__/ [ Andrew Heenan ] on Saturday 19 August 2006 11:55 \__

> "Per-Erik Skramstad" wrote ...
>> Should the domain strategy for a fairly large firm be to have all subpages
>> under its main domain or let their subdivisions have their own domain?
>> www.example.com/pepper
>> www.example.com/salt
>> or
>> www.example.com
>> www.example-pepper.com
>> www.example-salt.com
>
> I'd go for the first option, virtually every time.
>
> *You reinforce your brand.
> *You concentrate all your marketing on one domain, saving time, design,
> effort and money
> *All your links come to one domain, with measurable advantage in page rank
> and ranking.
> *You reduce the risk of duplicate page problems (but internal duplication
> must be limited)
> *You eliminate 'interlinking' penalties
>
> The only 'normal' exception might be for different language sites, where
> the benefits of merging are limited, and there real advantages in local
> hosting and local.tld

Agreed. I struggle to push traffic into newly-erected domains, even if they
fall under the same 'umbrella' (using link structure). There is something
about domain reputation that not only appeals to a human, but is also
perceived favourably from an SEO perspective. I bet the majority of domain
names is associated with subtle scam s(organic sites or parked domains that
are owned by squatters for 'ransom'). This reinforces the importance of
domain 'reputation'.