[Steve Chapman]

Hi all,

I went through a spending spree a year or two back and bought lots of different domain names related to carpet cleaning and various areas, but have never really done anything with them.

i know things have changed a bit in google etc and how search engines view them so am wondering whether its worth using them at all or if i do how to use them effectively.

I dont want to damage my normal website ranking, so was thinking maybe doing a small website for each domain name and go from there ?

Or maybe its better just to have the one site and just optimize that, I'm undecided 

What your thoughts ?

Regards
Steve

[Garyj]

First thing I would do is optimise the site you have, I would guess any work that you get from the web is coming from your Places listing, and they are eratic and seem to disappear overnight. The domain names you have you might as well do something with, so why not create additional websites and link them through to your main site using anchor text. It will give your main site more credibility and should boost its ranking in Google.

[Steve Chapman]

Gary

My site normally ranks quite high on google for my area, even well before it was on google places and has done for a while.

What else would you say it needs to be optimized ?

Regards
Steve

[Garyj]

just searched carpet cleaners Weymouth and you don't show in first 4 pages. Is it showing for you? if so you're getting a false reading because its a site you have already looked at or you are signed in to Google. Try clearing your cache and cookies going to private browsing and trying again, should get a truer reading.

What search terms are you trying to rank for? presume carpet cleaner Weymouth, Dorchester, Portland etc.


With the new Google update it is all about content and how long someone stays on your site. 

[Steve Chapman]

Are you saying it should rank on the first page as well as the google places ?

Before i was on the places it was the top listing on first page, but now its the top listing on google places, I assumed google amalgamated the two ?

In the past it has been the top listing for weymouth, portland and dorchester, but mostly just shows on the google places now.

If this is not right then im better of not being on the places listings?

Steve

[garry22]

Steve,

I've got carpetdoctor as top of the organic listings and first in Google Places for "carpet cleaning weymouth". There does not seem to be too much competition at present.

[Garyj]

Steve,

I've got carpetdoctor as top of the organic listings and first in Google Places for "carpet cleaning weymouth". There does not seem to be too much competition at present.

Odd, half way down page 4 for me on organic listing but top of Google Places.

[Nick Attwood]

First thing I would do is optimise the site you have, I would guess any work that you get from the web is coming from your Places listing, and they are eratic and seem to disappear overnight. The domain names you have you might as well do something with, so why not create additional websites and link them through to your main site using anchor text. It will give your main site more credibility and should boost its ranking in Google.

Don't want to hijack Steve's post, but Gary could you explain "link them through to your main site using anchor text" for me?

Nick

[John Milnes]

As far as Google is concerned, domain names mean nothing....everyting is changing.

Content and qualty is what they are now looking at.

So if you want to have your domain as joeblogs-carpetcleaning as opposed to thebestcarpetcleaning-in-london, it won't make any difference.

[Garyj]

Anchor text is the text used to click on to take you to a website.

Use your keyword  'carpet cleaning weymouth' and when you click on that it takes you to your website. Anything that is 'clickable' is anchor text, by using your keyword and your domain together in this way counts as a bonus double backlink.

[Garyj]

As far as Google is concerned, domain names mean nothing....everyting is changing.

Content and qualty is what they are now looking at.

So if you want to have your domain as joeblogs-carpetcleaning as opposed to thebestcarpetcleaning-in-london, it won't make any difference.

They don't mean 'nothing' but they don't count as much as they did. A few years ago it was easy to rank a site just by buying an exact match domain, it helps but not essential.

[Nick Attwood]

Anchor text is the text used to click on to take you to a website.

Use your keyword  'carpet cleaning weymouth' and when you click on that it takes you to your website. Anything that is 'clickable' is anchor text, by using your keyword and your domain together in this way counts as a bonus double backlink.

Cheers Gary

[Steve Chapman]

Hi,

Just an update on the google places and organic listings query i posed earlier.

I couldnt understand why once i had a #1 position organic listing and a places listing and now all that shows is the google places listing .

I did some research and have found that in many cases once you verify a places listing google then merges this with your organic listing and you can see this by the way it puts info from your website on the listing instead of just your places info.

This is obviously good in one way as your listing is correct and verified with more info but bad because you lose your organic listing in the results below.

How detrimental this is to business I dont know, as google obviously is making places more relevant and having a bigger share of the results, so maybe in the long run more people will click on the places ad instead.

The only way to have both listings as i understand it, is to optimize the inner pages of the website equally well and they will show up seprately in the organic listings as well as the goole places.

Just thought i would share that as it was bugging me why it had disappeared, and I know it has been high ranking for at least the last 10 years.

Regards
Steve

[Garyj]

I'll find out if that is correct or not Steve as not heard of that. Should be fairly simple to get your site back up to the top in its own right anyway, as Gary22 pointed out there isn't much competition.

[Steve Chapman]

Yeah,
I have always concentrated on the home page but will start optimising the other pages and think I will put together a few mini sites for the other domain names,

Cheers
Steve

[Garyj]

Optimise EVERY page and go for different keywords. Carpet Cleaning Weymouth gives a different result to Carpet Cleaner Weymouth or even Carpet Cleaners Weymouth. But expect you know that, also some sites are easier to rank than others. 1&1 is pretty hopeless but Wordpress are great (the .org not the .com Wordpress site!).

[Garyj]

If they are merging it with the organic listing (which I doubt) then that means that you would have your organic listing penalised if you chose to go for the paid Places option!

But saying that.... a company I am doing SEO for was at the top of Places, now they occupy 3 of the top 4 organic spots the Place page is nowhere. I did a course on Google Places and after 5 months I still can't work who and why they rank.

[Steve Chapman]

It certainly doesn't seem fair, but I'm pretty sure that's what's happening,

If I search carpet cleaner bridport where I'm not on google places then my organic listing comes up fairly high and that's not even my main area ,

Steve

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Sometimes they are merged sometimes not, it's very hit and miss.

Steve are your domains names ones you would like to promote.

You can get a reseller package and host lot's of domains for a relatively small amount of money.

Cheers

Doug

[Steve Chapman]

Hi Doug,

I have webspace with uk2.net & they are hosted there, just nothing on them !

It's a case of being a bit lazy and with the way things are changing I have left of doing anything,

I guess what I don't want to do is compete or water down my original website ?
Esp if they end up being too similar.

It's prob down to original content and links back to the main site ,
So that's prob what I will focus on. My main reservation is that most domains are something like carpet cleaner (town) and if this isn't that helpful anymore perhaps I may be wasting my time now !

Regards
Steve