Switch domains or not?

neotakezo

New member
May 8, 2011
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I'm in a bit of a dilema.

I've got a site that I've had in one form or another for about 6 or 7 years now. It's on it's second domain as it had a brand change about 4 years ago. Right now it's on the domain "brandname.com" and has a moz rank of just over 5 Page authority of about 40.

It's primary seed keyword is a massive traffic keyword and it's currently bouncing between top of page 2 and bottom of page 1 on google australia and around page 12 on google.com - that keyword brings in the most traffic and it's good traffic. Low bounce rate, good time on site, average pageviews etc

So here's what I'm thinking, register the domain "brandnamekeyword.com" copy the site and 301 the old domain to the new one.

So would I gain enough by getting my main keyword in my domain to offset loosing a 4 year old domain to a brand new one?

It seems to me like in the long term I'd almost certainly gain, even if I lost a little bit in the short term...but then I'd also loose all my facebook likes, retweets, stumbles, diggs etc..I mean the 301 would pass the juice but I'd loose the social indicators...

There's also the matter of the fact that I've done a couple bits of link building on that site that I regret - the thought of starting again with a bit more knowledge of some of the things to avoid is nice.

So there's a bit to consider both ways....I'm inclined to do it but I figured I'd put it to you guys first as there's people here that know ever so much more about this kind of thing than I...
 


brandnamekeyword is very hard to type. if you have to think if visitors return by themselves. there are other factors.

i think keyword in domain is less important now.

age is important factor now because it is the probably one of the factors that can't be gamed
 
Use both and replicate the new one with the old one,... or not copy the contents.. your choice.. Target Different keywords. So both will not be a competitor with each other with the same content or just consider it as different competitor site..

Whatever you do use both of them...
 
Stick with the original domain, its much better because its already branded.

But as gunn said you can def flip it around and use two sites to target different keywords.