Would a 301 redirect on a keyword based domain be a worth-while investment?
-
Similar questions have been asked - but I couldn't find a direct answer to my specific question here.
I have the opportunity to purchase our exact keyword phrase domain name for fairly cheap (if I sold red balloons it would be redballoons.com).
If I i set it up to 301 redirect to our main domain - would it provide any short-term or long-term SEO benifits?
ADDITIONAL INFO:
I sell a service to a niche market and in a relatively short amount of time have been able to rank #21 on our main keywords. Our domain is fairly young (about 1.5yrs), but we are WAY behind our main competition in the link building category (they have been at it for 10+ years). I'm looking for an interim solution to drive genuine SEO traffic while we work on our link building over time.
Our main keywords only get about 15,000 global searches per month (google) and some of those are not our market (don't know how many exactly).
The competition for our keyword is classified as "medium" in google adwords.
It's really only worth it to me if I can begin getting page 1 results from this practice.
Thanks in advance!!!
-
Thanks so much everyone - great advice it seams. I will continue to work on my on-page factors and especially my link building efforts.
I felt like it was a long shot and you confirmed my suspicions. Thanks again!!
-
The only value I can think of is if you build a unique content site on redballons.com and then optimize it. You can then link it to the main site and have some SEO value. We see this done often within local link profiles. But I am not sure I would go to all that trouble, instead I would use that energy working on great content to draw traffic.
Redirecting a domain ( as John pointed out) has no SEO value, but may have some marketing or branding value.
-
Hi Aaron.
If I understand correctly, you want an alternative to PPC advertising so you can appear on page one of SERP for a specific keyword. You are viewing the exact name domain match as a possible solution.
I would suggest taking a step back and re-evaluating all aspects on on-page seo. Is your content really the best it can be? Have you maximized all the seo relevant factors on your site? Often there are changes you can make the difference.
I would avoid buying the keyword domain and put your time, focus and $$ into your main site.
-
I don't see how redirecting that domain to your site is going to help your SEO all that much, unless that site had a lot of existing links pointed to it. People aren't going to link to your pages through redballoons.com; they're going to link to your domain now. I would be very surprised this would get your from rank #21 to page 1 on the results pages (unless that domain had a bunch of relevant links pointing to it).
If you're building a brand name at your domain now, buying domains with the keywords you're targeting and redirecting those to your site aren't going to help much. I wouldn't bother.
I can think of one use for buying this domain... if you're doing PPC, you could try using redballoons.com in your display URLs instead of your current domain and see if you get a higher CTR and/or more conversions.
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
-
Using keywords instead of brand name on G+ to rank for local terms.
I noticed something this morning, when performing a search on Google UK for "Intensive driving courses southend" the first position is awarded to a driving school that is using exact match keywords instead of brand name on their G+ page to rank for local terms. See this for yourself here: https://www.google.co.uk/#q=intensive+driving+courses+southend Until then, my site had held position 1 for this term for well over a year. Every gut instinct I have tells me that this will not work forever and its not something I should implement, however I'm interested to hear if anyone else is using this tactic, and how its working for them? How can I compete with this "grey hat" tactic?
Branding | | Silkstream0 -
What should we consider in Online reputation management - negative URL or Negative Keywords?
Hello All I have a serious confusion in terms of the Negative Keywords & Positive Keywords vs Negative URLS and Positive URLS for ORM (Online Reputation Management). Can any one please advise and explain why and what should I consider?
Branding | | barnesdorf
When we talk about ORM what exactly is more important? Negative Keywords or Negative URLS? Among these two which is more important ?? Negative URLs or Negative Keywords.? Do we need to classify keywords as negative or positive? in the report? Do we need to classify URLs as negative or positive? in the report? According to me and my fellow members either of them is actually most important but we all are stuck upon at one question "which one?" Any help would be appreciated....0 -
.re or .com domain
I am thinking about changing the name of my site. The new name is available with .re domain (that spells the name) or a .com. I have registered the .re and the .com is parked and for sale so my question has 2 parts. Is it worth buying the .com or do I really not need it? How much does it matter in terms of losing traffic and other factors? If I do buy it which should I use as the primary domain? Thanks!
Branding | | yojimbo230 -
US Based Website Wanting to Sell in Canada
Hi All, I work for an small e-commerce company that is looking to expand our customer base to include Canadian customers. At the moment, we do serve some Canadian customers, but haven't made a concerted effort to capture this market and are looking to lay the groundwork for this new venture. With this in mind I have a few questions I am hoping to get some help on. Please see below. 1. From the viewpoint of a potential Canadian customer, how is it best to them know that we sell and ship to Canada? If you have examples of companies that do this well, please share! 2. From an SEO standpoint, how is it best for a US company to target Canadian customers? In the past, our websites have relied heavily on organic search results to drive traffic and we would like to continue this trend as we venture into Canada. If you have any other feedback, tips or suggestions of questions we should be asking ourselves before starting this, please feel free to add them! Thank you for your help!
Branding | | airnwater0 -
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 -
I need to get my hands on some already registered domains?!?
Hi Guys & Gals, There are a couple of already registered domains i'd like to get my hands on, but i'm coming up against a brick wall. I have already tried contacting the domain owners directly if there contact info is available through whois and tried using a domain brokerage service from the likes of SEDO to try and acquire the domain on my behalf...but they seem to only work they have solid whois contact info to use. My problem is that where do I turn now after the above routes failing? Are there any good domain brokerage services you are aware off or any other approach I could try to aquire such domains?? Thanks James
Branding | | cewe0 -
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 -
Reputation Management and Keyword Choice
I am assisting a company with reputation management. While we know we must use our brand name plus a modifier (or many different modifiers) within our numerous company owned blogs, websites as well as within press releases, blog entries, and article topics - so that we can hopefully get all of our sites to push out the negative ones for the use of our name - the question is whether to simultaneously compete for popular keyword terms to gain more secondary traffic that may not be looking for our company name but product? If getting more hits on our sites helps our rankings, then would it be worth targeting specific key phrases? Or, should we just focus on our brand name only at this point? Thanks, Pamela Ravenwood SEO Essential Solutions
Branding | | seoessentials0