Linking new domain to existing domain or....
-
We have a client's domain that has been live for 8 years. truthbook.com. With the new changes to Google, no matter what we do, we cannot get the words Urantia Book to connect with the website and lift it's search engine returns to the first page where it was for the past 4 years.. It is clear, that no matter what Google may say, the most important factor is having the actual words urantiabook in the domain is imperative. We know it was that way before Google changes (they were always on the first page) but now the client cannot get back on the front page.
The mission and theme of the site is Jesus in The Urantia Book. So it is not a stretch to acquire urantiabookandjesus.com and forward it to truthbook.com
The question is, "will they get any bang for the change? If they considered changing the actual main domain to urantiabookandjesus.com or .org and forward truthbook.com to it, will they be hurt by that strategy? "
Thanks, Jim
-
Hi,
First of all, it isn't imperative to have any keywords in a URL to appear 1st, or indeed, anywhere in the URL. There are circumstances it will help, but it isn't imperative. How well your site matches the content of the pages is going to be key for you. Google is always going to be looking for a site that is going to be seen as an authority on the subject.
To answer your question, if you just buy a domain and then forward it, the domain that is just forwarded will not appear in Google at all. The only time there will be a forward, is when someone types the domain in exactly.
it sounds like they have a good domain that is old and will have lots of history attached to it. I would start to look at penalties, what has happened at specific dates and see if you can come up with a correlation. There is always a reason, and there is no reason why they cannot rank again.
-Andy
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
-
Subfolder marketing issue - buying a new domain and 301 to subfolder on existing domain
Hello, I have a specific question and I'll try to be as precise as possible. I have a well ranked domain with good PA. When we were starting our new service I found out that for SEO purposes it would be best to put it under subfolder instead of subdomain or new domain all together because of PA that our domain has. Now, that went pretty well and our new service started appearing in SERPs and is improving rapidly since our link builing strategies were quite sucessful. But there is a problem - we can't advertise our service with a link like this - www.domain.com/subfolder. It's just really messy. And I was wondering if we buy a new domain and 301 redirect it to our subfolder what impacts will that have? If people start linking us as www.newdomain.com will it pass all the juice to www.domain.com/subfolder? Marketing wise I see a lot of benefits using newdomain but I'm afraid it can have SEO downsides and I'm asking for your help to clarify these. Thank you in advance, Best regards, Ivan
Branding | | mintmediadu0 -
Switch to naked domain that has higher page authority
Brilliant Moz community! I just started here and find it so helpful and am confident that I can get an answer to this. Our domain is currently https://www.example.com. I have been wanting to move to https://example.com just for a cleaner URL. To my surprise, https://example.com has the same DA but a significantly higher page authority than our current https://www.example.com. Of course my immediate reaction is to 301 to the https://example.com but I wanted to get some advice and anything we should consider before doing this. My other question would be - how is this possible? I don't remember that we ever used that domain but we also had some rather bad developers a couple of years back. Thank you so much in advance!
Branding | | kris-fannin0 -
Requesting Link
Hi guys, A coworker of mine was quoted on behalf of our financial firm in an article for Reuters a few months back. The article itself has taken off and has been posted several times on different websites. I've reached out to a few requesting they back link to our site when mentioning our business, but so far I'm getting a lot of rejection e-mails. The last one I received says they won't hyperlink to a company unless it's for a "specific reason". Anyone have any suggestions on how to better request these links--or communicate the "specific reason" I apparently need to have? I tried explaining in my initial message that it was beneficial for the reader, etc. etc, but all these outlets still seem to be against the idea. Thanks!
Branding | | LMcLaughlin0 -
New site just launched - would appreciate some feedback!
Hi, Some may have seen me around the forum recently asking a few questions about my website which was being re-vamped. Well its now live. www.followuk.co.uk Would love some actionable advice / constructive criticism. Website background: It started life as a website displaying dates for UK bank holidays, noticed some good traffic/sharing so decided to open it up to UK occasions. This resulted in more traffic and social sharing so over the last month I have re-built the whole website to be responsive and 'I hope' professional / interesting to visitors. I also opened it up further into other UK dates such as sporting events and festivals - these categories will gain more pages as well as new categories to come. I'm hoping to turn it into a little UK resource for this type of content. Thank you.
Branding | | followuk1 -
Help me decide between 2 domains! Please!
I want to build an authoritive site on the keyword: "baby hazel games" since I want it to be authoritive and easy to brand and to remember. I dont plan to use EMD-s. I like these 2 domains: 1. PlayHazel.com 2. HazelBox.com Help me decide between them. what sounds better, and have greater chance in ur opinion. Feel free to ad domain names ideas, if u have them. Thank you!
Branding | | Catinas970 -
Press Mention with No Link
Hey guys, I have a client who got a nice little mention recently in her local news online, but the news site (like many I notice) does not link any content in their articles. Anyone have a creative idea for leveraging this type of mention? She is an attorney and the article mentioned her as the defense attorney on the case. Any ideas would be much appreciated!
Branding | | RickyShockley0 -
High authority brand expanding product line, domain question
Hi MOZers, I've been given a handy little domain puzzle to deal with and would love insight from the community. Here's the situation: We're retailers of one specific, big, nationally known product. Let's pretend it's the Snuggee (IT'S NOT). People search for it and buy it from our site, or from Amazon or other retailers that we distribute it to. We're about to expand to carry a bunch of related, but different products - so from a one-product brand to 5 or 6 different items, relating to different keyword searches. Imagine Snuggee people want to start selling a whole bunch of products that solve the same needs of warming the front of your body and making you look silly. The owners want to change the main domain from [specific product] to [name similar to specific product, but is more general]. What concerns me is how to handle the fame of the branded product in terms of domain names. Current domain, based on that product, has a ton of links and a decent age. Owners are thinking to redirect everything to fresh new unestablished domain. While I know 301s will pass most link value, it will also be a home page that will be about a bunch of products - not just that main known one. In fact, we're considering making a URL for each product as landing page, of which old famous product would be one of 5 or 6 pages. Two main options we're considering right now: Keep old domain as a doorway page featuring just old product, with same look and feel, and from which any links would point to the new domain. Try to keep this as ranking for top result for this search, which should be easy. Unify everything under new domain, with old product being featured on a separate page / subdirectory. Hope that new home page still can rank pretty well for our old product, even though it will be talking about other products now as well. What we'd stand to lose would be the SERP for old products featuring too many big box retailers that sell our stuff and take a chunk out of our margins. The goal is to help us become known for many things, while still being always the best search result for what we're already known for. Which of those two options seem best, or is there another I'm missing altogether? Thank you!
Branding | | advancedSemiotics0 -
.us domain extension for US locales
I have a large US travel site and am looking to make targeted pages for specific locations, attractions etc around the United States. With many of the TLD's already purchased for these niches, I thought about using the .us extension as it seemed relevant to the topics. Does this hurt seo possibilities or does the .us extension come across as spammy?
Branding | | Millibit2