great stuff, nice to read.. LOL

great stuff, nice to read.. LOL

[...] This post was Twitted by eagles7977 [...]

There is one situation where having a blog on a different domain makes sense: Online Reputation Management “triage.” We all know that Google offers (for most domains) two SERP links per query – plus onebox and snippets sometimes. But pretty much, position 1 with sitelinks + regular result at position 2 are as good as it gets.

If you have an ORM problem (e.g. hostile sites ranked on Google that you want to push off) then sometimes it makes sense to launch a new blog on unique class C addresses optimized for the branded search terms.

This has nothing to do with building page rank authority for the main domain, but to canvas Google with neutral/positive information about your firm.

There are many ways to accomplish this, such as articles, social media profiles, etc, but sometimes a blog can gain link authority quickly due to the person(s) blogging and the linkbuilding potential of the resulting content plus the increasing importance of “social signals” that play into the Google algo.

This should be done with the clear explanation that links to the blog are not going to directly build authority of the main site. Each web property must be thought of independently.

Agree?
Scott Clark´s last blog ..Solving Google Local Business Center Verification Hassles – An Idea

There is one situation where having a blog on a different domain makes sense: Online Reputation Management “triage.” We all know that Google offers (for most domains) two SERP links per query – plus onebox and snippets sometimes. But pretty much, position 1 with sitelinks + regular result at position 2 are as good as it gets.

If you have an ORM problem (e.g. hostile sites ranked on Google that you want to push off) then sometimes it makes sense to launch a new blog on unique class C addresses optimized for the branded search terms.

This has nothing to do with building page rank authority for the main domain, but to canvas Google with neutral/positive information about your firm.

There are many ways to accomplish this, such as articles, social media profiles, etc, but sometimes a blog can gain link authority quickly due to the person(s) blogging and the linkbuilding potential of the resulting content plus the increasing importance of “social signals” that play into the Google algo.

This should be done with the clear explanation that links to the blog are not going to directly build authority of the main site. Each web property must be thought of independently.

Agree?
Scott Clark´s last blog ..Solving Google Local Business Center Verification Hassles – An Idea

As far as Online Reputation Management goes, sure it makes sense to publish off site content out there via blogs artilces and so on. Especially if you are trying to push negative SERP results off the first page. However regarding how blogging benefits a websites SEO, the blog should be on the same domain as the website it’s assisting.

As far as Online Reputation Management goes, sure it makes sense to publish off site content out there via blogs artilces and so on. Especially if you are trying to push negative SERP results off the first page. However regarding how blogging benefits a websites SEO, the blog should be on the same domain as the website it’s assisting.

Agreed on that. BTW, I almost ALWAYS recommend clients create blogs that are integrated with their main site (beyond even the “/blog” approach.) My larger ORM/SEO clients have a whole different type of issue to deal with at times (and it can get crazy fast)
Scott Clark´s last blog ..Solving Google Local Business Center Verification Hassles – An Idea

Agreed on that. BTW, I almost ALWAYS recommend clients create blogs that are integrated with their main site (beyond even the “/blog” approach.) My larger ORM/SEO clients have a whole different type of issue to deal with at times (and it can get crazy fast)
Scott Clark´s last blog ..Solving Google Local Business Center Verification Hassles – An Idea

Couldn’t agree with you more! I actually heard this ‘recommendation’ a number of times from clients that approached us and had to explain why they really shouldn’t be doing it. Nice post!

Couldn’t agree with you more! I actually heard this ‘recommendation’ a number of times from clients that approached us and had to explain why they really shouldn’t be doing it. Nice post!

Surely the location of a blog should be determined by its business objectives. Gerard above mentioned the brand reputation angle – which in some instances may be a perfectly viable rationale for deploying externally (with the suggested rationale), however your points are still wholly valid – as for many of my clients this would be a rationale in terms of inbound links, and the impact of XML-RPC, RSS Syndicated content and subsequent response to content pieces.

Good post btw

Surely the location of a blog should be determined by its business objectives. Gerard above mentioned the brand reputation angle – which in some instances may be a perfectly viable rationale for deploying externally (with the suggested rationale), however your points are still wholly valid – as for many of my clients this would be a rationale in terms of inbound links, and the impact of XML-RPC, RSS Syndicated content and subsequent response to content pieces.

Good post btw

95% of the time I agree with you however if you use wordpress, you have to be concerned about opening up a back door to your data. Putting it in a subfolder can expose your DB should a security hole or exploit occur, something that happening quite frequently lately. If the customer keeps credit cards or other personal/confidential data in the same DB you run a really big risk.
graywolf´s last blog ..The Affiliate Marketing Newbie’s Guide To Finding Niches

95% of the time I agree with you however if you use wordpress, you have to be concerned about opening up a back door to your data. Putting it in a subfolder can expose your DB should a security hole or exploit occur, something that happening quite frequently lately. If the customer keeps credit cards or other personal/confidential data in the same DB you run a really big risk.
graywolf´s last blog ..The Affiliate Marketing Newbie’s Guide To Finding Niches

Well the blog could be at the root level itself and not necessarily in a sub). The point is blogging benefits SEO by publishing compelling content that attracts links and ideally adds to the primary domains authority/PR and thus increases SERP rankings, (which is the name of the game).If the blog is on a entirely different domain it will only increase the authority of the blog itself. Sure you can link it back to the main site. Now you have one inbound link for all your blogging efforts. This just isn’t a good proposition. It makes sense to have all the links you attract from your blogging efforts linking to the domain you are SEOing.

Well the blog could be at the root level itself and not necessarily in a sub). The point is blogging benefits SEO by publishing compelling content that attracts links and ideally adds to the primary domains authority/PR and thus increases SERP rankings, (which is the name of the game).If the blog is on a entirely different domain it will only increase the authority of the blog itself. Sure you can link it back to the main site. Now you have one inbound link for all your blogging efforts. This just isn’t a good proposition. It makes sense to have all the links you attract from your blogging efforts linking to the domain you are SEOing.

I agree…

Cool thing about wordpress is that you can make you front page a static landing page, and then make your post page another page.

so make businessdomain.com a static landing page, and businessdomain.com/blog you blog all in one wordpress install…
mattdunlap.org´s last blog ..5 Reasons Why You Need To be a Guest Blogger

I agree…

Cool thing about wordpress is that you can make you front page a static landing page, and then make your post page another page.

so make businessdomain.com a static landing page, and businessdomain.com/blog you blog all in one wordpress install…
mattdunlap.org´s last blog ..5 Reasons Why You Need To be a Guest Blogger

Good advice. Creating a separate blog or site should have its own purpose, not be driven by SEO for the first site. Because you’re right, the content will most likely be sub par.
Jason X´s last blog ..Blair’s Little Hitler

Good advice. Creating a separate blog or site should have its own purpose, not be driven by SEO for the first site. Because you’re right, the content will most likely be sub par.
Jason X´s last blog ..Blair’s Little Hitler

From a complete amateurs point of view, it sometimes seems like folks can at times be so focused on SEO that they forget that they need to write a blog for people, not bots! And that sometimes tactics that might give you a point or two in SEO can make you look not very professional to prospective clients, customers or your peers.
Tracy´s last blog ..A celebration of my own labor

From a complete amateurs point of view, it sometimes seems like folks can at times be so focused on SEO that they forget that they need to write a blog for people, not bots! And that sometimes tactics that might give you a point or two in SEO can make you look not very professional to prospective clients, customers or your peers.
Tracy´s last blog ..A celebration of my own labor

@tracy, your right, a true master blogger writes for both. I find that if you can define your keyword topic for the post and stick to it, your “human” readers will know exactly what you are talking about and your “robot” readers will easily index your page. Defining a keyword or keyword phrase for your post will put you into a mindset while writing the post that keeps you on topic and focused.
mattdunlap.org´s last blog ..How to Make a Better WordPress Permalink for SEO – Remove the dates

@tracy, your right, a true master blogger writes for both. I find that if you can define your keyword topic for the post and stick to it, your “human” readers will know exactly what you are talking about and your “robot” readers will easily index your page. Defining a keyword or keyword phrase for your post will put you into a mindset while writing the post that keeps you on topic and focused.
mattdunlap.org´s last blog ..How to Make a Better WordPress Permalink for SEO – Remove the dates

@tracy write for humans … tweak and polish for bots
graywolf´s last blog ..The Affiliate Marketing Newbie’s Guide To Finding Niches

@tracy write for humans … tweak and polish for bots
graywolf´s last blog ..The Affiliate Marketing Newbie’s Guide To Finding Niches

@Tracy @Matt @Graywolf

I’ll go ahead and put my 2 cents on the topic that has evolved. lol. Some people say write for humans only and forget SEO. This is bad advice because you are going to lose out on some valuable SERP traffic if you forget SEO and and focus on only readers. On the other hand if you think only about SEO and keywords then your content is not likely to connect with your human reader. Your content does have to be compelling enough to attract links and subscribers which is also very important and also will affect SEO. The bottom line is you have to find a balance and learn how to write for both humans and robots. It takes a little practice but it’s worth the effort. It’s more of an art than it is a science really.

@Tracy @Matt @Graywolf

I’ll go ahead and put my 2 cents on the topic that has evolved. lol. Some people say write for humans only and forget SEO. This is bad advice because you are going to lose out on some valuable SERP traffic if you forget SEO and and focus on only readers. On the other hand if you think only about SEO and keywords then your content is not likely to connect with your human reader. Your content does have to be compelling enough to attract links and subscribers which is also very important and also will affect SEO. The bottom line is you have to find a balance and learn how to write for both humans and robots. It takes a little practice but it’s worth the effort. It’s more of an art than it is a science really.

A blog on your site will not only attract links to your domain, but also allows you to play with long tail keyword strategies more effectively.

A blog on your site will not only attract links to your domain, but also allows you to play with long tail keyword strategies more effectively.

It may in some cases better off to have a blog on a different domain IMHO tho, e.g. domain name and link structure without keyword but there is nothing you can do (client refuse to do so, branding issues or CMS programming issues), or if you need a more personal channel to give out personal opinions instead of speaking for the company.
CotHKSEO´s last blog ..“What The F**K Is Social Media” Marketing?

It may in some cases better off to have a blog on a different domain IMHO tho, e.g. domain name and link structure without keyword but there is nothing you can do (client refuse to do so, branding issues or CMS programming issues), or if you need a more personal channel to give out personal opinions instead of speaking for the company.
CotHKSEO´s last blog ..“What The F**K Is Social Media” Marketing?

I never claim to be SEO expert but I have to agree with you on this one. Blog in my opinion should be used to add to link building.

While I can see the idea of the original author – I personally prefer to do it same way you describe
Alex Sysoef´s last blog ..Search Engine Ranking Factors Cheatsheet

I never claim to be SEO expert but I have to agree with you on this one. Blog in my opinion should be used to add to link building.

While I can see the idea of the original author – I personally prefer to do it same way you describe
Alex Sysoef´s last blog ..Search Engine Ranking Factors Cheatsheet

I really agree with the fact that multiple blogs could water down your content. Blogs are already having a tough enough time providing meaningful content, running 3,4, or even 5 blogs will really make the content suffer in my opinion.

Miguel

I really agree with the fact that multiple blogs could water down your content. Blogs are already having a tough enough time providing meaningful content, running 3,4, or even 5 blogs will really make the content suffer in my opinion.

Miguel

What a great post and blog. Trying to improve site rankings is a study in itself.

Loooove the photos!!! I see more than my cats love cheese.

Cheers! JJ
JJ Loch´s last blog ..Munising Falls, Michigan

What a great post and blog. Trying to improve site rankings is a study in itself.

Loooove the photos!!! I see more than my cats love cheese.

Cheers! JJ
JJ Loch´s last blog ..Munising Falls, Michigan

Excellent point!

Excellent point!

Agreed. I’m busy running my business and I don’t even post here as much as I would like to sometimes. I can’t imagine trying to post regularly on 3,4 or 5 blogs. The blogging would be literally a full time job. hehe.

Agreed. I’m busy running my business and I don’t even post here as much as I would like to sometimes. I can’t imagine trying to post regularly on 3,4 or 5 blogs. The blogging would be literally a full time job. hehe.

LOL well thanks for the compliment. Hope to see you around here more in the future.

LOL well thanks for the compliment. Hope to see you around here more in the future.

I’m surprised no one is disagreeing with you here. Honestly, I think there’s merit to having a blog off and on your main site.

Your reasons are excellent for having one hosted at your main site, but you could also have a secondary blog with a related theme that you’re dedicated to updating that will link back to your site. As it grows in authority, so do its links, and those links could very well be what ends up putting you over the top.

Just so I’m clear, I’m not saying only do a blog on a different domain, but rather have one on your main site and one off, that are both updated and unique in content. Works quite well.
Noah´s last blog ..Private Investors to the Rescue of Small Business

I’m surprised no one is disagreeing with you here. Honestly, I think there’s merit to having a blog off and on your main site.

Your reasons are excellent for having one hosted at your main site, but you could also have a secondary blog with a related theme that you’re dedicated to updating that will link back to your site. As it grows in authority, so do its links, and those links could very well be what ends up putting you over the top.

Just so I’m clear, I’m not saying only do a blog on a different domain, but rather have one on your main site and one off, that are both updated and unique in content. Works quite well.
Noah´s last blog ..Private Investors to the Rescue of Small Business

[...] thanks to Search Engine Marketing Group who’s post on “When SEO Advice Goes Wrong” was the inspiration for this [...]

As a link broker I’ve seen numerous people ask for link building to their domain and their separately hosted blogs. And it most of the cases I think “who game them that advice”. Having a blog on your domain is the way to go 99% of the time. HOWEVER!!! There are a few instances where it is worth while hosting it elsewhere.

example: You have a site buy{product}onlnie.com and its obviously a commercial site – which many social experts know won’t fly well with diggers and other social users when they see the items link to buy{product}online.com/blog. So its better to create a separate blog which is more attractive in the blogosphere and social networks and brand through it without being pegged as a spammer on digg and other sites. Of course evern in a case like that I would recommend a catchy name and a different design rathern than just appending blog before .com

As a link broker I’ve seen numerous people ask for link building to their domain and their separately hosted blogs. And it most of the cases I think “who game them that advice”. Having a blog on your domain is the way to go 99% of the time. HOWEVER!!! There are a few instances where it is worth while hosting it elsewhere.

example: You have a site buy{product}onlnie.com and its obviously a commercial site – which many social experts know won’t fly well with diggers and other social users when they see the items link to buy{product}online.com/blog. So its better to create a separate blog which is more attractive in the blogosphere and social networks and brand through it without being pegged as a spammer on digg and other sites. Of course evern in a case like that I would recommend a catchy name and a different design rathern than just appending blog before .com

It’s kind of funny because I just had a client yesterday tell me how someone that wanted to charge him $2K upfront for his SEO business said the best strategy is to do SEO on the site and then leave it alone and let the search engines to their jobs.

I couldn’t stop myself from a 30 minute tirade about how bad that advice is. It’s so true what you say, that bad SEO advice will always be out there.
Chris´s last blog ..4.75% Florida Rates The Recession is Over

It’s kind of funny because I just had a client yesterday tell me how someone that wanted to charge him $2K upfront for his SEO business said the best strategy is to do SEO on the site and then leave it alone and let the search engines to their jobs.

I couldn’t stop myself from a 30 minute tirade about how bad that advice is. It’s so true what you say, that bad SEO advice will always be out there.
Chris´s last blog ..4.75% Florida Rates The Recession is Over

Yep Yep, completely agree with that, there is also an element of this in a post Rand did (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/17-ways-search-engines-judge-the-value-of-a-link).

Essentially it outlines the importance of getting links from a wide variety of sources “By this logic, it follows that earning a link from a site that’s already linked to you in the past is not as valuable as getting a link from an entirely unique domain”.

If you host your blog on a separate domain you are not going to be getting the diversity of sources that are seemingly highly juiced

Marc
Marc´s last blog ..Google Video Sitemaps | What Are They and How to Create One

Yep Yep, completely agree with that, there is also an element of this in a post Rand did (http://www.seomoz.org/blog/17-ways-search-engines-judge-the-value-of-a-link).

Essentially it outlines the importance of getting links from a wide variety of sources “By this logic, it follows that earning a link from a site that’s already linked to you in the past is not as valuable as getting a link from an entirely unique domain”.

If you host your blog on a separate domain you are not going to be getting the diversity of sources that are seemingly highly juiced

Marc
Marc´s last blog ..Google Video Sitemaps | What Are They and How to Create One

whoops correct link to the post is http://www.seomoz.org/blog/17-ways-search-engines-judge-the-value-of-a-link
Marc´s last blog ..Google Video Sitemaps | What Are They and How to Create One

whoops correct link to the post is http://www.seomoz.org/blog/17-ways-search-engines-judge-the-value-of-a-link
Marc´s last blog ..Google Video Sitemaps | What Are They and How to Create One

I’m surprised that the advice came from Garry Conn, he’s a savvy and experienced blogger. Maybe he was just having an off day.

But it’s good you pointed the error out, so others may benefit. Thx!

See you on Twitter.

Missy
G34 Media
Missy´s last blog ..Why Namecheap Kicks Ninja Butt, And Is My Domain Registrar Of Choice

I’m surprised that the advice came from Garry Conn, he’s a savvy and experienced blogger. Maybe he was just having an off day.

But it’s good you pointed the error out, so others may benefit. Thx!

See you on Twitter.

Missy
G34 Media
Missy´s last blog ..Why Namecheap Kicks Ninja Butt, And Is My Domain Registrar Of Choice

Noah,

The advice that we are speaking about is advising to have the blog not on your main domain period. Not to have one on and one off. What you’re suggesting might make more sense except, I’m still going to say if you are writing for two blogs it’s going to be a lot more time consuming and It would still make more sense to focus on creating quality content to attract links from a variety of sources to the main domain, rather than spending some of that time trying to build up an off site blog just to create one inbound link.

Thanks for commenting.

Noah,

The advice that we are speaking about is advising to have the blog not on your main domain period. Not to have one on and one off. What you’re suggesting might make more sense except, I’m still going to say if you are writing for two blogs it’s going to be a lot more time consuming and It would still make more sense to focus on creating quality content to attract links from a variety of sources to the main domain, rather than spending some of that time trying to build up an off site blog just to create one inbound link.

Thanks for commenting.

I see this come up quite often on LinkedIn, there’s usually one or two people who recommend an off-site blog. I usually jump in to tell them that they gain more credibility by having high quality links point directly to their domain than to dilute them and just have several links from their own other site. Next time I’ll point them here.

I think the misunderstanding stems from them thinking that more links are better. They assume they can get plenty of links from their blog and that this will be a great thing. But they miss the whole notion of quality and authority. It’s better to get one link apiece from Harvard, MIT and the NY Times than to get 3 from your own other site.

There are times when it may be reasonable to host a blog off-site, but not for SEO reasons. I might do so if the blog’s content and target audience are completely different from the main site. For instance I’m a Web designer and I blog about social media and Web stuff. If I decided to start a blog about sailing I would probably get a new domain more appropriate to the topic.
Heidi Cool´s last blog ..SEO and reality: ranking first for ’subaqueous auto racing’ is only impressive if people actually search on that phrase

I see this come up quite often on LinkedIn, there’s usually one or two people who recommend an off-site blog. I usually jump in to tell them that they gain more credibility by having high quality links point directly to their domain than to dilute them and just have several links from their own other site. Next time I’ll point them here.

I think the misunderstanding stems from them thinking that more links are better. They assume they can get plenty of links from their blog and that this will be a great thing. But they miss the whole notion of quality and authority. It’s better to get one link apiece from Harvard, MIT and the NY Times than to get 3 from your own other site.

There are times when it may be reasonable to host a blog off-site, but not for SEO reasons. I might do so if the blog’s content and target audience are completely different from the main site. For instance I’m a Web designer and I blog about social media and Web stuff. If I decided to start a blog about sailing I would probably get a new domain more appropriate to the topic.
Heidi Cool´s last blog ..SEO and reality: ranking first for ’subaqueous auto racing’ is only impressive if people actually search on that phrase

Your last example does make sense. However your talking about creating a totally different blog for a totally different purpose. Not creating a separate related blog for your company.

Your last example does make sense. However your talking about creating a totally different blog for a totally different purpose. Not creating a separate related blog for your company.

Well yes there are two flaws to this, the first is your link diversity will likely get your flagged as a spammer, and good luck getting your blog ranked if you just registered the domain yesterday.

If you place the blog at yourcompany.com/blog it can benefit from your existing domain links/trust/age and will help your domain visibility overall.

There are other reasons such as if you want a wordpress blog for OpenID and just don’t have the time to maintain a blog with cms updates. As most companies struggle to provide enough content for 1 blog, you might as well give up the idea if you want to split your time over 5 blogs…
david´s last blog ..Adobe flash cash to buy omniture

Well yes there are two flaws to this, the first is your link diversity will likely get your flagged as a spammer, and good luck getting your blog ranked if you just registered the domain yesterday.

If you place the blog at yourcompany.com/blog it can benefit from your existing domain links/trust/age and will help your domain visibility overall.

There are other reasons such as if you want a wordpress blog for OpenID and just don’t have the time to maintain a blog with cms updates. As most companies struggle to provide enough content for 1 blog, you might as well give up the idea if you want to split your time over 5 blogs…
david´s last blog ..Adobe flash cash to buy omniture

As far as my knowledge goes, the url of your blog should be similar to your main site. Just the way you put it. This goes a long way to increase your page rank. Having too much external blogs is also not something very wise to do. It just makes you less focused on quality but rather quantity.

As far as my knowledge goes, the url of your blog should be similar to your main site. Just the way you put it. This goes a long way to increase your page rank. Having too much external blogs is also not something very wise to do. It just makes you less focused on quality but rather quantity.

Some of this feels overly subjective.

Where you host your blog should coincide with your own business model, arbitrarily deciding all blogs should be hosted with your site seems to be no better advice than the example you try to tear apart.

You should always be doing what is right for you and/or your business.

Some of this feels overly subjective.

Where you host your blog should coincide with your own business model, arbitrarily deciding all blogs should be hosted with your site seems to be no better advice than the example you try to tear apart.

You should always be doing what is right for you and/or your business.

Hi, Nice blog and nice post. Im newbie and have learn too many things from ur blog. Thanks

Hi, Nice blog and nice post. Im newbie and have learn too many things from ur blog. Thanks

However the point of this conversation is what is better for SEO. It’s clearly best to have your blog hosted at your primary domain if you care about your blog benefiting your SEO.

However the point of this conversation is what is better for SEO. It’s clearly best to have your blog hosted at your primary domain if you care about your blog benefiting your SEO.

I think SEO advice never goes wrong, it may just take some to get the actual results
Mike´s last blog ..Using Podcasts To Increase Traffic Flow To Your Website

I think SEO advice never goes wrong, it may just take some to get the actual results
Mike´s last blog ..Using Podcasts To Increase Traffic Flow To Your Website

Well , the view of the passage is totally correct ,your details is really reasonable and you wslmart.net guy give us valuable informative post, I totally agree the standpoint of upstairs. I often surfing on this forum when I m free and I find there are so much good information we can learn in this forum!

Well , the view of the passage is totally correct ,your details is really reasonable and you wslmart.net guy give us valuable informative post, I totally agree the standpoint of upstairs. I often surfing on this forum when I m free and I find there are so much good information we can learn in this forum!

Well i think SEO is continue work and with new Search Algo, i see its has become more important to provide fresh contents to google to rank well in google index

Well i think SEO is continue work and with new Search Algo, i see its has become more important to provide fresh contents to google to rank well in google index

What a great post and blog….it’s seo which makes google no. one in the world….Google’s SEO Report Card which aims at providing the webmasters, basic and advanced knowledge about how they can improve the rankings of their blogs and websites in Google search results.

Read more: http://www.techylabs.com/google-seo-report-card.html#comment-1308#ixzz0vjYoOMZl..

I think SEO advice never goes wrong, it may just take some to get the actual results…..

at last good article….

What a great post and blog….it’s seo which makes google no. one in the world….Google’s SEO Report Card which aims at providing the webmasters, basic and advanced knowledge about how they can improve the rankings of their blogs and websites in Google search results.

Read more: http://www.techylabs.com/google-seo-report-card.html#comment-1308#ixzz0vjYoOMZl..

I think SEO advice never goes wrong, it may just take some to get the actual results…..

at last good article….

In my view, SEO starts with the user (of course), but cannot ignore the incredible importance of search-engine targeted (and specific) tactics.

You are right, most of the time it happened so I am totally agree with you.