Fine and dandy, Cameron. I thought, however, I'd remind everyone why you wouldn't want to split content onto mini-sites (once again, this isn't a dig at Cameron's article, it's just here to complement/bookend his points):
- You run the risk of sandboxing a new domain, meaning there's a chance the content won't rank at all. I'm not saying this will happen every time, but chances are the new domain won't be as strong as the original domain.
- You're not getting all that nice, new traffic to your main domain.
- You're splitting link value, meaning...
- ...you're not helping your main content rank better; instead, you're now tasked with ranking two sites well.
- Users may not get the connection. If your company has a super-rad viral thingamabob that you put on a separate site, people might go "Cool!" without ever putting 2 and 2 together, that it is your company's product/brainchild/whatever.
Obviously, Cameron's five reasons for mini-sites and my five reasons against them combine to form a superset of "It's a judgment call." Wildly successful viral marketing launches have kicked the crap out of my five reasons, while smaller, less successful launches may have learned to keep such tactics on their main domain in the future. I'd be mindful of both the risks and the rewards, and decide for yourself what's more worthwhile.
That's about it. I'll close with the following:
When Cameron blogged at Search Engine Land...let my Cameron...gooooooooo.
Long live Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
Good posts on both sides. And together they help show why 'it depends' needs to be part of so many seo answers. The market, the competition, your goals are all going to play a part in whether you choose a mini-site or not.
And I thought I was going to be so clever by saying 'when Cameron was in Egypts land... let my Cameron go'. You're just to witty!
Anyways, great post and definitely great reasons of why you wouldn't use a mini-site.
Both are good articles, but I'm gonna have to side with Rebecca.
Cameron brings up valid point that your brand can be "damaged by oversubmission to social media sites. It's important for submitters to drop plenty of juicy stories that are not linkbait or hosted on their own site. I know that if anyone looks like a blatant self-promoter... I am definitely not Digging their stuff or keeping them on my friends list.
I have to say that I had similar thoughts on Cameron's post with regards to 'why not 301', and made a comment along those lines.
We've currently got a couple of pitches where clients want to move domain, or create content on a new site - I can nearly always see the business benefits from their point of view, but that doesn't mean it isn't going to be painful.
Good points on both sides... in this industry there are a lot more in betweens than absolutes, though I agree that it is probably better not to in most cases.
Cameron brought up a good point with the Elf Yourself example, though I think that could be just as good using a 301 redirect from the beginning and then down playing the brand... nothing says that you have to drop this new content into your existing, highly branded site. Just comes down to the best presentation method for the circumstances.
Unfortunately though for Cameron, you completely trumped his article... after all, how can you compete with a blog post on SEO that brings in a reference to Ferris Bueller... Bueller.... Bueller... anyone?... anyone?
I know, I play dirty :)
Can someone define a minisite please? Is it one of the following? Is it all three?
www.foobar.com/minisite
minisite.foobar.com
www.someotherdomain.com
Thanks!
A mini site would be if Doritos launched a campaign that pointed to a site called "tastetheflavor.com," even though their main site is doritos.com.
Hi rebecca! You run the risk of sandboxing a new domain? Are you sure? :(
It's possible!
Hi Rebecca,
Great Post!
But I have a couple of bones to pick with your points :)
1. Creating a mini-site for Viral Marketing is not to make that mini-site rank well in the search engines. When done properly, Viral Marketing doesn't depend on Organic Searches to recieve traffic. That's the whole point! So you shouldn't be worried about the sandbox if the goal of the site is true "viral marketing"
2. All that nice new traffic to your domain? Maybe this mini-site is going after a segment of the population which wasn't attracted to your original site in the first place. By using this new viral site, you can change the perception of the original site so that when they do come through, they are more likely to stay, convert or whatever it is you want the visitors to do.
3 & 4 . We go back to the same argument what I said in point 1. The point of a viral marketing campaign is to get rid of that dependance in the search engines, so its not important to rank well. So you can still apply all your linking juice to the main site, and all your viral mojo to your mini site.
5. Well this depends on how well the campaign is done. And really should'nt be a big deterrant from trying this venue. That's like saying "its bad to market through the web because it can fail to deliver" ... well sure it can fail, if its not properly done. Same goes for a mini-site... if properly done, your visitors should have no problem associating the two.
A mini-viral site could be great, or it could be a fiasco like ask.com's informationrevolution which backfired. It all depends on on how its done, and it shouldn't be done as an SEO would, but as a viral marketer would.
Oggy
Thanks for commenting, oggy. Like I said, it really depends. You make some good points--I was just trying to play devil's advocate and remind people of the potential downsides. :)
Oggy - I don't get how any of your arguments make it wiser to use www.newidea.com rather than www.oldcompany.com/newidea - you can still advertise with one and forward to the other, and literally almost noone pays attention to the URL, so the site can appear to exist independently of the main site in whatever format you want, while still bolstering the link juice, trust, and good stuff associated with the main domain. Since there's no one looking at the URL, why would you sacrifice the potential benefits?
Very true Randfish. I agree 100%. The point i was trying to get across though is that viral marketing shouldn't necessarily depend on Search Engines. Because its viral ;)
Additionally, some large corporations have difficulty making quick changes on the main "oldcompany.com" website because access to servers is limited to a few overworked programmers. If this is the case, a good idea may be to outsource a mini-site instead of waiting around for the programmers to go through their list of priorities.
It's definately better than not trying viral at all.
By the way, I love this blog, its one of the most informative out there. Its a pleasure to interact with intelligent people here.
Both articles were good reads, I can see some advantages from both sides. As for the example given with the web2.0awards.org I do have a question?
You mention that after the 301 redirect you had 100k+ backlinks...
Do these links pass value to your main site? Or were these links from within the mini site and are now pointing to your main domain?
Good question. I, too, am wondering about this. It doesn't make much sense that the links benefit the main site, but I could see it being possible.
Actually after posting this I asked in the Cre8asite forum and did some more research which you'll find on this forum post:
https://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=49447
Thanks for providing some insight!
Very helpful. Thanks for the link!
One thing that's nice about Cameron's strategy is that in less competitive markets (e.g. NOT "web 2.0"), you can potentially get multiple sites to rank in the top 10 & box your competition out by linkbaiting to one or more microsites...
"Les Jeux Son Fait."
When I saw that article titled "5 reasons to put viral..." I scratched my head in confusion.
I ended up reading it yesterday, from the curiousness I would have felt from any other title that clearly stated something I thought was wrong, like "7 reasons not to stop at stop signs" or "the 5 benefits of not wiping your ass".
From this sick curiosity I opened and read the article. It made less sense to me than it could have, and I was a bit disapointed because I very much wanted to learn something new.
37 percent? thats like the percent of people think Bush rocks...
WTF, I wouldn't use this low percentage to compliment or suggest something.
Very much like Mia Sara not loving me, this simply makes no sense to me.
Actually, good ol' Dubya' is down to 28% nowadays.
28, 37, whatever, the point is that the numbers we speak of are less than the meaning of life, which is naturally... (someone hook me up with some Douglas Adam love...)
Aaaarrgghhh, I can't resist the gravitational pull of this nutritious blanket. What you need is ...... Google.The irony of feeding an easter egg to feedthebot :)
Thank God someone answered! :)
that's awesome! i knew the answer, but haven't seen those google results with the calculator - very cool!
A client has asked me once before to develop multiple mini sites, however I advised against it due to the above points.
Unless the mini site is purely for show casing the new product (much like what mobile phone companies do), I wouldn't personally do it.
Here's to never having to resort to mini sites. Its like the scene of Christina Appelgate sitting in class saying: my best friends girlfriends sisters brothers nephews uncle knew a guy who said Ferris Bueller is in the hospital - I think it's serious! (paraphrasing here)
You don't want other people to have to reference you before finding your main family jewels.
It was Kristy Swanson who said that (aka the original Buffy). ;)
I have to say it...
oooohhh... I'm gonna hate myself in the morning..
Buffy rocks!
I like the flexibility of using lots of minisites, and managing them with the right tools isn't a major chore.
This is espcially true if you are in markets which often have an anti-commercial slant, e.g. open-source, but are insanely good for link building.