Should I change my domain?
-
.
-
.
-
I would say do what sounds the right choice from branding and business perspective. Search engines are pretty good and picking up domain migrations and there are tools to help you do that effectively (301, Google Webmaster Tools). To me .com does sound better.
-
I am with Aaron on this one but you have to remember that changing your domain name is something that you shouldn't take lightly. If you know a lot of people that link to you already it is worth the trouble of contacting them directly and getting them to link to the new domain name.
I think option two is easier to remember and will give you a better long term seo benefit, but don't jump in with your eyes closed!
-
Good points! If you were still wanting to keep the original domain and were worried about the type-in traffic you could also buy the non hyphenated domain and 301 it for type in traffic.
-
While 301 redirects do pass the "juice" it is never certain that you will get 100% to go through, however it sounds like long-term the new URL will help increase the overall SEO value of the site. I think it's more descriptive and I would make the switch, but I'm a little separated, obviously.
-
I'm no pro on domain names, but personally I think what you've got is ok. If you've built links to it and it's ranking well then I personally wouldn't change it.
Keywords in domain names are losing their importance. Matt Cutts recently posted a video about this:
-
I really like .com domains compared to .net domains.
I also don't like hyphens in a domain. They are very hard to communicate and hard to remember. Lots of people will type your domain and forget the hyphen - so lost traffic.
I think that SuretyBondSoftware is easier for me to remember.
If you know that your market is software for the long term then I would probably move to the new domain. However, if I had a lot of SEO in place on the old domain I would be a bit nervous about moving and suffering a some loss in the SERPs.
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
-
Changing top level navigation between site sections
We've got an internal proposal to change our top level nav depending on the section of the site. For example, on our homepage it might read: Products, Library, About with relevant links dropping down below. As we have varied products, the drop down underneath it would include the various families. When arriving on the product family page the top-level nav would change to represent more specific offerings. For example: xxx.com 1. Products; 2. Library; 3. About xxx.com/xxx 1. Product family 1; 2. Product family 2; 3. Product family 3; 4. Library; 5. About What are the SEO/UX implications of this? It seems confusing but allows more specific navigation via the main nav depending on the section of the site. Also it seems that an alternating TLN might not be too Google-friendly.
Web Design | | gwelch0 -
Can forwarding users from one domain to a different domain damage rank and authority of first domain?
Preliminary Explanation: We launched a new website a couple months back but haven't had much luck in Google taking notice. One of the main attractions to our site is an old flash app that was made nearly a decade ago. As the original developer has long ago moved on and we are unable to figure out how to integrate it with our new site, we've been stuck hosting the flash app on a different domain. As such, users who come to our site and want to use the app must immediately navigate away from our site to this other domain. This has caused our primary domain's bounce rate and average site time to plummet while raising it for the other domain. My question: is this damaging our search rank and page authority with Google for this primary domain/site and counter-acting any other positive SEO changes we can make? How much weight does Google give towards bounce rate/average site time spent by users in its overall calculations for search rank and page authority? Our average site time for this primary domain is resting currently at 50-60 seconds, while for the secondary domain that hosts the old flash app it is 4-5 minutes.
Web Design | | Closetstogo0 -
Trying to rank on top 3 in Google.co.uk for a moderate competitive keyword by having a .dk domain
Do you think I should switch my domain to a .com and use ccTLDs method for my other international domains ? The problem is that my .dk domain(norwell.dk) has a better SEO ranking that my .com domain (norwelloutdoorfitness.com) and also differs slightly in name. The primary keyword I want to rank is ' outdoor fitness' which is in the name of 'norwelloutdoorfitness.com', thus over the long-term providing better benefits. Let me know what you think. Thanks, Andrei
Web Design | | kkk92330 -
Does doubling up on domains increase my ranking?
I own two websites. One is older and contains the bulk of my content. The other is a web-based tool that has less written content, but is equally important to my business. For the sake of examples we'll call the older website "oldsite.com" and new website "newsite.com". Would it benefit my old site to direct traffic to the web-based tool using a domain like "newsite.oldsite.com"? What's the best way to integrate the two sites so I am not splitting my traffic?
Web Design | | Travis-W0 -
Appropriate domain name
Hello Awesome MOzzers, Hope you are all well this fab wednesday. I have a questions - how good or bad is this domain - www.web-design-company-inc.com for a web design company. I have heard some people say google no longer cares about keywords in the URL? Would love to know your thoughts. As always - much obliged for your insight. Best regards, Vijay
Web Design | | vijayvasu0 -
Changing from Squarespace to Wordpress - Will I Lose My Rankings?
I have a friend who has a squarespace site that is giving him lots of trouble. For one, even though it is supposed to redirect to GreenSpaceConstruct.com...Bing and Yahoo don't seem to recognize this domain. Instead, they show greenlightconstruct.squarespace.com in the serp's. Oddly, Google shows the site as GreenSpaceConstruct.com. The site is ranking well for some terms. I'm afraid that converting to wordpress will hurt his rankings in the short term. If bing and yahoo are crawling this squarespace domain, and he moves it...is there a way not to just completely lose the rankings? Thanks for any thoughts. Much appreciated! Josh
Web Design | | JoshTurner0 -
Location in domain name but want to expand
my blog is ocpatentlawyer.com. The domain name has the OC letters in it. When los angeles internet users land on my blog, they don't click through to the contact page or pick up the phone to call me. Should i start a new blog with a LA focus then link to this new LA patent blog from my main OC blog? I'm hoping that the LA internet users who land on my OC blog will click through to the LA blog and feel as if I'm in their neighborhood. Should I leave my domain name the same but change the blog to something neutral such as XYZ patent attorney? The basic thing that I want to do is to convert the LA users from my oc blog. I'm unsure how to do it.
Web Design | | jamesjd70 -
Aged .com domain or brand new .co.uk for UK site?
Should i buy a 2 year old .com domain or brand new .co.uk domain for a site i am making for UK (google.co.uk optimisation). I am struggling to find good aged .co.uk domains, there are loads of nice .com's that are old, any thoughts? thanks
Web Design | | SamBuck0