Hotel website domain
-
I work on a project for a hotel website and look up domain names right now. But I am now not sure wether I should go for a branding of the hotel name in the domain name (e.g. "bellavistahotel.com") or pick the location ("berlinhotel.com") or a mix (e.g. "bellavistaberlin.com). What would be your recommendation?
The content (text, photos, videos) I have is a lot about the location and the hotel itself. I want to connect the Hotel page afterwards with Knowem to hundreds of social networks. My tendency is to go for a branding. Is that a good idea?
Thanks for the help.
-
Hi Donford,
no, no, no - I find your answers very helpful. Thanks for that. We are in a discussion. Maybe other people have also ideas, which way might the best for a Hotel in a remote area without addresses!
My competitors are branding but with less success agains the non-branded pages with local name in the address. I was now considering to use subdomains like: "hotelname.location.com". Might this be an idea to mix both ways?
And before I forget: There is another problem. The branding itself with the name of the hotel. The name is already 10 letters long and it is not valid anymore on domain search. Need to be very creative today to solve this
-
Hi Falk,
I was not trying to be critical rather trying to gather information so I may give the best advise I can.
I will admit that having the keywords in the domain name will help, but in the long run from a corporate perspective it isn't ideal.. or perhaps it is for this area / culture / region. You sound like you have considered pretty much all my advise previously but appear to be in a unique situation.
Perhaps, it is common for this country / area / island however you refer to the place.. to use this logic simply because of the unique situation without an address. In such case I would look at the big competitors, and some of the other local businesses and see what they do, I learned not to argue with local cultures.
Hope that helps and good luck
-
No, i think there are many ways to reach the same thing. But a simple calculation: When I check on google other hotels on the island, then all unbranded with a domain like "XXX Island Hotel" with the same keywords in title, texts, etc. are on top and the branded follow on the bottom.
I know that google is now pushing branded sites but the branding is difficult because of a lack in addresses. Does someone has a solution for that?
-
Hi Falk,
What I am seeing from your response is you want to target a keyword which includes a location. Do you feel that the only way to accomplish this is by getting that exact domain name, or a partial domain like this keyword?
I believe. if you concede the domain name to the brand and target the keyword on the homepage you'll have the same results. With the benefit of not sounding like a fly by night joint.
-
The problem is that in this area are no proper addresses with house numbers. They only refer to a beach and an island. No postal code nothing. Was already thinking, I just invent a proper address for this place that i can optimize the branding.
The other thought is that people are searching mostly in google for "hotel XXX island". Then a domain which looks like the keywords is maybe better, don't you think?
-
My Opinion...
Brand provides avenues for longevity.Localized pigeon holes you into local results and relies on EMD or PMD to get rankings. It also appears (to me atleast) a very flaky way to name a business.
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
-
Considering Moving to New Domain and SEO
Hello, One of our sites has been using a domain since 2005 and is shown below. The domain is terrible for multiple reasons, hyphens and doesn't even reflect our actual company name. Not to mention its embarrassing when telling a customer to email us at support @ pro "dash, yes the hyphen" gift.... I wanted to change it long ago but feared it would hurt my SEO rankings. After taking Bruce Clay's training class back in 2004, we managed to rank top 10 for most targeted keywords. My ranking have slowly dropped over time due to neglect and decaying IBL's. We still rank for a few targeted keywords but it was just August of 2017 we were still top 10 but something happened and we dropped out of the top 100 right before our holiday season. We had to run Adwords and BingAds to supplement traffic this holiday season. So I am wondering before I restart my SEO efforts should I move the domain now before trying to build new content, IBL's, etc? I was always under the impression Google used domain trust a major factor which wasnt only IBL but also domain age. Our preferred domain I purchased from another owner and it has ZERO links to it. It was basically a parked domain with the "domain for sale" stuff. I am a little nervous about moving it over because Google didnt even have it in its index. I put up a coming soon page and hosted it on my server, same C Block, and requested a crawl from my webmaster console. I added some text to the new domain index page and it appears Google is showing results for our old domain! At first I thought it was duplicate content but its not Google obviously has deciphered current site is my old domain and is displaying the title and meta data from the old domain. I have never seen this before. Google cache shows the current domain the new domain url. A few questions: Will my site get sandboxed after 301 redirecting and going webmaster console move features etc? Does this reset the trust factors? I have read examples in my research where some people say it only took a few weeks and everything was back to normal and others that have said it took years. Any experience or insight is greatly appreciated. I am currently relearning SEO and going over the SEO tutorial articles provided on moz. Thanks again! New Domain - matches our company name, no hyphens, better branding http://www.giftbasketpros.com/ Google index https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awww.giftbasketpros.com Current Domain, since 2005, has ranked well for years until this summer http://www.pro-gift-baskets.com/
Branding | | DMAC441 -
International SEO - Domains or Folders?
Hi, We have been approached by a potential client. They are a UK company whose website is hosted on a .com domain (the .co.uk forwards to the .com). They also have a German website hosted on a .de domain. Both the .com and the .de are hosted in the UK. We believe that the .de website should be hosted in Germany. You agree? Anyway, they now need to target the US market. They are planning on duplicating the UK (.com) website and creating a US version of the site on a .us domain. They would rewrite the content for the US site to avoid duplications, and add Href Lang attributes etc. They are also debating whether the new US site should be hosted in the US or the UK. We don't think this is the best strategy. Would it not be better to host both the UK and US website on the .com domain. using reginal folders? i.e. example.com/uk, and example.com/us. Obviously we would setup Href Lang accordingly and change the Google Search Console geo targeting options for each of the sub-sites (/uk and /us). Or we could suggest hosting the UK site on the .co.uk domain, and the US on the .com domain. So, what is the best strategy to target the US audience, whilst maintaining UK rankings? Many thanks for your time, hope to hear from you soon 🙂 Lee.
Branding | | Webpresence1 -
Mentions if domain slightly different to brand name
Hi, Just a question/discussion regarding mentions. I have read for the last few years that Google is able to give credit to websites who get mentioned without a link. Even a few months ago there was a big article on the Google update at the end of last year saying how mentions would become an even stronger signal than a link. My question is, if anyone knows, is there any evidence that Google and other search engines are able to give ranking credit to websites whose brand name is slightly different from the domain? Can the search engines figure out that it is the same thing? If not, then there must be a lot of brands missing out. Thanks.
Branding | | Brian_Dowd0 -
Domain Buying Service
I am looking for a service that handles clients who want to purchase domains that are owned and in use and someone wants to purchase them incognito. Does anyone know of (preferably have experience with) a service that will handle this type of domain purchase activity. An example would be if I knew of moz.com but wanted to buy it because I had invented a Moz machine that was worth zillions. I only want the .com and I do not want the owner to know who is purchasing.
Branding | | RobertFisher
Thanks for any assist you can provide. Robert0 -
Sorting out a proper domain - changing from .org
I have a client with a business.... normal business and he has a .org address. .com and .co.uk are taken buy sites trying to sell those for £100000 each. So.... What would you do... Original - mybusinessname.org OR my-business-name.co.uk mybusinessname.uk.com mybusinessnameuk.com You get the point... Suggestions greatly received on what to recommend to the client...
Branding | | JohnW-UK0 -
Trying to decide on best domain
I am trying to decide on a domain for a real estate site in Utah where the area code is 801. My choices are utahhomes801.com, the search term "utah homes" get 3600 exact matches, utahrealestate801.com with "utah real estate" getting 22,200 exact matches or forget the 801 and go for a shorter domain Utahnow.net or utahhomeboy.com. Is there any reason to stay away from 801 in the domain? Any thought or direction would be appreciated. Scott
Branding | | rozier0 -
How to increase page authority and domain authority? [Ecommerce]
How can I increase my Ecommerces Domain and Homepage Authority? My competition have 60-70 page Authority and it's time I try to compete.
Branding | | InkCartridgesFast0 -
Will the word arse in a domain name cause a problem
I have a customer that wants to use the domain name cooksarse.com, what my concern is that the word arse may cause him problems with search engines, even get flaged as Adult content, or family filters. The site is a fun social site and nothing about it you couyld not talk about in church except the name of the site and domain. "cooks arse" am i being overly concerned or could this be a problem
Branding | | AlanMosley0