Influence on CTR for high traffic keyword in url and redirect
-
I currently dominate on my site for a very high traffic keyword. My url contains this keyword in it along with the word "Free" in the beginning. Lets say my keyword is "This Keyword" then my url would be freethiskeyword.com. I rank 3rd for this keyword and generates me about 8k on a low month. I was just able to obtain my main keyword as my sole URL through an auction for a measly 2,000.00. (Very Excited about this).
So now I have the URL thiskeyword.com
What I want to know is what kind of influence can I expect with my new URL have in CTR.
Since it is a high traffic keyword is there a automatic "Trust" factor that is involved and will users tend to click on thiskeyword.com as apposed to freethiskeyword.com?
My Second Question
I am torn as to what I should do with this new URL. Should I redirect my old URL to my new URL and keep both pointing to the same site? or should I try and dominate my niche and build a new site entirely. Since I currently make about 8k a month for third, if I were to build a separate site and be able to obtain 1st place for my new keyword that would generate me 2 amounts in income based on stats.
CTR based on http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2049695/Top-Google-Result-Gets-36.4-of-Clicks-Study
freethiskeyword.com = 8k/m for 3rd based on 10% of clicks (currently)
thiskeyword.com = 24k/m for 1st based on 36% of clicks (in theory)
If I keep each site separate and be able to have one site at 3rd and the other at 1st then I would be making about 32k a month.
If I redirect my old url to my new url then I would only have 1st place (if I make it to first of course) and that would only make me 24k a month.
It seems to me I should keep these sites separate to generate more income. I am torn what I should do. Also with the EMD penalty I am afraid to 301 my site to my new URL since it is my exact keyword as apposed to my current one. I am defiantly branded as "Free This Keyword" so moving it to thiskeyword.com could hurt me more than help (at least I think so)
What you think?
-
"The other way is to make a few extra bucks and invest in them in tissues. You will need them when you wake up to the "Site not found in the top 100" X 2."
Well Said and yeah that would suck
I am thinking that moving from freethiskeyword.com -> thiskeyword.com cant hurt me from a Google sense, unless the EMD does.
-
As David says a lot depends on the niche/keyword/competition scene, but if I may play the devils advocate:
I am not sure how valid that ctr data is with all the ongoing layout changes google has been trying out. Good ctr data seems nearly impossible to find but this report http://www.slingshotseo.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Google-vs-Bing-CTR-Study-2012.pdf makes for an interesting read, and the numbers are substantially lower.
Beyond that, what you are suggesting sounds a bit like playing with fire! You are making 8 grand a month now on 3rd? Surely it would less time consuming to further strengthen that site than to build another one from scratch? How long did it take for you to get to 3rd?
And 301'ing a near exact match domain to an exact match domain in today's landscape.... well that just sounds a bit risky!
I think David hits it on the head with: "The other way is to make a few extra bucks and invest in them in tissues".
Just my two cents.
-
Several factors are at hand. I understand the obscurity but it also makes your question impossible to answer because a keyword like Nike or Coke is going to have a huge effect while a keyword like Chicago is going to have next to none.
The separate sites does in deed have some merit but I would look into that. I know that Google is on the hunt for the same businesses that are trying to keep two sites in the organics acting like they are different but in fact are not.
No matter what I did, I would move fast because it will not be long until keywords being in the URL will have little to no effect at all, unless a branded keyword of course.
The other thing to consider is that sending clicks from 1 and 3 to an experience that is noticeably the same offering is only going to skyrocket your bounce rate, maybe on both sites and then send them to the bottom of the tank.
If you are to get your new site up to the top spot, you are going to have to build a completely unique and individually relevant experience for it to do you any good and I would make sure to not have them sharing any resources.
My personal advice, if you want to make the switch then do it Google's way. I know many do not like that path but personally, I have enough challenges from day to day without positioning myself where a $200 billion company is dedicated to blocking my success.
For my business we provide services to a broad client base and people were getting confused on a single site. At the end of the day, we build websites for people first and everything else is second on. For UX it was necessary and we did what we had to do. We fight to still make it very clear to the bots that we are one company and we have some overlapping content which now we can cross domain canonical. The right way is to 301 your old site to your new once it is up in the rankings and pass your juice. The other way is to make a few extra bucks and invest in them in tissues. You will need them when you wake up to the "Site not found in the top 100" X 2.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Migrating From Parameter-Driven URL's to 'SEO Friendly URL's (Slugs)
Hi all, hope you're all good and having a wonderful Friday morning. At the moment we have over 20,000+ live products on our ecomms site, however, all of the products are using non-seo friendly URL's (/product?p=1738 etc) and we're looking at deploying SEO friendly url's such as (/product/this-is-product-one) etc. As you could imagine, making such a change on a big ecomms site will be a difficult task and we will have to take on A LOT of content changes, href-lang changes, affiliate link tests and a big 301 task. I'm trying to get some analysis together to pitch the Tech guys, but it's difficult, I do understand that this change has it's benefits for SEO, usability and CTR - but I need some more info. Keywords in the slugs - what is it's actual SEO weight? Has anyone here recently converted from using parameter based URL's to keyword-based slugs and seen results? Also, what are the best ways of deploying this? Add a canonical and 301? All comments greatly appreciated! Brett
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0 -
How keywords and subfolders connect
I'm working on restructuring my site. We have main topic areas, and any given visitor will ONLY be interested in 1 of those topics. So to consolidate the information into a simpler format, I want to take all the various pieces of content and wrap them under a given topic. [There is a question in here, I promise.] So I want to create www.domain.com/topic/subtopic-1, /topic/subtopic-2, etc. [Yes, I will apply all necessary redirects for any new URL restructuring.] Now here's the question: If I want to rank for "Peanut Butter Sandwiches with Jelly" and "Peanut Butter Sandwiches with Jam," will I be able to structure the URLs as /peanut-butter/sandwiches-with-jelly/, or should I go /peanut-butter/peanut-butter-sandwiches-with-jelly? And please note, /peanut-butter/ will likely redirect to /peanut-butter/subtopic-1/ since it won't make sense to have /peanut-butter/ on its own. [PB&J is just an example.] What's the best way to go about this? Any recommendations? I really appreciate your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jheath0 -
URL construction in 2014
Hey guys, I was wondering if you could tell me your thoughts about how a URL is perceived by the algo in 2014? For example: http://www.moneyexpert.com/reviews/credit-cards/amex-platinum/ and lets say http://www.moneyexpert.com/reviews_credit-cards_review_amex-platinum.html In the eyes of google do both different style of url generally help google understand the same result? or will the keyword rich html url have a bigger benefit? I am looking forward to your advice on this matter. I don't plan on doing a lot of SEO but rather letting nature take its course so to speak... so i just wanted to make sure i construct this site with 'best practice'.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | irdeto0 -
301 Redirection and apostrophes in URLs
Hi I am experiencing trouble getting any redirects with apostrophes in the URLs to 301 redirect in order to eliminate 404 errors. I have tried replacing the instance of the apostrophe in the source URL field to %27 and variations of this but to no avail. The site is a wordpress site (the old URLS are legacies from the old Business Catalyst site) and I am using the redirection plug in. I have gone into some detail with a helpful soul here http://wordpress.org/support/topic/how-to-deal-with-apostrophes-in-source-url but unfortunately to no result. If anyone has any idea how to solve this puzzle I would be grateful for the help. Example: http://www.tesselaars.com/blog/Inside_Flowers/post/Online_Marketing_for_Florists_Part_1%E2%80%93_A_Website_You_Won%27t_Regret/
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Seamoose0 -
Outranking a crappy outdated site with domain age & keywords in URL.
I'm trying to outrank a website with the following: Website with #1 ranking for a search query with "City & Brand" Domain Authority - 2 Domain Age - 11 years & 9 months old Has both the City & brand in the URL name. The site is crap, outdated.. probably last designed in the 90's, old layouts, not a lot of content & NO keywords in the titles & descriptions on all pages. My site ranks 5th for the same keyword.. BEHIND 4 pages from the site described above. Domain Authority - 2 Domain Age - 4 years & 2 months old Has only the CITY in the URL. Brand new site design this past year, new content & individual keywords in the titles, descriptions on each page. My main question is.... do you think it would be be beneficial to buy a new domain name with the BRAND in the URL & CITY & 301 redirect my 4 year old domain to the new domain to pass along the authority it has gained. Will having the brand in the URL make much of a difference? Do you think that small step would even help to beat the crappy but old site out? Thanks for any help & suggestions on how to beat this old site or at least show up second.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DCochrane0 -
How to do a 301 redirect for url's with this structure?
In an effort to clean up my url's I'm trying to shorten them by using a 301 redirect in my .htaccess file. How would I set up a rule to grab all urls with a specific structure to a new shorter url examples: http://www.yakangler.com/articles/reviews/other-reviews/item/article-title http://www.yakangler.com/reviews/article-title So in the example above dynamically redirect all url's with /articles/reviews/other-reviews/item/ in it to /reviews/ so http://www.yakangler.com/articles/reviews/boat-reviews/item/1550-review-nucanoe-frontier http://www.yakangler.com/articles/reviews/other-reviews/item/1551-review-spyderco-salt http://www.yakangler.com/articles/reviews/fishing-gear-reviews/item/1524-slayer-inc-sinister-swim-tail would be... http://www.yakangler.com/reviews/1550-review-nucanoe-frontier http://www.yakangler.com/reviews/1551-review-spyderco-salt http://www.yakangler.com/reviews/1524-slayer-inc-sinister-swim-tail with one 301 redirect rule in my .htaccess file.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mr_w0 -
Automatic redirect to external urls
Hi, there is a way to create a "bridge page" with automatic url redirect ( 302 ) without google penalization? In this moment, my bridge pages are indexed on google with title and description of the redirected page.. Thanks in advance. Mauro.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | raulo790 -
Subdirectory URLs
If I have category pages for my site; is it better to use http://example.com/category/category or just http://example.com/category? Also, I'm creating a new section of the site; a resource center. Should the URLs of the pages in the resource center be http://example.com/learn/page or just http://example.com/page What are the reasons for the better choice?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Visually0