[OpenAmazing]

Can you (or another SEO) comment on why the mini-site is better than just a blog post on their site? Don't they want the PageRank juice for their main site and not the mini-site? Or is the plan to redirect the mini-site at a later date?

[chrisguitarguy]

A few reasons:

1. You can host a separate site on its own IP (and, even better, an IP in a different C subnet than their main site) and point links from that domain to the home domain. Thus link juice gets passed to home domain in a roundabout manner.

As far as the domain becoming irrelevant in two weeks time: it doesn't matter. If it gets some coverage and links from authoritative sources (ala Hacker News, which doesn't nofollow), the domain will gain authority and that authority gets passed on to the other domains it links out to.

2. Buzz. As larrys pointed out, ripoffornot.com is a great, controversial domain name. That alone could inspire a bit more buzz, which -- generally -- means more authority getting passed to the site via links (see point 1) or via social sharing.

3. Highly targeted. When someone searches for zendesk vs. freshdesk, this domain has an extremely high chance of ranking. It uses both terms extensively and includes a bit table comparing the two services. Good for users, great for bots. more over it's attention grabbing and reads well.

4. Reputation Management. Having an influential person talking smack about your brand is obviously not a good thing. What happens if that negative review starts ranking for you name or, even worse, the term "[Brand] Ripoff" starts showing up in google instant results.

No good.

Freshdesk is owning this bit of bad press. When someone searches for "freshdesk ripoff" or something similar there's a good chance this domain will show up because it's targeted (see point 3) more than a blog post could be.

All of those factors mean that this domain is telling one helluva compelling story. People like stories and are happy to spread them around.

[anthony_franco]

Having it as a blog post would increase the domain authority in Google's eyes. But on the other hand, having a blog post dedicated to talking about your main competitor would probably be detrimental in converting more customers.

This is the best compromise. A separate site to discuss the situation. With many links to the main product site to pass through some of the domain authority as well.

[techhacker]

The domain will become irrelevant in a week's time. So where does this SEO story comes into the picture?

[larrys]

SEO is only one factor. The name they registered (on 12/3) is ripoffornot.org - This will help feed (edit: aid) the controversy as well. It's similar to "ripoffreport.com (.org redirects to .com) which is a fairly well know site which people bitch on about companies. On a quick look you see "ripoff..." and you click the link. That's a decent touch in itself.