Keyword domain usage
-
Hi
I have a client who wants some advice on the following and I haven't come up with anything decent yet. So wanted to throw it out here.
They own a domain like soccershoes.com which also houses their web site. They have now bought ussoccershoes.com because this US based search term is more popular than simply soccer shoes.
How can they utilise this new domain effectively to drive traffic to their main web site?
Thanks for any input.
-
Thank you Eli.
-
Thank you Peter. That all makes sense!
-
That is awesome, nice work.
All of my sites are on domains like that. It gives me energy to work on a great domain.
As for ussoccershoes.com. I would probably keep it registered so nobody else got it.... but there are so many others that they could register like greatsoccershoes.com kickasssoccershoes.com....
I would probably let it expire and use the saved money to buy beer.
-
Jake,
I completely agree with Peter. We used to buy keyword domains all the time - and it worked well - until about 6 months ago. We own counseling practices, so we bought many [city]+counseling.com domains for really cheap.
A year ago, those ranked on Google in top 5 spots within 2 months of purchasing and building out the site. Now, you cannot find those keyword domains anywhere, unless, like Peter said, they already had domain authority. The domains we had been working on for years are still fine, but starting with a new keyword domain now is like starting with just an ordinary domain.
Eli
-
Hi Jake
Depending on how long they have had their current domain (i.e. the one like soccershoes.com), then it may be better to focus their attention in optimising some of the pages on that site for US market.
One of the ranking factors for a site is the domain's authority which in part is based on its age. For a new domain there is no authority to start with, so if the existing domain they have is older and is already online and earning authority then concentrate on that one. The other domain they have just bought can then be redirected to the existing one, but there isn't any great SEO value in doing that.
Exact match domains like ussoccershoes.com used to be a quick route to target being ranked for search terms but because they have, Google is not paying so much attention now to ranking them well, especially when they are new domain. That isn't to say it wouldn't be possible to rank a site like that for the search term, but at the end of the day it comes down to having lots of good unique content for the keywords you are targeting.
I hope that helps,
Peter
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
301 Old Domain Name with relevant domain name
We have a number of historical domain names that we are thinking of 301 redirecting to industry relevant domains.
Technical SEO | | barry.oneil
Currently the domains we wish to redirect are not active and have been down since march 2018.
As far as we know there is no bad reputation on these domains, but we think there are still links out there in the wild on possibly relevant blog posts. Would there be any negative affect on the target domain? Thanks0 -
Is repurposing an old sub domain better than creating a new sub domain?
We have a good sub domain like** art.ourwebsite.com** which currently sells custom canvas art. We have owned the domain since 2013 but it has only been live for the past few weeks. We want to redesign & repurpose the page to continue to sell custom canvas art but will eventually include other merchandise like mugs, tshirts, etc which wouldn't be custom. Would it be best to keep art.ourwebsite.com since is a shorter/more memorible & older sub domain or would it be best to update the name to something that encompasses our new products? Our marketing team has suggested yourart.ourwebsite.com
Technical SEO | | sb10301 -
What about re-life expired domain ?
I want to know about your advice to re-life expired domain, assume PA:55 how I get benefits from it, when I use it for new related content.
Technical SEO | | zant0 -
I have a blog on a sub domain, would you move it to the rood domain in a directory?
I have a blog that preforms fairly well on a sub domain, but after reading a post that Rand made to the Q & A I am thinking about moving it to the main domain in a sub directory. What are your thoughts on this? Here are some stats on it. The blog currently gets about 5 x the traffic of the main domain. The domain is older, 2008 creation date. They pretty much register for the same keywords.
Technical SEO | | LesleyPaone0 -
New keyword simply not Ranking
Evening all, first post. I'm currently ranking OK for a broad range of keywords - nothing at number 1 but some are on the first page. However, there is one particular keyword which simply refuses to get indexed. I've witnessed this behaviour before with another site where it appears at SERP 300 or so, then vanishes, comes back at 200 odd and then vanishes. Right now, it's not even ranking in any position. I'm using SERPFox for SERP position on Google. I've had Moz analyse the content on page and it's getting an A. The article is about 2000 words, with good Title and page description and the keyword is appearing under 1%. My question is, have you witnessed odd behaviour like this before where other keywords are ranking OK but an odd few don't even get indexed? I have a few links built to the URL and asked Google Webmaster tools to index the URL but still nothing. I have no penalties or anything to worry about. The only other info I have is that this URL is on a brand-new domain but the previous domain has a 301 redirect with a page authority of 42 and a domain authority of 38 (not too high). And, everything else appears to be running along OK. The point is, I have no expectations about the keyword ranking in a certain position but find it odd how the keyword keeps popping in and out of Google SERP. The keyword has a difficulty of: 58% Any thoughts appreciated. Robert. uH7vtbh
Technical SEO | | hooneyrobert0 -
Redirecting old domain to new domain with wordpress
Hi all, I need to change domain name to a website published on wordpress. I'd think to make these steps: trasferring the website (files+db) to a new hosting space to redirect old site (www.oldsite.com) to the new one (www.newsite.com) using rewrite rules. With these steps I'd need to transfer and reinstall files and wordpress so I would like to discover if there's some less time expending procedure to consider. Thanks and ciao Bob
Technical SEO | | bobrock40 -
301 redirect domain to page on another domain
Hi, If I wanted to do a 301 permanent redirect on a domain to a page on another domain will this cause any problems? Lets say I have 4 domains (all indexed with content), I decide to create a new domain with 4 pages, one for each domain. I copy the content from the old domains to the relevant page on the new domain and set it live. At the same time as setting the new site live I do a 301 permanent redirect on the 4 domains to the relevant pages on the new domain. What happens if Google indexes the new site before visiting the redirected domains, could this cause a duplicate content penalty? Cheers
Technical SEO | | activitysuper0 -
Domain Relocation
My client is running a online news website, which is running for 4 years. He's now looking to change the site into a new domain. I would like to know what are the factors to look out for when changing the site into new domain (In SEO point of view)
Technical SEO | | augmoz110