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We have several domains with the names of products we sell. The idea is to create mini sites in the future that specialize just in those products, mainly for better placement on SE results pages. As of now, none of these websites have any content, and it doesn't look like we will be adding any for a while.

For example, website productA1.com

If i redirect that website to mainwebsite.com/productA1/ will, will productA1.com be indexed by search engines? In other words, will it be displayed on Search engines as a result (productA1.com)? If so, should i use 301 or 302 redirect?

Or is the best option to upload that one html page from my mainwebsite.com to productA1.com?

I don't want to point any of them to the main root of my main website, only to the appropriate product categories.

I just found a competitor that ranks #1 for a product we also sell, and that page (I'm not sure if entirely, but i believe so) is redirected to their main website/category but the address is masked. Which is exactly what I'm looking for, ranking up there with the keyword based website.

Edit: I found out that the competitor uses an iframe that renders in 100% of the page, and the iframe displays mainwebsite.com/productA1/ Is that the best practice?

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If i redirect that website to mainwebsite.com/productA1/ will, will productA1.com be indexed by search engines?

If you redirect (301 or 302) productA1.com to mainwebsite.com/productA1/ then productA1.com won't appear in the SERPs. If productA1.com previously appeared in the SERPs for it's own content (it wasn't a brand new site) then it would pass link juice to your mainwebsite for a time but would itself disappear from the rankings as Google updated it's index.

Or is the best option to upload that one html page from my mainwebsite.com to productA1.com?

I can't see that this is a good idea. Your one-page website is not going to rank very well and you are going to have to concentrate on getting some good backlinks. If, however, you built an entire website about productA1 then yes, but this is a lot of work.

You are better off building content on mainwebsite.com IMO.

I found out that the competitor uses an iframe that renders in 100% of the page, and the iframe displays mainwebsite.com/productA1/ Is that the best practice?

I can't believe that this alone is working for them?! Is it possible that they previously had an established site on productA1.com?

If this was possible then anyone could set up an iframe in a page, framing someone else's site (cross-domain) and get rank from it - this is not possible.

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  • "Is it possible that they previously had an established site on productA1.com?" Perhaps, and I do agree with your statement. They're productA1.com ranks #4 on bing, while the rendered page inside that iframe, the actual website, only shows on the fourth page of results. Now that I checked, on google, the actual main website shows on the first page, and the one with iframe is not even indexed. That pretty much answers my own question. Still, can I benefit in any way from those extra domains? Jan 2, 2013 at 22:33
  • Just another point regarding the iframe idea... if Google was to interpret the iframes content of an external site as part of the source site (which I don't think it will) then you are also into the realm of duplicate content issues. Can you benefit from the extra domains... From an SEO point of view, then unless you can put the resources into building an entire website on these domains then you are unlikely to see any benefit in the SERPs, however, there are other non-seo benefits. See: webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/3777/…
    – MrWhite
    Jan 2, 2013 at 23:19
  • Thank you. I read the whole thing. It clarified a lot of points. One of them, that one of the advantages is taking the domain away from competitors. Also, from what i read, it appears that to get the most out of these sites would be to create niche sites. I believe you nailed when you said "If this was possible then anyone could set up an iframe in a page, framing someone else's site (cross-domain) and get rank from it". I still will run a test on one of the domains, but thank you for the answer. Jan 2, 2013 at 23:34

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