Help an SEO-DUMMY : ) Established hyphenated domain...redirect?!...new domain?!
-
Hello, everybody.
I am definitely not an SEO specialist. My family owns a transportation business (since 2010) and i am the one responsible for the website (until we find a good SEO company).
My question:
Several years ago i did not know much about SEO and have chosen a domain name www.airporttransportation-limo.com (it is not the actual domain...just an example...i'm not sure if i can post the real website here) and another domain that is just the name of our company (it also has hyphen in it).
Both websites are still doing good and we receive quite a bit of traffic, but i read more an more about how hyphenated domains and domains with more then two worlds can be bad for your SEO/business/traffic.
I feel like the websites are stuck and not moving up any more..could that be because of the hyphens?
I registered another domain that is the name of our company (which is well known by now) without any hyphens.
Now i have no idea what to do. Should i redirect both old domains (old websites are different and do not have duplicate content) to the new one, or should i just redirect the old domain (just the name of our company with hyphen) to a new one (without hyphen) and leave the www.airportransportation-limo.com as is... Or maybe i should register another domain without any hyphens (two words only) and redirect the www.airporttransportation-limo.com to it...
I am very nervous to make any changes and loose all the traffic. My family will kill me.
Please help! I'm lost!
-
Hi Karina,
It is unlikely that you are being penalised for having a hyphenated domain, but Google do say that hyphens, especially on a dot com, are something of a spam signal, so tend to be flagged, but that doesn't automatically mean it is going to happen, or has happened.
Moving forwards has a lot to do with your business objectives; do you want to build your company brand? What is the scope for moving forwards with the current domains in relation to this?
Unless you want to re-brand, I would suggest looking at the site first to see if there are any glaring errors, but I suspect it will be a lack of link / content / social activity that is starting to hold you back now.
There is also part of the Google algorithm that looks at exact match domains, but this shouldn't be a worry as long as the content matches the intent of the domain.
Have you done much in terms of link building to the site, and do you have authorship set up? There may even be opportunities to include some Schema / Micro Data to help enhance the site, but that depends more on the site and content.
Happy to answer any further questions.
Andy
-
Hi Karina! This is a little bit of tricky question, simply because there are so many unknowns. It doesn't sound like you're being penalized in any way since you are still ranking a little bit, but just aren't increasing in the rankings any longer. It has been my experience that with older domains, like your hyphenated one, it doesn't matter too much if it's hyphenated or has two words, etc. in it. Usually age trumps all.
If you just want to move your site since you already bought the new domain name, make sure to follow these best practices from Google: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/83105?hl=en
However, I would be very happy to take a look at your site for you and give you a better and more helpful response. Just shoot me your website via a private message and I'll do some research for you and get back to you.
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
-
New Page Not ranking?
One of this client's top keyword is "oak beams". They already rank well in the UK for other related terms like "reclaimed oak beams" at /reclaimed-oak-beams/ and "air dried oak beams" at /air-dried-oak-beams/ We have created a page at /oak-beams/ but this page ranks nowhere? Instead the reclaimed oak beams or air dried oak beams page ranks for the term "oak beams". Any ideas why Google is swapping between those pages and not choosing the /oak-beams/ page? A few notes are that the /oak-beams/ page is newest page on the site and yes I know there are no links pointing to it but there are no links pointing to the other pages either?
On-Page Optimization | | Marketing_Today0 -
301 redirects. If new website is a different business does it still send link authority?
Hi Guys. I'm a music producer and studio owner. I want to start a new business for online music mixing. Instead of starting from scratch I want to use a 301 redirect from my previous site that has built up a little authority over the years. However, the old site is purely for my music studio, there is no mention of online mixing services. Will Google consider this 'odd'? Pass less link juice? Or perhaps pass no authority at all if Google 'decides' the 2 business are unrelated? Cheers in advance guys. Isaac.
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
SEO Title Tag Best Practice?
Hi, I would like to know if appending site name at the end of page title ( page title -_ Site Name/Site URL_ ) is a good/bad practice in reference to SEO? If a good practice which is better ( Site Name or Site URL )? Example: 20 Things you didn't know about zombies - coed.com Thanks in advance
On-Page Optimization | | COEDMediaGroup0 -
SEO Issues with Avactis Shopping Cart Please Help
The home page title duplicates on all cms pages. this is causing the title to be over 70 characters. This is my first experience with Avactis so I am not exactly sure how to handle. Does anyone know?
On-Page Optimization | | MACameron0 -
SEO Structure - Best Advice
Hi Mozzers, I'm wondering if I need to tweak my SEO friendly URL structure slightly. Example: http://www.vintageheirloom.com/vintage-celine/celine-bags would this be better for SEO if it was: http://www.vintageheirloom.com/vintage-celine/bags Perhaps the repetition of 'celine' is unnecesary, but OpenCart ecommerce CMS requires a plugin / modification to enable multiple use of a single term like e.g. 'bags'. Any benefit for $30? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | well-its-1-louder0 -
Would adding noindex help?
I had completely forgotten that I have about 20 pages of content on my site that is an exact duplicate of other sites (i.e. obtained from PLR site). I really do not want to delete these pages as they do get a lot of visitors (or did before last algo updates). These visitors are not from organic search but have navigated to the pages from within my site. Question is should I a) add noindex to these pages and then ask google to remove them from index or b) try to rewrite them Many Thanks Simon
On-Page Optimization | | spes1230 -
On Page SEO Tool
Hello - I'm looking for one tool that does the following and was wondering if anyone knew of such a tool? In a perfect world I would like to enter in one domain name and have a report generated that shows All Internal links, link titles, and anchor text All internal broken links / redirects All images, image size and image alt, if the image alt is missing. I'd love to be about to export these reports to excel and quickly run my on page optimization. The goal is to produce a checklist for a developer to execute quickly. Thanks for your help Gabe
On-Page Optimization | | Gabe0 -
SEO Domain Values
I always thought that there was no difference in value between a .com and .net, also that hyphens have the same value as the keyphrase without the hyphen. But I have heard Rand lately saying hyphens are spammy - whats the go? Is CarParts.com better than Car-Parts.com or Car-Parts.net etc?
On-Page Optimization | | Ventura0