Master of Your Domains: The Pros and Cons of Having Multiple Website Domains for a Business

Have you heard the buzz about businesses needing more than one website domain? Or that microsites are the next big wave in digital marketing? It is true that more and more businesses are using multiple domains to:

• Target more specific market segments
• Showcase unique products without diluting their established brand
• Protect their brand name across different domain extensions
• Capture users who accidentally misspell their domain name

That said, having multiple domains isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Before you adopt this strategy, there are some very specific things you need to know about domains.

Domain Type 1: Redirect Domains

Redirect domains are web addresses that automatically send users to a different URL. Some businesses buy these URLs up, then configure them to forward users to the company’s primary domain.

Benefits of Redirect Domains:

• People make typos: If someone forgets or misspells your domain name, having multiple domains redirect to your main site increases the odds that they’ll still find you. Google, for example, owns Google.com and the misspelled Gooogle.com for this exact reason. The same goes for Amazon—they own both Amazon.com and the misspelled Amozon.com.
• It streamlines rebranding: If your business decides to rebrand, it doesn’t hurt to keep the old domain name and have it redirect to the new site. Why? Customers who don't know about the rebrand will still find you when they use the old domain.
• It allows you to promote new products: Say you want to heavily promote a new product that appears to have its own website but actually doesn’t. You’d set up a redirect domain that points to a specific section of your existing website, thus saving yourself the time, cost, and energy of building a new product site.
• It stops cyber squatters: These people like to buy up your domain name, attach a new extension to it (like .net, .org, .us), and then try to resell it to you at an inflated price.
• It disrupts copycatting: Competing businesses sometimes buy up similar domains to confuse your customers and divert traffic to their websites.

When used strategically, redirect domains can be incredibly useful. But there are some downsides.

Downsides of Redirect Domains:

• It takes time and money: Generic, low-demand domain names typically cost between $10-20 annually. But some high-demand ones can run you thousands of dollars. Purchasing is simple enough. It’s the technical aspects of domain forwarding that take time and know-how. Luckily, our team can help you with this!
• It takes expertise: Every forwarding domain needs a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate to maintain security, build trust with users, and improve Google search rankings. Managing this requires experience and expertise, which many businesses are not equipped to handle. This is where our team comes into play.

Domain Type 2: Fully Developed Website Domains

Some businesses choose to create a unique website to showcase a product or service.

Microsoft, for example, uses Microsoft.com as its main umbrella site. But it also markets its video game console and productivity suite using Xbox.com and Microsoft365.com (both fully developed website domains).

Small businesses can also benefit from having multiple domains—but remember that maintaining a fully developed site requires time, energy, and resources. Here are the pros and cons of this approach.

Benefits of Having Multiple Domains

• It allows you to promote a specific product/service: Having additional domains enables you to create dedicated spaces for unique products or services. This facilitates targeted marketing, allowing you to cross-promote between your primary and secondary domains.
• It increases search engine visibility: In 2019, Google set a limit on how many times a website could appear in search results for a specific search term. Because of this, having multiple domains can increase your presence in search engine results pages (SERPS), which could increase brand visibility.
• It allows you to segment your audience: Want to diversify your audience by catering to different price points or consumer preferences? Having multiple domains allows you to diversify your brand without completely alienating your existing customer base.
• It can help you establish a global presence: If you want to expand your audience, create language-specific content, or implement a localized marketing strategy, a new country or region-specific domain (think .mx for Mexico, .eu for European Union, and so on) could help.

Downsides of Having Multiple Domains

• It can confuse Google: When you have multiple domains targeting similar keywords, you risk competing against yourself in search results. If you have similar or duplicate content across these domains, search engines may struggle to determine which version to prioritize. This can lead to lower rankings for one or both of your sites.
• Increased workload: Maintaining multiple domains significantly increases your team’s workload. It also costs money.
• No duplicate content allowed: It may be tempting to recycle content across domains. But that will lead to SEO penalties. Each website must have unique content. This, too, takes time and resources.
• Twice the data to analyze: Managing analytics across multiple domains can be complex. It requires dedicated resources to track and interpret data from various sites.

Ready to WISE Up Your Web Presence?

Whether you're rebranding and need to redirect your old domain, wish to set up a region-specific page, or just want to explore whether having multiple domains is the right move for you, our team is here to help. Don't let the technical complexities of multiple domain setups hold your business back. Contact us today!