SEO stuff for Ebay sites

[jill_domains]

Yes Russ - she wanted to set up completely different sites using subdomains, as far as I understood her.

If the pages/subdomains belong to the same theme/niche/category, interlinking with deep linking will work great (stating the obvious!).

Not sure i agree with that. I have GREAT results when i link to my homepage with the anchor text being my target keyword. I suggest doing it AT LEAST once per page/post...

but maybe it's different if you have a site with different sections, but i assume you woul still want to link hotbuys.com/weddings/dresses to hotbuys.com/weddings

 

[jill_domains]

Personally, I strongly prefer subdomains.

But, even in this scenario (of using subdirectories), you can
achieve almost the same results, by making sure there is no direct or indirect linking between
hotbuys.com/cellphones and
hotbuys.com/wedding

This also means that if you have a sitemap for hotbuys.com, it should not contain both links, because then, Google treats them as part of the same site, and what rgordon said holds true.

With subdomains also, it is almost the same story. Treat them as completely separate sites.

Turbo,

If your site auctions are on hotbuys.com/wedding hotbuys.com/cellphones etc.. than google will see your site as a store with various products. But if you build a site called "weddingdresses.com and have 20 pages all about wedding dresses, google will see you as an entire site about wedding dresses. This will help you rank better than other site with just a wedding dress section (obviously other factors will be taken into account)



Hope that helps. Just my $0.02

 

[jill_domains]

Having separate domains is the best way, according to me.

Ross has given his sites as examples - of using separate domains with sharp focus on one niche.
(Yes, even his eBay site is very focused - for PHPBay users)

And of course, it is easier to sell one of the sites (whenever you want to), if you have separate domains for them.

Domains are so cheap today I'm not sure why you'd want to bother with a bunch of sub domains.

I think it's better to build each niche on it's own domain not only for SEO purposes but it looks more professional to the visitor.