Nationwide Insurance® started a new sweepstakes using a pretty good and catchy domain name CodeSpotter.com . The domain name matches the sweepstakes campaign message very well. It appears Nationwide® purchased the domain name around 4/9/2010 based on whois history records. The domain name was in use before as a coupon / code style site, so it has some indexed pages in search engines already but this is more of a problem than good currently.
I always say it is smart to use a catchy, make sense domain name in marketing but the 301 / 302 redirect is simply becoming over used by advertisers as an easy way out and it is hurting them more times than not! Using a 301 or 302 redirect with the domain name used in the ad is preventing the site from being indexed by search engines for the specific domain they are using. This is a big problem because many people searches are based on the domain name used in the ad, or simply use the matching term to search to the campaign, which should also be the domain. These are vital keywords for search engines to find and return the results.
A lot of the time, this results in the site being used by the company to not be found on Page 1 of the search engine or simply not at all. Not being on page 1, simply means the searcher is not likely to find the site they are looking for. You may ask yourself… well, the user already "knows" the site they are looking for, why not just type it into the address bar? I wish I could answer that question for you but the fact is that many people rely on search engines to provide what the user is looking for and the user doesn’t use direct navigation even though they are well aware of the specific domain name of the site they want to visit! Using a redirect with the advertised domain name often prevents the site / domain for being displayed well or at all in search engines.
Why is this bad? It often results in a lot of missed traffic to the site!
Each campaign and domain name used are really different. Trust me, there are A LOT of little things to consider and know to cover all bases to get the best use of a domain name / site and campaign. So I am going to use CodeSpotter.com as a recent example and pick apart the good and bad.
Nationwide Insurance is using the service ePrize.com to help them with the sweepstakes they are currently running. That is good because Nationwide is not a promotional company. The domain name used in advertising by Nationwide is a good one but they simply forward CodeSpotter.com to a page on ePrize.com, which is https://nationwide.promo.eprize.com/code/ . Nationwide.promo. are the sub-domains and eprize.com is the domain name. Since CodeSpotter.com redirects to that URL, the ePrize.com domain is getting a great benefit from the traffic. I have said before, sending traffic to a "promotions" company website is a no/no. Your paying for the traffic, your site (micro or main) should benefit from it!
The redirect is allowing direct navigation users to easily find what Nationwide want’s them to, but search engine traffic is being ignored using the redirect!
That is why it is important to build your own microsite on the domain / site being used for the campaign! You benefit using a microsite in search engines because of the traffic the site is getting via direct navigation and the exact match keywords of the domain and campaign in search engines. This way you are also covering both main aspects of traffic to a site.
Control ~ Yes, with the current campaign with ePrize.com works.. but what if ePrize doesn’t work for the next campaign Nationwide may want to do with the domain name CodeSpotter.com? All the work put into the site pretty much is gone due to the fact the domain name forwards to ePrize.com .
Some more bad that could easily be fixed.
As I stated before, CodeSpotter.com was in use before the purchase of the domain name by Nationwide. The domain ranks poorly in search engines but does hold a rank if one were to search codespotter.com . So what is the problem? CodeSpotter.com isn’t the ranking URL. The actual URL that ranks # 1 on Google is http://codespotter.com/index.php?s= . Once a person clicks the listing on Google, ePrize didn’t do their homework to redirect other indexed pages in search engines and the URL simply lands on a 404 error page on ePrize!
CodeSpotter.com is set up to redirect to ePrize, but "other" versions of the domain name are not! This means "other" indexed pages than CodeSpotter.com exactly, simply do not work and send you to the proper location! Again, missed traffic, yet fixable if you do your homework!
Clearly the Page Title and Meta Descriptions do not match anything to do with what Nationwide is running for its promotion either! This could be prevented with an earlier purchase and use of the pre-owned domain name and or using the domain on a microsite where you would have control over what the page titles and meta descriptions are.
Nationwide is doing some things correct but sadly many things wrong as well. I would put some of the blame on Nationwide and some on ePrize as well. Clearly a lot of money is being spent on ad campaigns like this and not using or doing things correctly is avoidable. I am always available for hire and I think paying me a couple hundred bucks to do a "look over" to make sure things are optimized and ready to go would be worth it. The couple hundred bucks they spend on me, can clearly make it a more pleasurable user experience!
Heck, they could just read DotWeekly.com and learn many things that would help them and that is free!
In the perfect world… each site advertised would have at least it’s own microsite! Use linking techniques back to your flagship site and the things in place to allow those looking for you, to be able to find you. You can spend millions on your site but if nobody can find you, what is the point! Just because you pay somebody to "handle" your campaign or site needs, doesn’t always mean it will be done correctly! It never hurts to have a second opinion! 301 and 302 redirects can be easy and useful but they are not always the best options to use.
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sheila phillips
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Domaniac
Sorry but I can’t see very many people at all going to codespotter.com instead of nationwide. It makes no sense….if my insurance was running a promo i would go straight to their main page. Plus, you wouldn’t go to codespotter.com. You would search for codespotter and guess what comes up first?
dalewon
Apparently they were paying attention, it seems to me by looking for their site they fixed a few issues. (Nationwide isn’t my insurance company, they are running a promo during NASCAR races) I searched codespotter and they were at the top. I am curious though if they paid you to look it over or did they follow your other advice and start reading???
Nice article. Very informative. Keep up the good work.