Park or Forward?

[Frostie]

Tweet

Just wondered what people thought was the best route - to park a domain or to forward a domain?

If I have a website, and its located on my server as gadgetx.co.uk - if I also own gadgety.co.uk am I best using the usual forwarding of domain to domain, or best parking the gadgety.co.uk domain name on the gadgetx.co.uk website?

It is 2 completely different options, but wondered what people thought and the reasons, if any, that people chose?

[Tom]

Thats a very good question, and i'd be interested to know what people think too. I suppose one thing to consider would be duplicate content, you wouldn't want google thinking you are trying to pass off the same content as two distinct sites.

[Frostie]

Yeah, thats 1 thing I thought may be a possibility, but with both resolving to the same IP Address, am I being too hopeful that Google may realise a domain is parked?

Be interested to know what others do at this very moment in time?

[eskimo]

It depends what you want to do with redirecting domain.

If you are just keeping it warm until you get round to developing it, you could just use a framset (complete with no frames content). That way you can stick it in the SEs and it will be seen as a seperate site.

On the other hand, if it's a permanent arrangment, then a redirect would be best.

Alternativly, you could just stick a logo and a keyword loaded link on the index page, and hope your main site benefits from some SEO juice.

The problem is Google is sandboxing new domains, so it makes sense to make new domains active rather than leave them parked.

[futureweb]

How about a topstites style index ?

would be quite easy to do, must however say I know little of SEO but I have often thought and seen sites that have a nice directory of sites which fall into the given (can't spell junra) errm category of the domain but they feature a select few, which I belive to be their own or partners they want to promote.

And so whay not make a simple rule to list in my topsites you must provide a link to siteX (my main gadget site) and then your allowed in. Talk up with you must provide a link to our featured partner or site of the month etc..

but bottom line you get a shed load of inward links to your main site wilsh promoting others ever so slightly less

of course you could add in a load of sites pre-fill your directory if you like to get started add a ton of content on the subject matter to make the site worth while and then if it takes off in its own right moneytize that too look at the compos affiliate programs charge to include other may be selective sites that pose less of a threat to your main site to become paid featured links on including sites in the directory.

Just some thoughts pooring out of my already too full head

[mickyboy73]

One option is to write short reviews about some of the products that you sell in your main site. Write them to include key targeted key words for the product you are writing about and include an image if you can.

Your index page of this site would be a welcoming landing page with a review and pre-sell of your other site.

If you did this with 50 or so of your products you would build a 50 page content rich web site that pre-sells your visitor and each page would have a link directly to your other site which sells the product you have writtent the review about.

(Your new site should also get picked up in the search engines too for the keywords used thus bringing extra traffic for free.)

This way, people coming to your review site don't get the feeling of a comercial site like they do when visting any other online store etc.

Wet their appetite with a welll written review, sell them on the features and how these features will benefit them and then have the link directly to the page where they can buy the product.

It's tried and tested online marketing and works.

You could also use a sign up form linked to an autoresponder and have a newsletter. This way you would build an email list of potential customers who you can contact when you have a sale for a certain product or have new products available.

Also comes in handy at different times of the year. Valentines day (girlfriend buys for boyfriend), fathers day, mothers day etc.

Simply send an email out for relevant products for the time of the year.

You could even make some money from the site with Google AdSense. Parking or just forwarding the domain is a quick and easy solution with doing something with a spare domain but it's also a waste when you could be doing so much more with it instead.

Well, that's my idea of what to do with your spare site, hope it helps.

[monk-i]

Hows you ebay scheme going michael?