Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Starting a new local travel guide site. Would like to buy a domain and have found one with decent Domain Authority and Trust, but they want $2500 for the domain which I feel is a bit steep since I will be not using any of the content and it is generating hardly any revenue now. . I would rather not start from scratch with no links and no trust.

I have a few questions....

-Any suggestions on sites to look for domains or strategy for finding and offering to buy?

Any guidelines on how to value domains?

If I but it and change registration do I risk losing all the value? Cold I just change technical contact info?

Any other suggestions are welcome.

Thanks.

I am going to build a new site. I could hang it off an existing site with similar content or buy a new keyword rich domain and start over. The existing site does not have much trust or authority beyond the domain being registered for 5 plus years.

I would prefer to start over and build linksfrom scratch but I realize we are starting at the bottom. The keywords we will be competing against are not super competetive so I think we can get ranking within 6 months or so.

These post Panda days I am rethinking everything so any input is appreciated. I did a similar niche site a few years ago and found the site ranked well fairly quickly for its little nice. Today though it may be different.

I have no experience in buying domains and would have no idea where to start there.

New or existing?

Thanks for any input.

Same thing for only 2 categories showing?

I can't believe I do not know this now, but how do you tell in the new format if a Google Places+ page has been claimed. I do not see the old "owner-verified" check mark anymore. Thanks for all your help

And do you think it makes any difference if you set up the Google+ Profile with a different email than the Google Places? I assume you will be able to combine/share as in Analytics?

Thanks for the reply.

The listing in my Google Places admin  is the same as it was before change and has the correct headings.....worked hard t prevent any duplicate listings but who knows if they pulled something from years ago.

I can send a fix request to Google but that hardley ever worked for clients even during normal times.

And there is no workd yet when we can combine the + and Places pages yet or how to admin them from a single area?

"If It aint broke, change it anyway and force businesses in Google+" seems to be the deal here. More wasted time spent relearning, researching, resubmitting etc.

The "new" Google+ Local page for one of my clients is not showing the correct Business Categories. Seems like it reverted to an old Category before we revised. I looked in my Google Places dashboard and the correct Categories are there. They do not have a Google+ Profile yet. Any suggestions?

They also seem to have disappeared for those categories we used to rank in the top three in Google Places results.

Thanks for the comments and insight....good for for for thought. I do not need to just duplicate what is out there and expect to succeed.

I have been doing SEO for almost 10 years. I deal with mainly Industrial B2B Companies.

I am entertaining starting a "Directory" It would be a a "local directory" for a tourist town I just moved to. Ther eis already an existing directory that seems to do very well....has been around quite q while with a PR of 5 and lota of good content.

Am I kidding myself? I would like to think "long-term" since I will be living here but realize the obstacles.

New Domain

No trust

No links

Lots of content to develop.

Any advice or suggestions? Possibly a way to buy an established domain? Platform to use? Ways to generate gest content etc.

Thanks for any advice...positive or negative..