Switching Domain Names

[gregalam]

I own two domain names, smallbusinessdoer.com and smallbizdoer.com.

I set up my site at smallbusinessdoer.com. Initially I wanted to keep the full "business" in the domain name as I thought it would be good for SEO.

I'm now thinking it would be a lot better to have a shorter domain and I do own the smallbizdoer.com domain (which is currently forwarding to smallbusinessdoer.com).

If I flip that around, forward smallbusinessdoer.com with a 301 redirect to smallbizdoer.com, what are the implications?

• How long will I lose link juice with the 301 redirects?
• Does shortening business to biz help for URL length or usability?

Thanks for any input!

[gregalam]

Thank you all for the swift and informative responses.

This put this issue to rest, going to stick with the full URL, http://www.smallbusinessdoer.com. I already have the smallbizdoer.com and smallbizdoer.ca URL's 301 forwarding to http://www.smallbusinessdoer.com.

[CPU]

I would assume that from your analytics you can see how much traffic is generated by search terms with the words small business in them. There could be a very real danger of a reduction in traffic from those using this phrase or phrases with these words in them.

There are no Usability benefits from the shorter URL

I have to agree with the other responses.

[Volusion.com]

As MaryAnnG says, i would keep both, and smallbusinessdoer.com as the main one and the biz one redirecting with a 301 redirect to the long version. With this you can always use the short one in specific cases such as twitter or other marketing places when is needed.

[MaryAnneG]

Go from one of your keywords to an abbreviation which (imo) is kind of casual sounding to save 5 characters and a syllable?  And lose link juice and probably some rankings for a period of time in the process?

If anything, keep your site on smallbusinessdoer.com and 301 redirect smallbizdoer to that.  You lose nothing that way, and this also enables you test out if one name gets a better response from people than the other.  Can't send Adwords to the redirected domain (because your display URL needs to be the domain where the visitor ends up), but other ways of advertising could test the waters.  THEN, if numbers indicate that the change is warranted, flip the switch the other way - in that case, you would have more of an idea of what you stand to gain in the process.

[ninjamarketer]

We recently (Feb 2011) completed a major domain migration project where we moved Rackspacecloud.com to Rackspace.com/cloud. Both domains are high authority websites and moving over thousands of pages was a challenge in itself. What we learnt from the process was that authority of the domain matters a lot during domain migrations.

If you follow all the steps in the migration process to the T then chances are you will regain the ranks/juice pretty quickly (domain with higher authority regain faster).

During our migration we were able to transfer atleast 30% ranking to the new domain in about 72 hours. The new domain is now ranking for more than 80% of the keywords that the old domain ranked for. We also found that the new domain is also ranking for some of the top keywords that we were not ranking with the original domain because of the combination of massive link juice, proper redirections and new links.

It took 3 weeks for major search engines to index 90% of the new pages on the Rackspace.com/cloud site and during this transition we continued to receive SEO traffic through the old index pages. (some of the sub domains on the original website are not migrated yet)

The most important steps in the process are

• proper 1x1 301 redirection

• Web master tools update (change of address)

• sitemap updates

• request your top backlinked websites to change the TLD

• drive new links to the new site more aggressively

As far as the usability goes, short URLs are beneficial but I really don't see major difference between smallbusinessdoer.com and smallbizdoer.com.

[eyepaq]

The differences between the two domain names is very small - from a user perspective.

More then that you lose the "business" keyword from the Url (even if google staff said they will cut down from the power of keywords within url I think it's still ok to keep it - within the url that is).

My personal opinion on your issue is to stay the way you are now. You lose around 1-10% of the current domain name page rank power with the 301 redirect - is not much but since the domain change is not that big I don't think it's worth the trouble.

Hope it helps !

[CraigAddyman]

Having a quick look, I'd say keep the domain you have now as business is one of your keywords "helping small businesses do business"?

Your URL isn't overly large so looks good to me and it's within the 3 word rule/ memorable etc.

If you do decide to 301 redirect to the shorter URL and transfer your content you stand to lose up to 10% of your hard earned "link love"

If it was me I wouldn't bother.