Aged Domain vs Exact Match ?

I tried to post this earlier but somehow got the wrong forum and it appeared in the SEO / Adwords forum. Reposting here where I originally intended it.


I am to the point of having to make some $$$ decisions on either registering domain names or buying domain names.

I can purchase aged domain names that would offer good overall branding for the broad market that I am targeting. Domains that are available do contain 1 keyword for the market, but that is a massive search traffic word for which ranking would be extremely hard. It also is not a buying keyword really targeting my product idea. But... it would be an excellent domain name for branding.

I have thought that by purchasing an aged domain I may not have the exact match keywords for good niches within the broader market, but I would have the power of the aged domain AND I could then work to get pages within this domain setup for exact match's. Or, would I be better off just registering a new domain that is exact match?


Let me give an example (diabetes is just sample):


Lets say I want the keywords "Diabetes Symptoms" I have researched this exact match and it has good traffic, good potential revenue and it has competition that I feel is not insurmountable (though I lack the experience to tell for sure). Most importantly, I have a very unique product idea that hits these keywords perfectly. This product is a new offering with solid scientific research behind it, nobody else is offering the exact thing.

The current #1 ranked site in google for this exact match keyword is a PR4, has 4700 indexed pages, Has total domain backlinks of 12,000 and total backlinks to any page within the domain of 30,000 and the on site SEO is all fully optimized. But... the vast majority of back links are PR0. There are 6 x PR4 backlinks...17 x PR3... 15 x PR2.... 26 x PR1 and the rest are all PR0. Also, this site has ZERO videos or other such content nor does it appear any social network type marketing is being done. Basically, its an adsense site that has been largely static for several years, but is ranking #1 for my keywords.

While the above is clearly a tough nut to crack, I am committed to putting a year or more time into it, and I can hire a full time article researcher/writer plus outsource writing, outsource website programming and management and hire a full time SEO VA to work on it.
(is this insanity?!?!?!?!? is out-ranking such a site basically impossible? Will it take 10 years of effort???)

I also believe that news and affiliate offers associated with my product will help build high quality links include .edu and .gov

An exact match aged domain for "diabetes symptoms" is not available... but the aged domain
www dot diabetesonline.com can be purchased.

www dot diabetesonline.com would cost me $2,500... but it is 6 years old so I get some aged domain juice. Within that aged domain, I would have tons of pages devoted to diabetes symptoms, and have the main title page for this section be www dot diabetesonline.com/diabetessymptoms

I could also optimize the page title, descriptions and headers for the keywords "diabetes symptoms". Basically.. I could have an aged domain and have all other on site SEO optimized, but I would not have an exact match URL.

OR

I could save the $2,500 and register a brand new domain: www dot diabetessymptomshq.com or www dot alldiabetessymptoms.com

This would give me an exact match domain, it would save me $2,500, but I would have no aged domain juice. It would also not be as good from a branding standpoint relative to my product.


Opinions? Which is better? WHY?

Is the entire idea of attempting to beat the competition in a niche like this absurd?

I REALLY appreciate any and all help!



Terry