On Domain Names

When we first go online, often we buy a jillion domain names. I often find my Search Engine Marketing Clients will buy a bunch of names that represent various areas of their marketplace.

Many of them have taken the URL's and have created redirects to their real hosted domain. Some of my clients thought that this might even be useful for a search engine campaign. It isn't. And in fact, if done wrongly could hurt your real URL.

The redirect is created with the hope that someone might type your url into the browser. After managing and running thousands of search campaigns. I can tell you it is pretty much a poor use of a good domain.

A better use, in my experience is to take the domain. Host it on a cheapy host with simple tracking and use it for your off line ads.

This will solve your problem of knowing what is causing your traffic from the offline world. Because your logs in your main URL will now be from your redirect page. And your redirect page show traffic.

You will have to set up your redirect properly so that it does show your clicks. But that is simple programming. Now you can also track your offline ads in seperate parts of your market.