Old domain vs. New keyword domain - Thoughts?
-
Okay. I'd like to get opinions as to what everyone thinks about domains lately. Here is any example:
The current domain is general in nature, in fact, it's a persons name because they are a real estate agent. So the domain is something like JohnDoe.com. Current stats:
- Has approx. 130 linking domains pointing to it.
- Has over 300 incoming links from these linking domains.
- The link profile is clean and not spammy (not to say there are not a few that might be here and there)
- Was bough in 1994
The new domain would have very little value except it would be keyword rich such as PortlandHomesForSale.com (just an example).
What are your thoughts.
Thank you.
-
I might buy or register the domain if it is one that I would like to use.
However, if the agent's current site has really good rankings and is accomplishing goals then I would be very hesitant about changing.
The agent's name as a domain can be a powerful brand. If he uses a different domain for his business it splits his brand.
I really like keyword domains but they are not silver bullets. For your example the loss of effectiveness causesd by redirecting all of the links from an established domain could be a greater loss than the gain offered by the EMD. That means your rankings could DROP!
Also, EMDs usually provide ranking advantage for exact match queries - and little if any advantage for every other query.
Switching makes the most sense for poorly established domains.... much much less sense as the domain is more established.
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
-
Link to AMP VS AMP Google Cache VS Standard page?
Hi guys, During the link building strategy, which version should i prefer as a destination between: to the normal version (php page) to the Amp page of the Website to the Amp page of Google Cache The main doubt is between AMP of the website or standard Version. Does the canonical meta equals the situation or there is a better solution? Thank you so mutch!
Technical SEO | | Dante_Alighieri0 -
Similar Keywords on Addon Domain
Hi all, I'm looking at setting up a second website targeting some similar keywords to my existing blog. I host the site through bluehost and am considering hosting the other website as an addon Domain. Whilst the content on both websites will be different both will target the same keywords. Does anyone know if because I'm targeting the same keys words using an addon Domain this could impact my existings site google rankings? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Technical SEO | | thriftypence0 -
Redirect Chain Domain
MozPro is highlighting some redirect chain issues with our domain that I do not recall ever setting up in our redirect list. In our Moz Pro Campaign I see the Site Crawl has flagged 36 Redirect Chain Issues. I understand how the redirect chain errors can happen but I do not recall ever manually redirecting our domain, yet I have http://stickylife.com, https://stickylife.com & https://www.stickylife.com all associated in one of our redirect chain errors. When looking at our redirect files I do not see any of these domain redirects and wonder how this has happened and how to fix it. It appears as though our HTTP and HTTPS is causing some redirection. I wonder if this is coming from our DNS settings?
Technical SEO | | StickyLife0 -
Moving my domain to weebly
I am thinking of moving my html website to weebly. They offer a 301 redirect for my domain name. Is that ok for SEO?
Technical SEO | | bhsiao0 -
Do bad links to a sub-domain which redirects to our primary domain pass link juice and hurt rankings?
Sometime in the distant past there existed a blog.domain.com for domain.com. This was before we started work for domain.com. During the process of optimizing domain.com we decided to 301 blog.domain.com to www.domain.com. Recently, we discovered that blog.domain.com actually has a lot of bad links pointing towards it. By a lot I mean, 5000+. I am curious to hear people's opinions on the following: 1. Are they passing bad link juice? 2. does Google consider links to a sub-domain being passed through a 301 to be bad links to our primary domain? 3. The best approach to having these links removed?
Technical SEO | | Shredward0 -
New Website, New URL, New Content - What do we do with the old site? Are 301's the only option?
We've just built a new site for a client. They were adamant on changing the url. The new site is entirely new content, however the subject mater is the same. Some pages are even titled very similarly. Is is advisable to keep the old site running, and link it to the new site? Permanently, or temporarily? Do we simply place redirects from the old site the new? Old site was 30 pages, new site is 80 pages. So redirects won't be available to all the new pages. It seems a shame to trash the old site, it is getting some good traffic, and the content - although outdated is unique and of a high quality. Old url is 4+ yrs old, the new url is new. Some enlightened opinions would be greatly welcomed. Thanks
Technical SEO | | MarketsOnline0 -
Sub-domains for keyword targeting? (specific example question)
Hey everyone, I have a question I believe is interesting and may help others as well. Our competitor heavily (over 100-200) uses sub-domains to rank in the search engines... and is doing quite well. What's strange, however, is that all of these sub-domains are just archives -- they're 100% duplicate content! An example can be seen here where they just have a bunch of relevant posts archived with excerpts. How is this ranking so well? Many of them are top 5 for keywords in the 100k+ range. In fact their #1 source of traffic is SEO for many of the pages. As an added question: is this effective if you were to actually have a quality/non-duplicate page? Thanks! Loving this community.
Technical SEO | | naturalsociety0 -
Keyword cannibalisation
We created a product blog page that was highly optimized for SEO based on a recommendation from a colleague. These are now our best performing pages - however they do not convert as highly as the bona-fide product pages. After further investigation we're concerend that we shouldn't have split our content accross two pages - keyword cannibalisation. Is this correct and should we 301 our product blog pages to the other high converting pages?
Technical SEO | | JohnHillman0