Affects of vanity domains?
-
Hi there! My client's domain name is his name, let's say (www,myname.com) because he is well-known in his industry. He is a physician with a very specific specialty and organic competition is fierce for the most relevant keyword to his specialty. A domain has just become available that includes the keyword. If we bought the domain, how could we use it to our advantage? I'm confused about redirecting, etc., with this type of situation. Am i making any sense here? Help! Thanks.
-
If your client is well know in it's industry, it might be a good idea to use his vanity domain since that may be what people are looking for, his name working as a Brand.
But I would also buy this other domain you are talking about and create another content more closely related to the term in the domain and related.
This way you would have people looking for this specialist + those looking for the products. Just don't put the same thing on both one.
Normally when I explain that to a client, they do understand pretty fast that using both the Brand + the product brings a broader volume of targeted traffic then one or another.
Off course it his more job in term on Backlinking and Content writing, but sometime you have to take more time to do a better job.
-
the question is what's your long term strategy.
This is a very good point. If the doctor plans to have an extended practice then a website other than his personal name could be better long term. Of course his personal site could always be redirected if needed.
-
IMO this is sort of like a Brand vs Non-Brand discussion.
Let's say you are Colgate. And your website is Toothpaste.com
The question would be whether people would search you using Colgate or Toothpaste.
I understand and imagine the dilemma you are in as to how to utilize the domain. I would also consider creating a blog on the physicians name if you think content can be created around it. as EGOL and other's have recommended, the question is what's your long term strategy. What keywords do you target in your existing domain etc.
-
I guess it depends how well know he is. You can use Keyword Tool to check how popular he is vs the mentioned keyword. Is he well known just among other physicians or a broader audience of potential customers? How likely is your potential customer to search for his name?
-
he is well-known in his industry
This could be an advantages that is far more powerful than a domain.
I would use it over a domain "that includes the keyword"
-
you would stop someone else using it, that is one advanatge.
a extact match domain will help you rank for that keyword only, but if the keyword is very compeditive, then you going to need more then just a EM domain, remeber that you need to get links for the main domain, so you dont want to be trying to get links for both.
doing 301 redirect will not give you any rank. unless there are links pointing to it, but if domain has changed owners, there is doubt if those links still hold the sdame value.
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
-
Client wants a seperate .tv domain for their media/videos instead of a subdomain/subfolder. What is the best way to pass of link equity to a new domain?
We have a client that wants to place their video content on a .tv tld instead of a subfolder/subdomain in their .com website. They believe that the .tv domain will better represent the media experience of their business. We can understand this client's position however we are concerned about their .tv domain will lose out on the link equity if it were no longer placed in the .com's subdomain/subfolder. Here are our questions: 1. What would be the best way to pass of link equity from .com website to a new .tv domain? Should we just have a video link on the .com website that 301 directs to the new .tv domain? 2. Is there any SEO benefit of having a .tv domain for Google Video queries or even Youtube? 3. Is there any long term value of having two different websites? For link equity purposes we understand that it would be better if everything was in a .com. However is a .tv domain ideal for a better representation of their media content? We appreciate any feedback.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RosemaryB0 -
Block a country, will affect my ranking?
Dear Mozzers, I intend to block some certain countries from viewing my website (including proxy), will it affect my Google ranking? Thank you for your help. BR/Tran
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SteveTran20130 -
Stability in the rankings - Domain mapping
Tues domain mapping of multiple (more than 180) urls to a single address can harm rankeamento these urls? I have the following scenario… Mapping domain addresses: www.meusitecidade01.com www.meusitecidade02.com www.meusitecidade03.com ... www.meusitecidade181.com to: www.meusite.com where I have a index.php page which will assemble according to the url mapped. This could be hurting my SEO in any way? There has been a lot of stability in the rankings (not google dance) some of these urls for some keywords and unique pecularidade see that, relative to other site, is the above scenario.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eder.machado0 -
Domain expiration and seo
My domain name is free with my service with yahoo but it expires every year and gets extended automatically as I continue service, how does this impact my seo efforts? I've heard that the search engines prefer sites to expire in 3 years or more? Is this a fact?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
Link to domain
Let's say i want to rank for rental car service and purchases a domain rental-car-service and creates a site http://www.rental-car-service.com There will be few persons who won't use anchor text to link to the site, but will simply link using URL ( in this case http://www.rental-car-service.com ) So, will a link to http://www.rental-car-service.com from another site using http://www.rental-car-service.com as anchor text help the keyword rental car service ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoug_20050 -
Keyword-Rich Domains - Redirect?
Hi, Mozzers- I have a client that has a bunch of pretty nice keyword-rich domain names. Their traffic and rankings are good. They provide legal services in the Chicago area. I have lots of good content that I could use to start a blog using a domain like keyword,keyword-blog.com. Good idea? Currently I have a resources area on their website but feel like this area could be getting a little bloated and some news-related stuff isn't really appropriate. 2 Questions: Should I use one of the decent domains for a blog and build up the rankings, traffic, and link to the main site? Or is this lots of work for little payout? Both sites would be hosted in the cloud. Some of the domain names are related to their name, others are keyword or geo-targeted. Would it be wise to setup 301 redirects going to their website? Pros/cons? If you need additional info, please PM me for details. Thank you, friends! LHC
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lhc670 -
What will happen after I 301 this domain?
A while back I created a new website. Somehow my "scratch" copies of the site got indexed even though I didn't have links built to them. (In the future I will use noindex tags when I am playing around with designing). Now, I have three versions of the site online...let's call them TheRealSite.com and Practice1.com and Practice2.com. Practice1.com and Practice2.com now rank #1 for their main keyword. (It's a relatively uncompetitive niche). TheRealSite.com is somewhere lower than page 20 despite having an exact keyword match domain name. I'm assuming that Google considered it duplicate content as it is the exact same thing as Practice1 and 2. I had considered simply removing Practice1 and 2 from the server, but I was worried that if I did that, I would lose my #1 rankings if TheRealSite didn't recover. So, what I've done is 301 redirect Practice1 and Practice2 to TheRealSite. I'm guessing that over time TheRealSite will come back to #1 and then I can just remove the files from Practice1 and Practice2. Is this the best way to handle this situation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarieHaynes1 -
Would switching domain names be a good move?
Hi All, I'm trying to decide whether to switch to a more relevant domain name for an SEO project. For a while now I've already been doing the standard SEO work on an existing website, content optimization, link building etc but I can't help feeling I won't ever get the full benefits of SEO until I also change the domain name. The current website is for a law firm in new jersey called sandz.net which obviously has no immediate impression it is for a law firm so I'm looking at setting up a new domain and doing 301s to a new site. My concerns are that as its a highly competitive market, I've initiated the campaign to target local searches so I'm wondering just how beneficial buying a domain name with the term lawyer or attorney which actually be. And of course the ideal domain names such as njlawyer, NJattorney .COMs are all taken so I would be looking at perhaps a .ORG with the intention that all printed material the firm has still contains their original name, sandz.net and by word of mouth they should tell people their site is sandz.net as its easy to remember but for the sake of SEO and links then these should all be focused on a new domain.. Any thoughts appreciated.. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | davebrown19750