Multiple Domains for Law Firms: What to do?

I am often asked the question of what to do with multiple domains for a law firm.

301 Redirect is the Best

If you are not going to build unique, indepdent sites, then 301 redirect all your domains into your parent site. A 301 redirect causes the domain to fully redirect and change its name to the site you are redirecting to.

It Creates a Nice Redirect

So if you 301 the domain www.paperst.com, then it becomes www.paperstreet.com when people visit www.paperst.com. This is proper as you don’t want two independent versions of your site running on the web under different domains – its bad for SEO.

WWW vs non-WWW

In fact, you really should not have a www and non-www version of your site, just redirect everything into the www version (or non-www version). Have your tech person create a 301 redirect for your non-www version of your site into the www version.

301 Passes Over Link Value

A 301 passes over any link value (i.e. anyone linking to that previous domain). So in our case, we are able to pass over all old value of www.paperst.com links to www.paperstreet.com. This really helps if you have multiple domains with each their own value. This is awesome when two firms merge as they get the benefit of both domains link power – if 301′d correctly.

No Direct Match for SEO Purposes with a 301

However, a 301 does not pass over any “direct match” value of the keyword phrases in the domain. So any use of the domain is strictly from a link perspective and not “direct match” of the keywords. Don’t let anyone tell you that buying 50 domains with keyword phrases in them helps, it doesn’t unless you create actual web sites with those domains.