Branding & Cobranding. New site vs 301 redirect

Hi,
Lets say I am stetting up a brand (with a site) called fad3r.com but I also want cobrand under fader.com. Both sites will have the exact same content and be mirrors.

From an SEO standpoint is it better to create 2 exact same sites or is it better to set up one site and have a 301 redirect (I think that is the type of redirect) from one to the other.

What is the advantage vs disadvantages from an SEO standpoint of
A) 2 sites mirrored
B) The 301 redirect.

Both sites will be competing for the same keywords except for 1 which is a low competition keyword but i have an EMD for.

Thanks in advance this is the first time I am trying something like this.

Well assuming you are launching both these sites at the same time I would just say you're doubling your work.

The only "benefit" you'll get (that is - if the content is duplicate) is have 1 site be a complete waste of time. Your only competing with yourself, and Big G is going to pick one of those sites as the "original"

A 301 redirect from one of those sites to the other won't really do much either as they are both new (I'm assuming they are both new that is).

You can buy 1000 domains and redirect them all but if they are all newly bought they aren't going to do squat.

One set-up that MAY help you out if you want to focus on 2 sites is taking the time to give them original content. You can get away using an identical theme for the site, but make sure the content is 100% unique from the prior site.

I work in the legal seo niche (a 9-5 job) and have implemented similar strategies with success, but again using 100% unique content on both sites is key.

Hi and thank you very much for the response. Basically what I am trying to accomplish is I have 2 domains that I want to brand and cobrand under. How can I set this up in most efficient way possible? The idea of hosting 2 separate sites both with unique content is not appealing in the least but I would like there to be 2 separate URLS to the site.

They will be seen as duplicates, therefore one of the two won't rank as well. I believe it is redundant to do SEO for two sites. Just redirect one to the other.

Co-branding is not an issue in your case. I believe that Google will eventually rank the fader site for the fad3r keyword (or the opposite; whichever you prefer). It will see the names as interchangeable.

dannistone said:

They will be seen as duplicates, therefore one of the two won't rank as well. I believe it is redundant to do SEO for two sites. Just redirect one to the other.

Co-branding is not an issue in your case. I believe that Google will eventually rank the fader site for the fad3r keyword (or the opposite; whichever you prefer). It will see the names as interchangeable.

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Yea I mean there has to be a way to do it because it is done all the time. Plenty of sites buy the .com, .net, .biz of their domain name and then they all link to the samepage.

Would this be a simple 301 redirect?

fad3r said:

Yea I mean there has to be a way to do it because it is done all the time. Plenty of sites buy the .com, .net, .biz of their domain name and then they all link to the samepage.

Would this be a simple 301 redirect?

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Yes, I simply handle it through my domain provider account. If you focus on brand, make sure to have lots of links with just your brand name in both its forms. Also lots of plain URLs as links.

dannistone said:

Yes, I simply handle it through my domain provider account. If you focus on brand, make sure to have lots of links with just your brand name in both its forms. Also lots of plain URLs as links.

Click to expand...

What do you mean by lots of plain URLS as links?

I would assume Dannistone is talking about the anchor text you would use in your backlinking.

Basically instead of having "Faber Widget" (or whatever) be the text you use to link back to your site, just use the actual URL of your domain (www.yourdomain.com)

As far as the redirects you see for .biz, .info, etc links going to a main .com, that is basically a strategy a lot of companies use to avoid domain name squatters from buying up the .biz/.info version of their domain name and possibly using it for some nefarious purpose.

In addition if a customer isn't sure what the ending to the URL is the company can rest assured that no matter what the customer types they'll find their URL.

As Dannistone mentioned you can do all that in your .htaccess file.

It's less of an SEO strategy and more-so just to make sure you can cover your ass in the event someone wants to rip off your URL.

Also many companies purposely purchase misspellings/typos of their domains just to redirect them.

A favorite of mine is google.maps.com.

It belongs to maps.com, but their webmaster probably noticed tons of people type in that URL trying to find Google Maps, and are instead redirected to maps.com.

I bet it brings them loads of traffic