There is a misunderstanding floating around that needs to be addressed. I’ve had a number of lawyers propose the strategy I’m going to explain below without understanding that it provides little to no search benefit….at least in terms of how they think it does. I’ve had this come up often enough in the last couple of months that I thought it’s worth addressing for our readers.The Proposed Strategy
The strategy involves setting up keyword rich domain names and redirecting them to a law firm’s main website. So for example, Gary Goodlawyer has a website setup on the domain name www.GaryGoodLawyer.com. Gary practices personal injury in Chicago so Gary decides he is going to secure some keyword-rich domain names to help with his search engine optimization. Gary purchases www.chicago-personalinjury.com, www.personal-injurylawyerchicago.com, and www.pilawyerchicago.com (full disclosure: I did not check if these domains are available or being used by a firm currently…I am using them for demonstration purposes only).Gary then proceeds to 301-redirect the newly purchased, keyword-rich domain names to his existing site www.GaryGoodLawyer.com. This means that when someone types in www.chicago-personalinjury.com, for example, their browser will automatically redirect them to www.GaryGoodLawyer.com. Mind you, there has been no link building or search engine optimization efforts performed on these new, keyword-rich domains. They are simply redirected to Gary’s existing site.
The thinking goes that with these keyword-rich domains now secured and redirected to the firm’s main website, www.GaryGoodLawyer.com will begin ranking well in Google for the search phrases in the keyword-rich domains (ie: Chicago Personal Injury, Personal Injury Lawyer Chicago, and PI Lawyer Chicago). The problem is that it just doesn’t work this way.
A Brief Explanation Of Why It Doesn’t Work
The benefit of having keyword-rich domain names only exists when there is an actual website or blog setup on that domain. There are many factors involved in WHY a keyword-rich domain is ranking that go beyond the domain name itself. Sure, having keywords in the domain is one signal for the search engines but there are many other signals that a search engine is looking at. For instance, the anchor text of the links pointing to the website will often include the domain name. Since the domain name contains keywords, so will the anchor text of many of the links pointing to the site. This is an important signal for the search engines. Obviously, the content, the site architecture, the title tags, internal linking, inbound links, etc. all play a role in the site’s ability to rank for certain search phrases.However, simply redirecting a keyword-rich domain to a different site doesn’t send any of these signals to a search engine. The only signal it sends is that the old site has been permanently moved to a new location. For these reasons, Gary’s website www.GaryGoodLawyer.com will NOT get more visibility for the search phrase “PI Lawyer Chicago” simply because he redirected www.pilawyerchicago.com to it.
Possible Benefits of Using This Strategy
Even though there is a misunderstanding of the benefits of redirecting keyword-rich domains as I’ve described, that doesn’t mean that it can’t provide any benefits. For example, if a domain has any inbound links pointing to it, you can salvage of some of the “link juice” by redirecting the domain to the main website. However, you will not receive 100% of the “link juice”. Obviously, if you have a brand-new, keyword-rich domain you just registered, that domain will not have any links pointing to it and will render this point moot.At the end of the day, you are better off investing your resources into domains where you intend on developing a website or blog on the actual domain. Simply buying up keyword-rich domains and redirecting these to your main website isn’t really doing anything to increase your visibility in search engines.
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