Ranking over someone else who has your branded domain name
-
Hello!
I have a client who has been in business for a long time, but was very late to the game online. As a result, the branded domain for his business (for explanation purposes I'll call it "Houston Tan"*) was already taken when he decided he needed a website, however it was not being used.
He approached the company that owned "houstontan.com" and they refused to sell it to him. Not only that, they turned around and opened a company and developed the website using his trademarked company name as one word instead of two, "HoustonTan."
It was brought to court and the judge determined that since they created a new name by combining the two words, there was nothing that he could do.
Still having to create a website for his company, he chose the domain "HoustonSunTan.com." Not sure who was advising him on that one. So now he has a domain name with only a partial match to his company name.
As you would imagine, when you search Houston Tan, HoustonTan.com is number 1, 2 & 3, and HoustonSunTan.com is #4.
My question is, do you think it is even possible for his company to overtake the top spot of Google? Or have you ever come across a situation like this and if so what worked for you?
FYI:
Even though it says Houston, the company is a global company in over 500 cities (with one 800 number unfortunately), so local SEO strategies wouldn't necessarily apply.
*Names are made up to protect both parties
-
You're very welcome Brittany. I've not personally been involved in these situations, but have seen this play out in a variety of different industries. Good luck and keep at it!
-
Awesome, thanks for the encouragement Todd. That's what I've been thinking too, that heavy PR online and offline is what we need to push us up there. Just didn't know if someone had had this type of experience and came out on top.
-
Thanks John, that's very helpful. Technical audit has been done and we are working on blogger outreach and creating great original content. For our site, the PA is 35 and the DA is 24.3. For their site, PA is 50.1 and the DA is 40.1. We've got a bit of an uphill battle, but the good news is that they are not doing much so I'm hoping we can catch up & pass them. Thanks for the encouragement!
-
I will assume that for all other matters your site is equal or superior.  ie you have undertaken a technical audit https://moz.com/blog/technical-site-audit-for-2015. All good. Also would be ideal to know the DA & PA of the respective sites.
That said the key to success, (as the boys have indicated it is achievable) would be building great content, where the links to your site are your actual brand name (not your url). Â Also your link building strategy revolves around the brand name and not the url.
Could be a starting point, a strong and deliberate anchor text strategy.
Hope that assists.
-
I agree with Todd. You should have come up with strong points that makes google to relate your branded search query with your web. As your brand is the real one and been in business from many years, they are more experienced, understand the needs of audience and surely can supply ample amount of knowledge as compare to other company.
Though, it will take bit time and lots of effort but it's worth time investing.
Good luck!
-
It's definitely possible to win. The exact match domain/branded domain isn't that big of an issue IMO.
Do the basics:
-
Make sure your site is fast, device agnostic, and aligned well with target market wants and needs. Make sure the site is technically sound.
-
Do things that excite your customers and get them involved in your business. Work on building your brand and reputation both on and offline. This focus will lead you naturally into creating that "amazing over the top" type of content we read so much about. The best things just come from focusing on what would delight/entertain/help/connect, etc. with our customers.
-
Research well and align your site content with how users are searching and what they're after.
If your product is strong, you understand your audience well and how to connect with them, and you understand how to finesse the digital ecosystem to help the naturally cool things you're doing for the business leave good digital fingerprints, then you can def. win.
-
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
-
I analysis my domain (http://yourdigibuddy.com/) on moz domain analysis. But there is not data show and show message "No data here". What should I do?
_Â I analysis my domain (http://yourdigibuddy.com/) on Moz domain analysis. But there is not data show and show the message "No data here". What should I do?_
On-Page Optimization | | MelissaDooley0 -
How to format URL if main key word is my domain name?
Hello All! I have a question about having my search term in my URL when the first two words are actually my domain name. For example, my domain is plutobeach.com and I want to optimize for events. Which is better? plutobeach.com/events plutobeach.com/plutobeach-events Is the latter keyword stuffing? Â I'm using the on-page grader here and wondering how much of a difference that can make. Thanks! Steve
On-Page Optimization | | recoil0 -
How google treats my two different domains with the same content ?
I have two internet stores for two different markets but in the same language (English), the same content and the same url (only domains different). They are in different servers one in USA another in UK. Example: sample.com (global) and sample.uk (for UK).
On-Page Optimization | | VaidasLinen
Currently sample.com (7 years old)Â is doing better but not very very well, sample.uk (2 years old)Â is rated poorly. My question is if it's possible that google will rank both stores well in the future ? Thanks Vaidas0 -
The company brand name does not show in SERP
Our company is ranking no.1 for brand keyword, however, when you try to find it by two words(with space between) then all those shows up and the website is nowhere to find. Any suggestions on how to solve this without the need to be ranked for something related
On-Page Optimization | | GardenPet0 -
Keyword in URL: Ranking Factor?
I've got a site about a specific topic, which we'll call "themes" for the sake of this discussion. I personally like to keep the url structure short and clean (for usability purposes, but mainly because I'm a perfectionist and a minimalist). I feel that adding "themes" to the url structure is a bit redundant. However, nearly every keyword phrase that my site should rank for includes the word "themes." So I'm wondering how much I'm handicapping myself by not including the keyword "themes" in the url? The domain name itself sort of includes the keyword . . . although it's in Italian (I chose the domain for it's brand-ability, not for the keyword). A quick example: My Url Structure: www.themo.com/topic/abc My Competitor's Url Structure: www.sitesample.com/themes/topic/abc For many of the keywords, the competitors with the keyword in the url rank highest. But, I'm not sure how much emphasis to place on this, because from my understanding Google doesn't pay as much attention to url keywords anymore . . . and those sites might just be ranking high because they've been around for so long (which also happens to be the reason why they coincidentally also include the keyword in the url, because they started the site when that was a high ranking factor). Thoughts? Should I just trash my perfectionism and add the keyword to the url structure? (By the way, the site is only a couple months old and doesn't have any significant backlinks to inner pages yet, so changing the url structure wouldn't be a big deal if I decided to do that).
On-Page Optimization | | JABacchetta0 -
Subdomain vs. Root Domain design
I know that there are penalties if you have a navigation item in your categories that links to another site (root domain) that yields the same design as the original link. Is there any negative SEO implications with having a subdomain with the same design as the root domain i.e. root.com vs. store.root.com And the navigation functionality within will have links to both store.root.com as well as root.com directories? Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | customerparadigm.com0 -
Important keywords in product names
Hi! among other we sell motorcycle clothing, which you can buy as a set (both jacket and pants) or single piece. Currently we name the products with the labeling in the beginning, e.g: Motorcycle pants R2000, Motorcycle jacket R2000, Motorcycle kit R2000 Motorcycle pants R4000, Motorcycle jacket R4000, Motorcycle kit R4000 This is causing keyword stuffing and cannibalization in the category pages as all the product names include important keywords. On the other hand it would be beneficial to keep the labeling in the name for search queries for the exact product. What be your recommendations? I tend to take the labeling away.
On-Page Optimization | | RomiSverige0 -
Home page ranking dropped below internal pages
The index page for a site I manage has dropped significantly - internal pages rank above it. It's a new site, 2 months old but was ranking at 1st. Any suggestions as to how I can debug this?
On-Page Optimization | | OptioPublishing0