or folder names, e.g.

comparecarinsurance.co.uk/car-insurance-quote.php

The important thing is you have the content on your site, I use a separate page for each keyphrase I am trying to target.

Rgds

[findlite]

Dont forget the keyword in the anchor text too! Its a must have!

[MrCatz]

The keywords in your domain is a plus factor in SEO - no doubt about that.

Only fallback is that you do more SEO work for different domains.

Since you mentioned that they are .co.uk domains - be sure to have it hosted in the Uk as well as this will help in your SEO.

[tbp]

Since you mentioned that they are .co.uk domains - be sure to have it hosted in the Uk as well as this will help in your SEO.

Hosting location doesn't actually matter for .co.uk domains, as they are obviously targeted at the UK market. I only use .uk and my server is actually in the states, and it hasn't affected results at all, still have 90% at number 1 in Google.

The times that it can make a difference is when you are using non location specific domains such as .com, .net or .info. In these cases its not obvious which country they target, (although .com is presumed to be for US sites although its used worldwide).

There are now things coming out though to help with this situation, such as now in Google Webmaster tools you can manually enter the country that a domain in targetting.

[MrCatz]

Hosting location doesn't actually matter for .co.uk domains, as they are obviously targeted at the UK market. I only use .uk and my server is actually in the states, and it hasn't affected results at all, still have 90% at number 1 in Google.

The times that it can make a difference is when you are using non location specific domains such as .com, .net or .info. In these cases its not obvious which country they target, (although .com is presumed to be for US sites although its used worldwide).

There are now things coming out though to help with this situation, such as now in Google Webmaster tools you can manually enter the country that a domain in targetting.

Good point. I mentioned having it hosted in the UK so as to help it rank better in Google UK data center.

[babrees]

With google liking generic keyword domains and giving them extra weight, I would definately use a different domain for each subject rather than a folder.

You can then link all the sites together, giving each site links from another relevant website which should also help a bit with your ranking.

What about sub-domains? Does google perceive these as separate domains or would it consider them in the class of a folder?

[tbp]

What about sub-domains? Does google perceive these as separate domains or would it consider them in the class of a folder?

Not 100% sure on this, as I don't have any setup. From what I`ve read, Google treats these separately to the main site. However, I can't verify this and often I find theres a big difference to what SEO guides say and reality.

In terms of domain weight, I don't think they would be good as having a main domain, as it's no longer going to be an exact match to the search term. The sub domain may be, but the main domain part isn't so you aren't going to get the benefits that you would if you used the key phrase as the main domain.

[MrCatz]

What about sub-domains? Does google perceive these as separate domains or would it consider them in the class of a folder?

Sub-domains like sub.site.com, sub1.site.com, etc. are treated separately by Google.