Pros and Cons of new subdomain and redirecting old subdomain?

[HaymarketMediaGroupLtd]

Hi guys,

I am thinking about redirecting the ranking subdoman to a new subdomain which has my main keyword within it. I am trying to outrank an exact match competitor and don't seem to be able to do so.

For example: page.example.com would be my existing ranking URL which is very powerful, and I am thinking about redirecting this to a new URL being keywordpage.example.com

What are your thoughts on do this?

Thanks

B

[Lindsay]

Barry - If you are currently sitting at #2 for your keyword and refer to your existing sub-domain as 'very powerful', I would let this idea go. As Highland said, you stand to lose some rank in doing this, at least temporarily. In addition, the search engines are slowly but steadily losing favor of exact match domains.

Your potential upside doesn't outweigh the risks of this move, in my opinion.

[HaymarketMediaGroupLtd]

Thanks Highland.

I am at number 2 in Google for the said keyword. Keyword competitor analysis has shown that I am beating my competitor on every single factor by a considerable amount. I'm just thinking that that change might result in the push it needs.

[Highland]

You stand to lose some rank in doing this, at least temporarily. Keywords in the domain help, but if you're not ranking well now I wouldn't count on that one change to carry you to #1. If I were you, I would focus your efforts on ranking the current site for that keyword.

What does your campaign for your site tell you about how well you're doing in SEO?