I grabbed a better domain name. What next?
-
I have been trying to rank well for the key word "National Currency" forever and can't seem to make it into the top ten. I would really like to have the URL NationalCurrency but it's taken and can't be bought.
My url is nationalcurrencyvalues. After reading the forums and various other SEO advice it occurred to me that National-Currency is as good or better than NationalCurrency for that keyword because it's seen as two words. (right)
So, I grabbed that domain name. Now, my question... is there some way to make use of the National-Currency domain name without building an entirely new site?
I don't think I want transfer all of my content from nationalcurrencyvalues. Would there be any benefit to my nationalcurrencyvalues if I set up 303's on National-Currency?
-
Ok,
I have done some serious testing on EMD's this year and have seen results such as country coded domains rank 1st page with 500 words of content and a social sharing tool to add with no link building.
I have done a lot of research into more competitive search terms using the seomoz tool bar and have seen 100's of EMD's with low mozstats (DA:30) against the surrounding results with (DA:50/70).
I've done the same sort of stuff with hyphened and other extensions and nothing comes anywhere near the true exact match.
But thats just me and my findings.
-
Activitysuper
We use exact match domains with and without hyphens so I am quite interested in this. As an agency we handle a few sites so exact match/keyword in domain is an often discussed question. Most believed that there would be some mod to the algo in the last year or so, but we have not seen it. So, understand that my question is driven by curiosity on this interesting subject; I am always looking for answers that improve the outcomes of our clients.
The more I read your response: "national-currency is not better or even as good as nationalcurrency when it comes to exact match domains" and your subsequent reply to Greg(( NationalCurrency.com is a EMD for the term 'National Currency' - National-Currency.com is not.) , I am curious as to where you are getting this from? If it is the same link in the reply, is there anything newer? This link is from a correlation study that is 18 months old - an 18 months in which a lot of change took place - and given more and more people are trying to possess and seem to have exact match domains, there might be a higher correlation of exact match utilizing a hyphen due to the larger data set.
Also, given that correlation does not equal causation, any one piece of the findings or all the findings in aggregate could be proof of nothing...or something.
Thanks
Note: My stating exact match with hyphen is simply a way of differentiating a piece in the question here.
-
I did notice my contradiction from what I stated and the link I provided.
But decided to go with it anyway because most talk about an EMD as a way to boost rankings and I have tried and tested and find a true exact (non-hyphenated) to have significant ranking benefits over the hyphened.
So yes you are right and I am wrong that hyphened are a type of EMD but in my eyes a true EMD is a non-hyphened domain.
-
Greg Agree technically dashes mean two words. That video is primarily targeted to page level not domain level. From experience, I own/ed 100+ domains that are two word dash and no dash and first hande experience I'd go with non all day long. Since I don't have fast and hard facts here I'll just end with a Cutts reference that mentions Google dialing back the value of keywords in domains here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAWFv43qubI&feature=youtube_gdata_player .. Even though Im not particularly sure this is the case. *written from an iPhone so excuse typos.
-
Activity super, you state the link is proof that national-currency.com is not an exact match domain. I see that in a correlation study exact match and exact match hyphenated are two categories out of four. Are you saying because they created a category "exact match hyphenated" that makes it not an exact match?
I could find nothing else within the post that stated your assertion so I am curious as to how or where you are seeing that.
Thanks
-
Greg, see the link above where Matt Cutts confirms it:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3...
-
Go into Google and type 'Exact Match Domains' your notice loads of people talking about the benefit.
Just so you know exact match means exactly what it says on the tin, exactly the same - NationalCurrency.com is a EMD for the term 'National Currency' - National-Currency.com is not.
Your proof? http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited
-
I've seen it said several places that Google treats a dash like two words so I can't see how NationalCurrency would be better than National-Currency for keyword "National Currency"
Wonder if there is a way to confirm this?
-
I meant to say 301... My current site has a ton of them due to a naming convention change.
I haven't done a thing with this nationalcurrencyvalues regarding link building because all my link building efforts have concentrated on a third site. I guess I will retrace my steps in that effort for the benefit of the nationalcurrencyvalues site.
I think I should probably move my site but it's not something I am going to rush into. It tooks me seemingly forever to finally get noticed but the OSE tool.
-
national-currency is not better or even as good as nationalcurrency when it comes to exact match domains BUT I would say it still holds some weight.
BUT I would still focus all my efforts on your current site, the domain name does still contain your target term and any natural linking to your url will have some targeted anchor text.
If your not moving in the serp's, your better off letting us know what kind of link building you are doing because you might find a shift in link building to a different type might create some movement.
-
Greg
Actually, I find this a bit funny on a couple of levels. First, I think exact match keywords in url/title tag still matter even though we all thought they would not by now. Corey says that the dash does not make it two words...what does? Matt Cutts says it does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SFVfDIS5k and, when you look on this subject a response from Dr. Pete even showed that an underscore can do the same: http://www.seomoz.org/q/hyphens-vs-underscores
As to the 303 I am at a loss as to why you would want to use that type redirect, but am open to hear it. If you are going to do a redirect I would use a 301 as that will pass most of the link juice and a 302 will not. I do not believe a 303 will either.
Now, Corey makes a good point about your needing links and that is important. The other thing I would look at is have you done keyword research on your field of expertise (I know nothing of national currency). Are there many searches on sameare there searches on Natonal currency values, etc.?
If you are going to use this for the exact match, two keyword reason, you need to do it because you have some link value and you want to exploit that (with a 301 url to url in the .htaccess file or equivalent.) Without the links now, maybe you just billed a new site or clone the old and move on down the road with the new domain.
Best
-
-
The dash doesn't make it two words, and isn't more valuable Hence the reason it was available for registration.
-
Doesn't make sense to 301 it. And once your start engaging in this strategy you run the risk of appearing malicious, as explained here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91XhqF6iZk0
-
The reason you're not ranking is because you have no links. A quick check on OSE shows that. I'd say read this about link building, roll up the sleeves and get busy :).
Good luck!
-
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
-
Domain Masking SEO Impact
I hope I am explaining this correctly. If I need to provide any clarity please feel free to ask. We currently use a domain mask on an external platform that points back to our site. We are a non-profit and the external site allows users to create peer-to peer fundraisers that benefit our ministry. Currently we get many meta issues related to this site as well as broken links when fundraisers expire etc. We do not have a need to rank for the information from this site. Is there a way to index these pages so that they are not a part of the search engine site crawls as it relates to our site?
Technical SEO | | SamaritansPurse0 -
What should I consider before setting up a sub domain?
Morning all! We've just been approached by IT. They've been asked to develop an online 'portal' where clients can upload and download materials. IT will be developing a portal that sits on the company network perimeter (hosted on our internal servers). The concept is that 3<sup>rd</sup> parties can get and update information in regards to progressing cases, the first use will be for agencies who will retrieve records via the portal and then post reports after a consultation. however I would like to have an automatic link to forward to the portal from the web address: oursite.com/dave We will look to create robot.txt and anything else to prevent from listings/indexes. Does any of the above mess with your SEO? The Directors have asked if they can have this on a sub-domain of our site. Is this wise? And, are there any major SEO considerations for my team to worry about? Better still, have any of you had to deal with this before? If so, what happened? All the best, John
Technical SEO | | Muhammad-Isap0 -
Homepage indexed and cached as the wrong domain
I'm a bit baffled by this one and would love if someone in the community could help provide some clarity! In general, my website (PSG1.com) is indexed and cached correctly. The exception is that the homepage is actually cached as plasticsurgerygroupnewjersey.com, another domain we own. Header checkers all confirm that plasticsurgerygroupnewjersey.com redirects to PSG1.com, not the other way around No canonical is set for that domain. At one time, I used the Moz toolbar to view attributes and it registered PSG1.com as having a response code of both 200 and 301 to plasticsurgerygroupnewjersey.com. However, I cannot replicate this. Any idea why the homepage of PSG1.com is not indexed/cached correctly? I appreciate your wisdom!
Technical SEO | | BTeubner0 -
Two Domains for the Same Page
We are creating a website for a client that will have hundreds of geographically driven landing pages. These pages will all have a similar domain structure. For example www.domain.com/georgia-atlanta-fastfood-121 We want the domain to be SEO friendly, however it also needs to be print friendly for a business card. (ex www.domain.com/121) The client has requested that we have two domains for each page. One for the Search Engines and then another shorter one for print/advertising purposes. If we do that will search engines the site for duplicate content? I really appreciate any recommendations. Thanks! Anna
Technical SEO | | TracSoft0 -
Is Buying Domains Good For SEO? Can I 301 redirect domains to an Original website?
I have a friend that purchased multiple domains related to their website. Each of these domains have the back ground of the original website and irrelevant content on them. Is is possible to redirect the various domains to certain pages on the original website. For example if the website is www.shoes.com and they purchased domains such as www.leathermensshoes.com and a few others related to the website. Is it SEO friendly to link the domains purchased to the original website?
Technical SEO | | TSpike10 -
301 redirect domain to page on another domain
Hi, If I wanted to do a 301 permanent redirect on a domain to a page on another domain will this cause any problems? Lets say I have 4 domains (all indexed with content), I decide to create a new domain with 4 pages, one for each domain. I copy the content from the old domains to the relevant page on the new domain and set it live. At the same time as setting the new site live I do a 301 permanent redirect on the 4 domains to the relevant pages on the new domain. What happens if Google indexes the new site before visiting the redirected domains, could this cause a duplicate content penalty? Cheers
Technical SEO | | activitysuper0 -
Why the rapid drop in Domain Authority?
I couple weeks ago I switched my website from Drupal to a Wordpress CMS: Martial Arts Austin My rankings have remained the same, but the Domain Authority has plummeted from like 29 to 21. I know this is small fry, but I don't want my business to drop in ranking. The URL's were kept exactly the same, with the internal links and copy also kept the same with few additions. Also, according to Open Site Explorer, the site's stronger pages have now averaged out with the weaker and unused pages so they all now share the same Page Authority - that doesn't seem right. Is there reason for concern? Did I screw something up, or am I making too much of this? Thanks
Technical SEO | | OhYeahSteve1 -
Moving domain.com to subdomain.domain.com
Hi, I like to do something, but first like to take some opinions from seomoz. My question is: 1. I have a domain: brandtrends.com and i like to move this from brandtrends.com to trends.brand.com because: brandtrends.com is on the position #15 on the second page of SERP for my "brand" keyword. I like to move it under trends.brand.com but all inbound-links are @brandtrends.com What do you thing, if i move permanently 301 from brandtrends.com to trends.brand.com does it rank under brand.com on the 1st page of SERP..? like to rank trends.brand.com under brand.com on results page...!!! I have the backlinks of brandtrends.com on my hands too, should i leave the inbound links @brandtrends.com and the new ones i build with trends.brand.com or should i change the inbound links from brandtrends.com to trends.brand.com Hope you got it! THanks
Technical SEO | | leadsprofi0