Changing domain names before I start link-building (advice needed)

9 replies
  • SEO
  • |
Hi, I have 2 domains registered and I want to make sure I have my site loaded under the best domain name before I invest a lot of time in SEO.

My current site is www. get over your girlfriend . com - I have had this domain for about 7-8 months and I've been driving google adwords traffic to it the whole time, I just created a blog for it a few weeks ago with some articles.

I decided that it would probably be best to have a gender neutral domain name because some of my keywords are gender neutral and attract female visitors as well so I registered www. how to get over a relationship . com about a month ago.

It's longer and not as catchy/pretty/easy to type and use in video tags but it's an exact keyword match and i heard google/yahoo gives that a plus in terms of ranking. I'm thinking about switching everything to this domain and building an SEO strategy around it because it's probably the best option in the long run, and i'll just have GOYG.com as a redirect.

However, I heard that it's harder to rank for a newly registered site like this vs the one I've been sending adwords traffic to for about 8 months now. Can someone please elaborate on the difference in difficulty for ranking between the 2 domains and how the process will be like on a domain that's been parked for a month and one that has been lightly active with ppc campaigns for 8 months?

Do you think the short-term difficulty will be outweighed by the beneifts in the long run? If so, how would I go about taking my entire wordpress setup, with all the themes, plugins, and custom coding and switching it to my newly registered domain so that everything works smoothly?

Your help would be greatly appreciated!
#advice #changing #domain #linkbuilding #names #needed #start
  • Profile picture of the author ColeenB
    "how to get over a relationship" gets many more searches than "get over your girlfriend", so I would definitely switch now. Set up a 301 redirect so that anybody trying to come in to the old domain name will be directed to the new location. The search bots also recognize a 301 redirect as a permanent, seo-friendly move.
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  • Profile picture of the author KevinK3
    i was changing the domain name for demographic reasons mainly, though having the exact keyword at a dot com is a benefit, i know it'll be primarily determined by my backlinking strategy, which im currently creating all the content for.

    i wasnt talking about it in terms of benefits of having the name of the domain, but the age of the domain, which actually is a factor. in any case, i did pick a domain and went with it but now i want to switch to another one.

    im wondering if losing 8 months of traffic that will help google perceive it as an older domain thats had a bit of traffic is worth transferring to get a more gender neutral domain that has an exact match keyword in there, which will be a factor in terms of keyword relevancy everytime google crawls it.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Why would google need to crawl the domain name over and over? Don't they get
      it the first time.

      Googlebot does not care about a domain name. That's why warriorforum.com does
      not rank for warrior, but internet marketing. Okay, it ranks for warrior forum I'm
      sure, but that's not the niche. Actually world of warcraft does too....
      Amazon ranks for books...among other things....monster ranks for jobs....

      But I digress.

      An aged domain has nothing to do with anything, especially since it's been
      parked.

      If had been in continuous use, with an indexed, authoritative site, it would
      matter.

      Paul
      Signature

      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author KevinK3
    thanks for your response paul. to clarify, my current site IS indexed and has been getting traffic, just not that much since i havent proactively started the linkbuilding yet. the domain i want to switch to is the one that's been parked so it'd be starting from the ground up and getting it indexed etc, which shouldnt take more than a day.

    how would i go about transferring my wordpress site and all the themes/plugins to go under a different domain name so that everything works?
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  • Profile picture of the author tobiasosllc
    Why not just start both websites and get them both ranked? I've found that sometimes is better then transferring. Just a thought.
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  • Profile picture of the author KevinK3
    i would want the other site to have the same theme/logo/plugins etc all loaded up on there so i would want to replicate what's currently on there anyways.
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