Short EMD or Longer Partial MD: Which is better for SEO
-
Hey Guys,
I appreciate all of the amazing responses you have been posting over the last two days.
I have been a little tied up with Joomla 1.5 transfers, but I will make some comments soon!In the meantime, here is an interesting one: I have an existing domain with a little bit of DA - www.edmontonweb.ca as well as a parked domain with no DA - launchwebdesign.ca
I have been advised to redirect (301) to the launch domain, but I still wonder if the current domain is better - after all it is very short & was registered over 5 years ago. Since launching the new site it has been about a month. We are currently #1 for almost every term on Bing & Yahoo (web design, edmonton web design etc.) but 14th on Google for "edmonton web design."
Do you think switching the domain is a good call, or keep trying with edmontonweb.ca for a bit longer?
Thanks guys,
Anton
-
I wrote a post a couple of months ago which analysed a load of Mozcast data and one of the subjects I touched upon was EMDs and PMDs. Looking at that data I'd say don't bother switching domains.
The reason, to quote directly from the post is that
"Looking purely at the trends, the proportion of listings with exact (EMD) and partial (PMD) matched domains is definitely going down. A few updates in particular have had an effect: One huge jolt in December 2012 had a particular and long-lasting effect, knocking 10% of EMDs and 10% of PMDs out of the listing"
The conclusion was that
"if you plan on creating useful, interesting content for your industry then go ahead and buy a domain with a keyword or two in. You could even buy the exact match domain, even if that doesn't match your brand (although this might give people trust issues, which is a whole different story). But if you don't plan on creating that content, buying a keyword-matched domain looks unlikely to help you, and you could even be in for a more rocky ride in the future than if you stick to your branded domain."
-
I don
t see any advantage if you switch from a well-established (5 year old) domain that is already ranking in good positions to a brand new one. It
s a hard job and a lot of work and even if you redirect the old to the new one there will occure some changes. I would also recommend to redirect the new domain to the old one.I general it is a popular opinion that "EMD" is a little bit better than just "PMD" and the shorter, the better BUT this is not a written law. If you do an overall good job these aspects won`t have such a big effect on your rankings.
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
-
What are SEO best practices for Java Language Redirections?
We would like to get some insight on what is the best practice of setting up canonical URLs in the below scenario. CMS used: Liferay – we believe they are using java. The URL structure at this stage can not be changed to best practices (/en/ and /ar/). Currently the language redirections works like this: English: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en Arabic: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar Depending how you entered the website last time the root URL will show English or Arabic content without the ‘sufix’: https://www.website.com/page1 All 3 different URL’s are being indexed on Google - which is causing duplication and confusion. We have a few ideas: Have 2 main URLS: https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en and have the canonical set to https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=en https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar and have canonical set to https://www.website.com/page1?AF_language=ar However, how would you handle the root page which does not have a specific language attached. If we need to make a choice we would go with Arabic, as mainly Arabic pages are indexed on Google with the root domain. This way we would (hopefully) retain the rankings for this. Question: did anybody had to deal with a similar situation? What would you do in a similar situation and why? Thanks for all your input.
Local Website Optimization | | skrauss0 -
SEO Best Practice for Managing a Businesses NAP with Multiple Addresses
I have a client with multiple business addresses - 3 across 3 states, from an SEO perspective what would be the best approach for displaying a NAP on the website? So far I've read that its best: to get 3 GMB account to point to 3 location pages & use a local phone number as opposed to a 1300 number. Display all 3 locations in the footer, run of site
Local Website Optimization | | jasongmcmahon1 -
Raise in ranking but drop in visibility, also question about wordpress themed SEO
Hello,
Local Website Optimization | | SharonEKG
my first question is, i started working in August on a website for furniture repair and services that is a local business and who ever setup the website and did the SEO before me implanted the front page content and many other pages in the theme itself, we got Yoast premium and i mostly get bad rank of the page both from Yoast and Moz im guessing because it is simply cant find the links and content that is on the page since it is in the theme code. should i recommend the company to do a makeover and move everything to the actual wordpress page?
Also many changes has been made to the website, too many to track and i have seen in the past month an continues drop lower and lower of our visibility, but yet in the past week and half huge jump in some rankings. some of them are for hard to rank keywords, a jump of sometime 20/30+ up the ranks.
since i dont have a track of all the changes has been made, is there a way to know what cause it? Also one last question,
i have implemented google tag manager and been configuring it for the past month and now i have finally getting close to track all metrics we would like to track, i have removed all google analytics codes that i knew of and managed to find through search through the theme and plugins but yet when i fire up tag assistant it shows two codes the tag manager and analytics, i know it could interfear each other or give false/double readings. is there a way to track it and remove it? i have went through all theme files.. and cant find it.. Thanks!0 -
Using geolocation for dynamic content - what's the best practice for SEO?
Hello We sell a product globally but I want to use different keywords to describe the product based on location. For this example let’s say in USA the product is a "bathrobe" and in Canada it’s a "housecoat" (same product, just different name). What this means… I want to show "bathrobe" content in USA (lots of global searches) and "housecoat" in Canada (less searches). I know I can show the content using a geolocation plugin (also found a caching plugin which will get around the issue of people seeing cached versions), using JavaScript or html5. I want a solution which enables someone in Canada searching for "bathrobe" to be able to find our site through Google search though too. I want to rank for "bathrobe" in BOTH USA and Canada. I have read articles which say Google can read the dynamic content in JavaScript, as well as the geolocation plugin. However the plugins suggest Google crawls the content based on location too. I don’t know about JavaScript. Another option is having two separate pages (one for “bathrobe” and one for “housecoat”) and using geolocation for the main menu (if they find the other page i.e. bathrobe page through a Canadian search, they will still see it though). This may have an SEO impact splitting the traffic though. Any suggestions or recommendations on what to do?? What do other websites do? I’m a bit stuck. Thank you so much! Laura Ps. I don’t think we have enough traffic to add subdomains or subdirectories.
Local Website Optimization | | LauraFalls0 -
Local franchise seo strategy. what could be the best practice?
Hello what Could be the best practice of seo and website optimization for a franchise company. Business model: Lets say, a company(company.com) situated in a country having stores in different cities (more than 2 stores in some), provides n number of services depending on store's location. Physical addresses for some stores are available and new stores shall be launched in future. But, the seo and website pages are needed for those locations at the moment as well. If I choose a sub folder, to give each store a URL. This is how it should look like Country level pages company.com, company.com/service1/ _ _ _ company.com/serviceN/ City level pages company.com/city1/, company.com/city1/location1/ , company.com/city1/location2/, company.com/city2/ , company.com/city3/ Q1) In case I make each service page specific to a store location for eg. company.com/city1/service1/, it will create duplicate content issue because content of company.com/city1/service1/ and company.com/service1/ shall be 60% same, except for **meta title,description and contact detail in footer. ** So, the question arises that shall i give canonical to country level main services page i.e company.com/city1/service1/ canonical to company.com/service1/ as it is very hard to make unique content for same services page. Q2) Or Do I need to rework on my complete website design and seo strategy?
Local Website Optimization | | Technians1 -
How can I fully take advantage of press coverage to aid my SEO efforts?
I run the digital marketing for a local start-up that's ranking for groups of semi-related keywords. We've been around for about 6 months in beta and have recently (a few days ago) done our official launch. We're starting to get some coverage in local media and I've tried my best to ensure that links to our site are included with a good range of keywords. What else can I do to fully take advantage of the press coverage that will be coming our way?
Local Website Optimization | | NgEF0 -
Local Area SEO - Directions Page and Multiple Use of Direction pages
Hello, We are looking to focus on multiple local areas and it has been suggested one way to mention lots of different locations on pages without doing lists or using grey SEO practices is to create directions pages. We are trying this with a client who has 2 business at the same address. The layout is:- Introduction - 2-3 sentences Directions by Car Park Parking info Directions by Public Transports Closing - 3-4 sentences - using clients keywords The hope is the having locations/areas and the clients keywords on the same page will capture some of the local areas with the clients keywords. I have some questions:- 1. If we use the same directions text and just change the opening and closing paragraphs on the different website will this be enough to not have a duplicate content issue. 2. Are the directions pages the best way to capture keywords and local area/locations on the same page. 3. Is there anything I am missing or could do instead? Looking forward to everyone's input....
Local Website Optimization | | JohnW-UK0 -
If I mention a client in a blogpost about SEO, do I have to use a rel= no follow link?
I do SEO and webstuff (obviously, that's why I'm here). I want to write a blog post congratulating my client for getting to #1 in the local listings for a search for "plumber". When I include my link to my client's site, should it be rel=no follow? Could they be penalized if I don't? Thanks,
Local Website Optimization | | aj613
Adam0