Choice of domain
-
Hi. I want to build a new site that is optimised for a training product that we have. We have an existing domain which I'm considering pointing at this new site. This domain is one of the new .training TLDs. Let's call this domain foo.training where my main keyword to optimise for will be "foo training". I've also looked and can see that foo-training.com is available. I read up on best practices for domains here : https://moz.com/learn/seo/domain
My question is will the .training domain be seen as "spammy" in any way? Am I better to just go ahead and register the .com?
-
In terms of SEO, there are no penalties for using a gTLD. Technically you have an equal chance of ranking well for a keyword than those with .com domains. It comes down to preference, marketing and the SEO work you put in.
I can see the .training domain working well for marketing to a younger audience, it may be appealing and seem more modern. An older audience may be more accustomed and feel that .com domains are more professional.
Exact match keyword domains gained notoriety because they would often get great anchor text when people linked to their website. I don't see why you would have an issue with that because I would naturally link to the site as "Foo Training."
To answer your question plainly, no it won't be seen as spammy but the .com may seem more professional and credible to some users. I hope this helped make your decision easier.
-
Thanks for reply it's much appreciated. This is pretty much as I thought too and I understand that I don't need to have the keywords in the domain it's just for this particular use case, based on what i've seen from how competitors are ranking, i think it will generally help here.
I'm really interested to hear from others who may have used or had success with newer TLDs
-
Generally, the .com URLs are more common and therefore seen as more "normal" to users and more likely to be trusted.
It does not mean that the .training will not work, just that it is different and that may cause other issues outside of ranking. You may remember that when .info came onto the scene, it was used by spammers so much that now it has kind of a black cloud over it.
Of course the trick with the foo-training.com domain is that you have to make sure people put in the dash. Consider issues around what if they leave the dash out, should we overtly mention the dash to remind people (think radio and TV and other ads) etc etc etc.
Overall, remember that you do not have to have "foo training" in the URL to rank well. Yes, it can help, but it really does not give you the power it used to have in the old days due to people using it as a way to spam the search engines to get keyword rich anchor text.
I would lean towards the URL with the dash (if you think it will not confuse folks to have the dash) or see about getting another .com URL and getting your keyword in the slug or in other places. I would defer to other Moz folks to see if they have had much success with the newer TLDs.
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
-
Value of dormant domain
My client used to own a successful domain. They sold the business, the domain was not used by the purchaser. My client bought back the business and redirects the original STRONG domain to their new domain. How can I find out current page rank, traffic, etc of the original domain? Mik
Technical SEO | | mcorso0 -
Redirect typo domains
Hi, What's the "correct" way of redirecting typo domains? DNS A record goes to the same ip address as the correct domain name Then 301 redirects for each typo domain in the .htaccess Subdomains on typo urls still redirect to www or should they redirect to the subdomain on the correct url in case the subdomain exists?
Technical SEO | | kuchenchef0 -
Are domain variations hurting our rank?
Hi, I have a client who registered many different variations of their domain name, that are pointing to the website. Now I see that many high value links are not linking to the main domain, but a hyphen variation. So when the main domain is something like www.brandservicename.com The links go to www.brand-service-name.com I suppose they should change all those links (if possible), but does it really make a difference? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | alism0 -
Lost pagerank due to domain redirect
Dear All, My customer has been merged by a larger organization. They redirected the old domain with 301 which had a pagerank of 6 to a new domain which is 0. Is there any chance how i could recover the pagerank and pass it to the new domain? If yes what is your opinion? Thank you,M.
Technical SEO | | SebestynMrton0 -
Linking domains on the same C Block together
Hey, I have an online store selling dj equipment, sound & light products such as speakers, lasers, decks, pa systems, karaoke systems etc. I just bought a new domain but I registered it under a different name and address (my personal details). And I plan on hosting the website on a seperate server so it has no connection with my eCommerce store. The main purpose of the website will be to review the products I sell, write detailed how to guides for DJ's, party planners, mobile DJ's etc. There will be links on the current ecommerce website (which currently gets around anything from 500 to 1000 unique hits a day) going to the new blog website. But would I be better off keeping it on the same C Block even though they are going to be two very different websites and the blog may not always necessarily be about the products on my ecommerce website and may be products on say eBay, Amazon, etc. (In otherwords, it's going to be it's own website with an unbiased opinion, but the ecommerce site will be linking to it on certain products that are reviewed on there). Any help is appreciated 🙂
Technical SEO | | tomhall900 -
Redirect to new domain.... (which is penalised)
Hey - how's things? I have a client who wants to redirect his main domain to a new one.... there are a couple of problems I see and thought I'd ask on moz. 1 - The new domain has been incorrectly parked on the old domain with no redirection in place... when you do "site:domain.com" in Google, there are no serps for the new domain (the old domain still ranks well), it doesn't seem to rank anywhere and doesn't return any results in OSE. Is it wise to redirect to this domain or will rankings drop on both? 2 - The new domain uses .mobi as its suffix and will be replacing a .com - but is much more related to the business keyword wise. Is using mobi a problem. Overall the SEO on the site is abysmal and I will be reworking everything - so there will be lots of changes going on at the same time. I'm just wondering if it is worth redirecting the new domain at all, or trying to get brand new domain and use that.... or just to stick with the original aged domain... I think that is my only concerns at the moment
Technical SEO | | agua0 -
Redesigning the site with same Domain (IMP.)
technical SEO question - If we take down a site and use the same domain but just redesign the whole site. I guess sometimes in this case Google still keeps indexing old pages though they do not exist now! What the solution for this? Google suggests redirect them to a 404 page but in this case as its same domain- Is it possible that we throw 404 errors and redirect them to 404 page and this 404 page exists in the new site itself (but of course we don't have link our menu to this 404 page) (if that makes sense)? Would appreciate if you can suggest or add anything to above topic.
Technical SEO | | Personnel_Concept0 -
Umlaut in domain
Hi, My client wants to expand it's business to Germany and logically we need a domain name to match. We've found a great one and regsiterd several variants to it. However I just found out that in Germany it is possible (while here it's not) to register a domain with an umlaut. My question is: will google assign more value to: schädlinge.de than schadlinge.de when users search for schädlinge? If yes, how large will the difference be? (I will use an umlaut in the title etc) Kind regards,
Technical SEO | | media-surfer
Jason.0