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Is better SEO to have one website with different locations hotels or different website for each?

by FacuBenavides
6 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I took the leadership in a group of hotels and I don't know if for SEO is better to have one web where it has all the locations so it has a lot of users going in and different pages specify different Key Word of that location; or different websites for each location so it has each less users but a bigger percentage of the entire website specifies more in the Key Word of the location name.
#hotels #locations #seo #website
  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    I don't think it matters either way because the premise of your question is incorrect. Google does not rank websites; they rank individual webpages. Having the same keyword phrase on multiple pages does nothing to help the website rank for that phrase. Having related, but different phrases targeted on those other pages would help if you did a good job of internally linking those pages.

    The only time I would consider individual sites in this case is if each site could have multiple pages that cater to information about the area. Boating in Miami, Fishing in Miami, Miami Nightlife, Miami Restaurants, Miami Sightseeing, etc.

    Then, you have to wonder how awkward this would be for creating a brand and having a hub for that brand. If I chose to go the individual site route because I felt like I could provide enough area information for each location, I would put them on sub-domains of the main site. The main site would be hotelchain.com. The Miami one would be miami.hotelchain.com. Keep in mind that Google treats sub-domains as completely separate websites and that no authority flows back and forth between those sub-domains and the main domain name.
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    • Profile picture of the author FacuBenavides
      Thanks Dave for answering! Although I've been looking online and there are a lot of forums that says that Google no longer treats Subdomains nor web pages as a completely different website (if this was the case then when searched a brand the results would be all different pages of the same bran and is not). If Google would treat any web pages completely separated then the internal links would have the same strength as the external links.
      Taking this into account and also that the different hotels located in different areas have a different design due to their different type of clients I will proceed to have separated websites where I can concentrate the KeyWords to what are their needs and analyze the different type of clients easily. Plus, well linked they are great external link references and when someone searches the brand instead of only one website he will find 6 different websites to explore of great quality, making more noticeable the success of the groups of resorts and their many locations.
      \Thank you for your opinion.

      Best regards.


      Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

      I don't think it matters either way because the premise of your question is incorrect. Google does not rank websites; they rank individual webpages. Having the same keyword phrase on multiple pages does nothing to help the website rank for that phrase. Having related, but different phrases targeted on those other pages would help if you did a good job of internally linking those pages.

      The only time I would consider individual sites in this case is if each site could have multiple pages that cater to information about the area. Boating in Miami, Fishing in Miami, Miami Nightlife, Miami Restaurants, Miami Sightseeing, etc.

      Then, you have to wonder how awkward this would be for creating a brand and having a hub for that brand. If I chose to go the individual site route because I felt like I could provide enough area information for each location, I would put them on sub-domains of the main site. The main site would be hotelchain.com. The Miami one would be miami.hotelchain.com. Keep in mind that Google treats sub-domains as completely separate websites and that no authority flows back and forth between those sub-domains and the main domain name.
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      • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
        Anybody who says it does not matter is just, plain wrong. They are misinterpreting something Matt Cutts said a few years ago when he was asked if a blog would rank the same on a sub-directory or in a sub-folder. He said it did not matter.

        Cutts was not asked if the website would rank better having the blog in a sub-folder. Test after test after test has proven that not only does a blog do better in a folder of an established website with decent authority, but the links to that blog help the overall domain rank better. If you don't want to believe our own tests, take Rand Fishkin's or Dan Thies' word. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people pretending to be SEO experts out there that have no clue what they are talking about because they do not understand the premise of the question. If it is a brand new website with a brand new blog, it would not matter on day one. A few years down the line, however, as the blog and website gained more links, it would make a HUGE difference.

        One final point to close this matter ... Back in the early Penguin days, we had websites that were got manual penalties from Google (which are virtually unrecoverable for all but big brand websites) so we moved content that used to rank well but no longer was ranking well to a sub-directory on those websites. Very quickly, that content on the sub-domain ranked well again because it was not being penalized for being part of the penalized main domain. That is all the proof we needed for establishing that Google treats a sub-domain as a completely different entity.
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        • Profile picture of the author FacuBenavides
          I understand what you are saying and is true that there is a lot of opinions form people that claim to be SEO experts and are wrong but well... no one knows for sure how the algorithm works and it changes constantly. Although my question remains, if Google treats every page as completely different sites how comes that when you search for a brand instead of giving results of different pages of the same Website it only gives one? I think that the difference is that you are referring specifically to sub-domains and not any page in the Website.
          Either way, as your analysis is that a sub-domain would be treated as a different Website and if not it would be better to have a separate Website I will continue doing it that way. I have a global Website for the Resorts group and a link to each different Website for location.

          Thanks for sharing your opinion.

          Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

          Anybody who says it does not matter is just, plain wrong. They are misinterpreting something Matt Cutts said a few years ago when he was asked if a blog would rank the same on a sub-directory or in a sub-folder. He said it did not matter.

          Cutts was not asked if the website would rank better having the blog in a sub-folder. Test after test after test has proven that not only does a blog do better in a folder of an established website with decent authority, but the links to that blog help the overall domain rank better. If you don't want to believe our own tests, take Rand Fishkin's or Dan Thies' word. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people pretending to be SEO experts out there that have no clue what they are talking about because they do not understand the premise of the question. If it is a brand new website with a brand new blog, it would not matter on day one. A few years down the line, however, as the blog and website gained more links, it would make a HUGE difference.

          One final point to close this matter ... Back in the early Penguin days, we had websites that were got manual penalties from Google (which are virtually unrecoverable for all but big brand websites) so we moved content that used to rank well but no longer was ranking well to a sub-directory on those websites. Very quickly, that content on the sub-domain ranked well again because it was not being penalized for being part of the penalized main domain. That is all the proof we needed for establishing that Google treats a sub-domain as a completely different entity.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris-
    Why not do both?

    It makes sense to have a central site, where people can find out about the whole chain, BUT it also makes sense to have individual sites for each location, and that will do better for SEO.

    So I recommend doing both, with good linking between them

    Chris
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    • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
      Originally Posted by Chris- View Post

      Why not do both?

      It makes sense to have a central site, where people can find out about the whole chain, BUT it also makes sense to have individual sites for each location, and that will do better for SEO.

      So I recommend doing both, with good linking between them

      Chris
      Yep. Maybe I did not iterate that clearly enough in my initial reply but that may very well be the best approach.
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