Should I build new site on new domain or old domain - Need seo advice

[mmancha]

Can someone with some experience with seo please give me some advice.

I'm deciding if I should build a local tutoring center's new website on a new domain name like city + tutoring center, or use their existing business name domain which is already 4 years old.

Their existing site does get some traffic and they do rank on page 1 by accident for one good keyword. It has no on-page seo, backlinks, or targeted keywords and is a Go Daddy's website tonight site built by the owner who doesn't know what to do to get traffic to her site.

My question is from an SEO and traffic standpoint, is it more beneficial to put the new site on the old domain or a new domain. I've already built it on a test site and I'm going to use wp twin and move it to a permanent location.

A new domain with the words "tutoring center" will trigger the google map listing page also, but her business name doesn't.

I sure hope there's someone out there who's been down this road and has some advice. :-) Thanks. Maureen

[C Rebecca]

Since it is about pulling traffic, I would adivse you to redirect your 4 year old domain to the new one (city + tutoring)

It gets you audinece from organic results as well as those audience which are already aware of your client's business.

[options]

I would use the old domain, it is has good age and if your just targeting local keywords it will be easy enough to rank the site. It may well drop for a few weeks when you add the new site to it but it will come back up.

You can still optimize the pages for the keyword/s you are targeting

[SimpleSEOTips]

I would be of the opinion of sticking with the existing domain. The age of this domain should provide you with a slight advantage when compared to a new one.

Also, you mention that the site does attract some traffic. If you change the domain you do run the risk of the existing brand association for return customers/visitors being somewhat dilluted as they won't be familiar with the new domain.

A new domain with the words "tutoring center" will trigger the google map listing page also, but her business name doesn't.

I'm not sure the above statement is entirely accurate to be honest. It shouldn't matter what keywords are within your Google places related domain name. There are a lot of different optimization factors to help improve your Places page rankings.

The following link is a remarkable source of valuable Local optimization information and advice: Local Search Ranking Factors | Local SEO Best Practices for Ranking in Google Places

This site should offer you advice as to how you can optimize both your main site for local search terms and also your Google Places page for improved visibility.

Good luck and let us know how your final decision works out if you have a chance.

[Ben K]

This article has some good info which may help you to make your decision
Expectations and Best Practices for Moving to or Launching a New Domain | SEOmoz

[Nscnikhil]

It's better to improve your old site rather then creating a new one

[productsmarine]

Some factors why not a new domain

Old will be a trusted domain
Site will not go to Google sand box
Page rank will be remain
Traffic will remain means business will not spoiled by using 301 Redirects

I don’t think there is any reasons that you need to go with new

[BezVrska]

Old domain can be both great and bad. The great thing is that you can have more authority compared to the new sites. The bad thing is that the old domain can be deindexed by google in the past and it's indexing again is though.

New domain needs to be indexed, published in directories, building new backlinks etc...

[MikeTheBuilder]

If you're targeting a local area, I would do the following:

Keep the old domain and optimize it, take the new domain and create sort of a landing page optimized for that city + keyword with a good call to action link to your money domain.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by mmancha

Can someone with some experience with seo please give me some advice.

I'm deciding if I should build a local tutoring center's new website on a new domain name like city + tutoring center, or use their existing business name domain which is already 4 years old.

Their existing site does get some traffic and they do rank on page 1 by accident for one good keyword. It has no on-page seo, backlinks, or targeted keywords and is a Go Daddy's website tonight site built by the owner who doesn't know what to do to get traffic to her site.

My question is from an SEO and traffic standpoint, is it more beneficial to put the new site on the old domain or a new domain. I've already built it on a test site and I'm going to use wp twin and move it to a permanent location.

A new domain with the words "tutoring center" will trigger the google map listing page also, but her business name doesn't.

I sure hope there's someone out there who's been down this road and has some advice. :-) Thanks. Maureen

Definitely, 100%, without a doubt, stay with the business name for the domain name.

Don't worry about the Index page ranking in the SERPs.

You can rank unlimited internal keyword pages in the SERPs for anything you want.

• Keep the brand name for the return traffic.
• Rank as many internal pages as you want.

[awj888]

if its an old domain that is great - even better if it already has good keywords in it. the benefit is that it is already known to search engines so indexing will happen fast and you can build links much faster without worrying so much about the big bad sandbox! - best situation would be an old domain already with backlinks and PageRank!