Undeveloped own domains: 301 redirect to your main site or better alternatives?

[Strider1973]

Most of you have more than one domain registered. What are you doing with these undeveloped domains? Just 301 redirects or are you putting content on them (making mini-sites)?

I have one main site about poker strategy, let's call it
no-limit-holdem-pokerstrategy.com

If I had three other similar domains (currently undeveloped) named

nolimit-holdem-poker-strategy.com
nl-holdem-pokerstrategy.com
nl-texas-pokerstrategy.com

What would you do with these three sites?
- Would you just do a 301 redirect to the main site (obviously the quickest way - unsure if this boosts SERPS of the main page)
- Or would you build a site only consisting of one page, with a link to your main site (takes a bit longer)
- Or would you build a mini-site with 5 pages of content with a link to your main site (takes even more time)

What do you think is the best approach to use these undeveloped domains?

[CasinoKev]

If the extra domains you have don't have links pointing to them, they won't help your rankings by 301 redirecting. A lot of undeveloped sites are just parked w/ advertising on them. This is better than nothing since you may earn enough from clicks to pay for the yearly registration fee.

In a perfect world, I think we'd all like to have 5 page mini-sites on every domain we plan to develop. But for those with domain buying addictions, (like me and MJ) it probably makes more sense to put up a one page site.

If you only have a couple of extra domains, I'd definitely put up 5+ pages on each one. Or, do like I'm doing and test out Randy's Poker SEO Shortcuts for one page sites.

[MJ]

I love the idea of the single long (and growing) page, I've been trying to do a little bit of that myself since I have so many unused domains. Never tried a redirect, and I do minimal linking to myself (just 1 usually) as the page is mostly there to age.

Great post though, keen to see other answers. I'm off to buy some more domains

[Strider1973]

Thank you Kevin for your advice. I'm not like MJ who has 300+ domains registered, but I wonder what I could do with my handful of undeveloped domains.

If doing the "one-page-per-site" approach, what is the goal of these sites?

1) do you keep them stand-alone and put you affiliate links on these sites?
2) do you link to your main site without any affiliate links?
3) or do you both link to your main site and place affiliate links on them?

Obviously the third option?

[MJ]

If I just had a handfull of GOOD domains unused what I would do is a two pronged approachch:

Step 1:

Write one LONG piece of content as Randy Ray reccomends on the above link. Do this on each domain then wait 90 days.

Step 2: Use the traffic keywords that ended up coming in to get 5 more pages on each domain.

I've also actually had some success parking domains and seeing them rank for their phrase if the competition isn't there.

At the very least I'd buy a piece of content for each domain and get it up, since it can only help things down the road.

[CasinoKev]

IMO, the goal is to get the site indexed in the search engines and aging. In general, it's easier for a site that has been indexed with content to rank better than a brand new site.

You can test linking to your main site, but I don't really know how much it will help. Maybe others can chime in on this one?

I do put affiliate links on them just in case.

Also, make sure you put up a good page of unique content regarding the phrase you're targeting. That way, your page may get some long tail traffic. Later, you can use the keywords in the traffic logs to help you build new pages (As MJ beat me to saying )

[pokerworx]

I dont think this would work for your particular domains but say you have ones like good poker or good casino reward affiliates have a think where you can park them on an actual poker or casino site so when someone clicks the name they go to that site and there yours if they sign up. I think all programs should do that.

Casino Affiliate Program - RewardsAffiliates.com :: < affil link