Warriors: Would YOU Make A New Site?!

The question I'd ask is does it get any traffic? If it's on page 2 with some traffic, I wouldn't start over.

Well I mean it doesn't get much traffic now... but usually a site on page 2 of Google doesn't even if the keyword is heavily searched. It's on page 5 right now, but was on page 2 yesterday... it oddly moves around despite me not doing anything with it for some time O.o

I am a newbie but I think you can put 2-3 good posts(articles) on your website and make some backlinks to see what happens (fix in 2nd page?, go up? maybe to page 1).

if you can't get the dot com then go with the dot org.

I really wouldn't suggest using hyphens between your keywords, maybe just add something to the end of it such as yourkeywordinfo, yourkeywordnow, yourkeywordsolution, yourkeywordhelp, yourkeywordsite, yourkeywordblog, etc

You get the idea.

cheers!

Dashes may not be such a big problem but the .info does not help you at all.

Hyphens don't affect SEO at all. (There are enough videos of Matt Cutts explaining this?!).

(By the way, those are "hyphens", not "dashes": the "dash" is a different punctuation-mark.)

TLD extensions don't affect SEO at all.

There's simply no issue here at all. Not regarding SEO. (There is regarding resale, potential loss of some type-in traffic, and so on, of course - there are several other issues. But regarding SEO/ranking, forget it - none of it is relevant in any way!).

But regardless of the lengths Google and Matt Cutts go to, to try to clarify this and to prevent people believing such nonsense (and those are quite some lengths, let me tell you: videos, blog entries, explanations at WebMaster Central, and so on), there are always people willing to believe it. A quick look in almost any commercially published SEO textbook will also confirm and usually explain all this, Brandon.

This thread is one of about a hundred here which can clarify the issue, for anyone wanting fact rather than myth.

It comes more easily to some people than to others, but you just have to learn ignore people who tell you that hyphens or TLD-extensions can affect SEO in any way: sure, there are huge numbers of them, and they all imagine their perspective is a reasonable one, of course; but the reality is that these are simple, straightforward, factual matters, and you need to ignore all of these people and just get your facts from an authoritative source. Instinctively and routinely doing this, typically, makes the difference between earning a living and not earning a living. People telling you that "the .info does not help you at all" just don't know what they're talking about and get their "information" from the Urban Myth School, not from established textbooks, Google blogs/videos or reliable experience. Please excuse the observation that after all this time, Brandon, you should know better than to listen to this nonsense, let alone to invite it.

One of my biggest earning sites is a .info with dashes in the domain. I'm in the number 1 spot for numerous competitive keywords. For new sites I tend to go with an x at the end of the keyword but I've never had a problem ranking with dashes or .infos. Although they do tend to dance a little bit more than .coms initially. Anyway my advice is absolutely continue with your current site. Put up some good content and some decent links and you can rank any domain.

Since your domain has already ranked, why start over? If you start over, you need to rank your new domain and it takes more time. If you redirect, your .info will be de-indexed. BTW, there's no difference between .info, .com, .net or .org in term of SEO.

Having done some measurements and reverse engineering myself (although you can never be completely certain), TLDs only come in to play on a geographic weighting i.e. I live in the UK and market to the UK, so a .co.uk or .org.uk extension will rank higher for searches in the UK.

The problem with hyphens is that if you use, say keywordkeyword-keyword.com, it's difficult to get people to remember your web address for offline marketing and people may be directed to someone else's site.

Just my two pence.

TC

Apart from being blatently rude, you really have no idea what you're talking about.

Alexa is spot on.

Busting the hyphens myth....

It's often said by many web professionals that hyphenated domains are a poor choice and should be avoided at all costs. In most cases this is based purely on speculation. Nevertheless, here are just a few of the biggest myths about hyphenated domains.

• Search Engines Don't rank hyphenated domains

This is simply not true. In my experience I have found quite the opposite. Hyphenated domains do rank well, and can fetch great search placement. Infact I have a number of domains that are ranked first place for competitive terms for their chosen keywords.

• Search Engines penalise hyphenated domains

Again. Not true at all. There are literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of well ranked hyphenated domain names on the web today. Search engines don't penalise domains just for having hyphens. Infact I've heard that some search engines encourage it.

• Only spam websites use hyphenated domains

This is just nonsense. Spam websites will use any domain available regardless. Theres definitely no evidence to suggest that spammers favour hyphenated domains.

• Hyphenated domains attract less clicks

Whilst I don't have any evidence to disprove this claim, I would find it highly unlikely that web users would be less likely to click on hyphenated domains, simply because of hyphens. I have numerous websites that attract over 200 visits a day, and all of them use hyphenated domains.

So then, the question is.....

Do hyphenated domain names work?

Hyphenated domains can and do work. I have proven this over the last 5 years consistently. However, whilst I don't disprove of using hyphenated domains, there are a couple of quick points that should be taken into consideration before deciding upon using a hyphenated domain. These are:

• Branding
• Word of mouth marketing
• Closeness to competitors

Lets look at these points a bit closer.

• Branding

Hyphenated domains may not be the best choice when it comes to company branding. If you intend on capturing all or most of your traffic from SEO and organic search, then a hyphenated domain probably isn't going to be a major issue, however if there's a level of offline marketing to be performed, then a hyphenated domain could prove troublesome. This is because most people don't remember to type in the hyphens and will most likely end up at an incorrect address.

• Word of mouth marketing

Again, as with branding, word of mouth marketing brings upon a similar issue. Rarely do people speak about domains that carry hyphens, and if they do, they get them wrong when telling others. Infact most people simply forget the hyphens or get them wrong entirely, and will tell people to go to a domain that carries a similar address. This can cause issues and potentially drive traffic to competitor sites, or to locations that don't exist.

• Closeness to competitors

As mentioned above, most people will tell their friends about a website that they may have found online then go about giving them an incorrect web address. Problem is, by using hyphens its likely that most people will leave the hyphens out and go to a competitors site, or a site that doesn't exist.

Here's a quick example.

Let's say you've registered sydney-personal-trainers.com because the exatch match of sydneypersonaltrainers.com wasn't available and infact, is a direct competitor.

Whilst you have a great domain, and it contains your target keywords, it is somewhat possible that anyone telling their friends about it, may simply say "sydney personal trainers.com" and not mention the hyphens, thus leading them straight to your competitors website.

The other potential issue is that anyone posting links on the web to your website may also accidentally point them to the wrong site, in this case, to sydneypersonaltrainers.com without the hyphens.

These are considerations that you must take into account when using hyphenated domains.

I don't tend to worry too much about these issues myself personally as I don't rely on word of mouth or offline marketing too much. I just work hard towards ranking my site high in the search engines for my related terms. Naturally people will click on my site via search, regardless of the hyphens.

Thanks you everyone, I appreciate your input and will continue along my merry way with the site as is. Thank you to Alexa and rj for their honest and detailed opinions. And to Alexa, I actually just read your post so I hadn't before I PMed you, but no, you weren't too harsh