Domain Name Switch Considering Special Circumstances
-
Thank you kindly for taking the time to read this.
The company I work with is a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. They've had the same domain since about 2001. Their organic placement has been stellar since about 2008. With the most recent Panda update some results did slip, but they are still strong & I feel that the SEPRs that slipped will be back up shortly (hopefully!)
The company recently bought the url www.VegasWeddings.com which happens to be a generic key phrase, BUT ALSO IS THE NAME OF THE BUSINESS. They want to switch, but I am in a bit of a conundrum of this. It seems really risky, but also makes a lot of sense.
Help? Insight? Anything?
Thank you dearly!!!
-
This has been such a great thread, I decided to add a little more information on my problem redirect and a personal theory....
When I redirected domainA.com to keyworddomain.com, domainA.com had been on the web for nearly ten years with #1 rankings for its products for almost that entire time, The domain had lots of mentions had, lots of domain queries and a great history with google.
When you do a 301 redirect, I believe that only redirects a fraction of your assets. It is only a mechanical redirect of the file names on your server and search engines know how to follow it and attribute links.
However, I do not believe that a 301 transfers all of the mentions of your brand that appear on other sites or the domain queries that you have been receiving, any social value and other off-page assets that search engines might give you credit for. (I don't know what they can do about local, since that is never a concern for me.)
So the more work you have put into your site related to branding the greater your loss will be when you walk away from the domain. When I put my site up on keyworddomain.com Google's followed the 301s but had every right to ask.... "WHO IS THIS?"...
This new domain was a Nobody.
No one asks for it by name through the google seach box, nobody is typing the domain in the address bar of the Chrome browser, the name is not mentioned in association with all of my products on many other websites, in blogs and in forums. I lost all of those assets and that is why I personally believe the rankings dropped.
Robert gives great suggestions for an attempt to reclaim some of these "other offsite assets". I think he has good ideas that I did not do.
People rarely if ever talk about these "other offsite assests" so we are ringing their bell here.
-
Excellent and passionate discussion here, guys! Proud to see this kind of care and growth being exchanged in this thread.
Leslieevarts, you've asked a truly important question here. I would agree with this:
-
EMDs can still help but if you do change over to the new domain, I would expect you to see a drop like EGOL has described. And don't forget that, in Local, you would need to have a plan in action to correct every citation that exists for the business to edit the domain name, too, should you choose to go with this route. Your drop could last months, years, or even be permanent. Tough decision.
-
As Robert has pointed out, it would not be a good idea to run 2 local websites at once. The chaos that can result from this choice would be most unwelcome for the you and the business owner, so steer clear of this.
So, basically, I feel that the answer to your question depends on whether the client determines that he can face an indefinite period of loss because the hoped-for eventual gain will be great enough to make it worthwhile.
-
-
Thanks Lesley, and again, with ecommerce it would matter much less.
Best
-
I am going to have to go back to the drawing board with this, I was not aware of these issues. I am going to edit my post to reflect.
-
Lesley,
I know you and like you but this is TERRIBLE advice.
Google is fully aware of Regis and most larger virtual office suppliers. They are also aware of the street address look of UPS stores. I understand that people are doing it; I can show you a client who is large who cannot get his main office into the Local Pack in a major city due to trying to play games with this. He is a service area business in a major US city and he is the largest by double the next two competitors. This is a very competitive vertical. (Like wedding chapel Las Vegas.)
Because we are friends I know your business and I know that you are likely talking about an ecommerce company and that is a totally different issue from a wedding chapel. That wedding chapel will live and die with Local. An ecommerce site by its very nature does not; yes, local may help it and you may be able to game the system for a while, but that does not mean you should do it if you have a true bricks and mortar business.
Trust me this advice you are giving is the most dangerous kind there is with Local. I urge anyone who is considering this to stay far away from it. Do not believe because a few have gotten away with it that you will. If you are a service business and being in a Pack is important, you must consider with the recent update/change/Pigeon poop from Google that some industries in some cities have critical KW terms that now show a one pack. What if that business must be in the one pack to be successful and Google discovers the office is not real? It can affect everything Local.
Please do not give advice like this. Local is a true sub specialty of SEO and if you are not living it daily you should pass your clients to some firm that has a pro.
That is just pure experience talking,
Robert
-
If it needs a redesign anyways (since it's ancient) then go do it.
Drops will happen. Nobody can tell you exactly what will happen because some experienced big drops. Some, none at all. I've experienced mostly positive with it. Dropping a couple spots but eventually gaining it back
The only thing we know is that there's a lot of work involved.
Just be sure the social branding is changed, make it consistent and be sure the urls are properly directed to the new urls. Let the thin pages die and direct them to a cute 404 page. Be sure to use their list to let their previous clients know.
Just warn them, let them know what's involved, the many hours that theyll need to pay and what CAN happen. Let them sign a contract if needed.
It might even net you some good local PR which will just be great links.
-
My thought is this, there is one type of spam that is becoming more pervasive in our industry that I never see anyone talking about. It is address and location spam. Google has a lot of the spam mechanisms together, but this one I think is very hard to combat. Companies without a physical address can basically buy a real address from companies like Regus and then be listed in local results. In reality all they are doing is making up mailbox numbers. Like 123 street Suite 3, there is no suite 3 but Google still recognizes it as a non PO box address and uses it in local results. I have had many clients that operate several facets of online e-commerce sites out of one office. They might have a makeup site, an electronics site, and a sporting goods site, all drop shipping from the same 300 square foot office. Generally I get them to ask their postal worker if there is an issue with changing their address into suites. They never say no, or haven't yet. But all the mail for 123 street suite #1, suite #2, suite #3 all gets dropped at the same box.
I have had a couple clients that sell products that are legal in their country and are now coming online as legal in certain states in the US. By them getting virtual office packages it has allowed them to move their businesses into local markets that they can service as well. In those cases I have seen it work exceptionally because of the strict geographical targeting.
-
Leslieevarts
First, I like EMD's a lot (even though we all know they have been losing value over time). Also, I think EGOL makes a really important point: with a client you have to lead with, "While typically this will not be a problem, with any change to an existing site, you risk losing some or all of your value." What we add to this is: We keep a complete FTP file of your old site and can put it back up if something goes critically wrong. While that should ameliorate any major issue, not even that is a guarantee you can get back what was lost."
If they question why you say that and that Brand b did not, simply say this, "I would be wary of anyone who can promise nothing bad will happen. I do not know Brand b and they may be a great firm, but guaranteeing anything today on the Internet is really playing with fire."
That said, I would change to the new domain and redirect current urls to the new ones using accepted good practices for 301 redirects. You will need to do a change of address in WMT and resubmit (submit the new) sitemap.
I would not build a new site and also switch as you are adding a variable to the change and that is scary to me. Wait until the change takes effect and you have had time to test it out (2 to 3 months is reasonable). Then if you want to create a new site, you should be ok.
I hope we have not scared or confused you. I can tell you that we regularly redirect sites, and somewhat less regularly we change domains. The most recent was about a month ago and we started seeing the links from the old domain on the new about a month after the change (In GWMT). So don't think it will happen in a day or two. Your change of address should help you with the rankings, but even that is not a guarantee.
All the best,
Robert
-
Lesley,
I understand fully what you are saying but have to disagree. Remember, if the chapel has only one address you cannot do this and should not do it. You totally endanger the money maker with a plan like this when you add "Local," etc.
Best
Robert
-
**The following is bad advice, I am just leaving the text so people can see what it is, so no one follows it. **
If it were me, I would do make a totally different site, on a totally different server (hosting company) with totally different registration information. From there I would basically maintain two sites, maybe get a second phone number, maybe even split the address so you can use local citations.
But, I would not move the main site over to the new domain. The hit you would take would take a long time to recover from like EGOL said.
-
This is not advice. Just a report.
About 12 years ago I built a website on a decent domain and it went to #1 rankings on a number of commercial keywords, beating a couple of well-known manufacturers, amazon, staples and others. This website's rankings seemed great to me and it was getting over 1000 visitors per month who typed the old domain as a keyword into the google search.
Then about three years ago I acquired the perfect domain and confidently redirected the old domain to the new. I changed nothing on the website except switching instances of domainA.com to keyworddomain.com. Oh.. phooey... I don't know what happened but rankings dropped from #1 to #3 for the good money queries.
Rankings stayed at #3 for several months, then, after over one year finally got back the #1 ranking, occasionally slipping and jumping back up, curiously the recover occurred when domain queries got back up to about 1000 per month on the new domain. (This was immediately before google started blocking keyword information). Now after two years, stable again, but I lost a lot of sales and my current ranking at #1 might be because the strong manufacturer might have a Panda problem in my opinion.
So, just saying that things don't always go as planned. Best to tell the client that there is some risk involved.
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
-
Company Name in Home Page Title? If and Where?
My guess is you want to do the {title} | {company name} format as I would suspect Google gives slightly more weight to the words at the beginning of the title? (This is assuming your company name isn't a generic word or you are specifically trying to rank your home page for your company name when it isn't ranking well already) But what about cases where you have like 5 or 6 keywords that are really important and used in the title gives you like 50 characters and your company name pushed it up to like 65 increasing the chance Google will use some other source to list the name of your home page in the search results? Obviously one can experiment, but wondering what the general consensus is - long keyword title, or longer title with company name? The company name can be included in the meta description and the domain name of the url displayed also gives the indication to the company. But maybe the algo "respects" long itles that have company name more than ones without as then it looks more like a keyword stuffing title? So many factors to consider. Yes - on page SEO isn't just about the title, but for this thread I'm just talking home page title.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Wizkids9641 -
Purchasing an existing domain + redirecting to company's domain
Let's pretend that competitor.com ranks well for certain search terms and generates some traffic from organic search. If a company were to acquire the competitor (or their domain), what's the smartest way to redirect that SEO value to the acquiring company's website? Does a 301 redirect work between different root domains? Even if it does work, is that the smartest approach? Thanks for your help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Raleigh0 -
Cross Domain duplicate content...
Does anyone have any experience with this situation? We have 2 ecommerce websites that carry 90% of the same products, with mostly duplicate product descriptions across domains. We will be running some tests shortly. Question 1: If we deindex a group of product pages on Site A, should we see an increase in ranking for the same products on Site B? I know nothing is certain, just curious to hear your input. The same 2 domains have different niche authorities. One is healthcare products, the other is general merchandise. We've seen this because different products rank higher on 1 domain or the other. Both sites have the same Moz Domain Authority (42, go figure). We are strongly considering cross domain canonicals. Question 2 Does niche authority transfer with a cross domain canonical? In other words, for a particular product, will it rank the same on both domains regardless of which direction we canonical? Ex: Site A: Healthcare Products, Site B: General Merchandise. I have a health product that ranks #15 on site A, and #30 on site B. If I use rel=canonical for this product on site B pointing at the same product on Site A, will the ranking be the same if I use Rel=canonical from Site A to Site B? Again, best guess is fine. Question 3: These domains have similar category page structures, URLs, etc, but feature different products for a particular category. Since the pages are different, will cross domain canonicals be honored by Google?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AMHC1 -
What has a better chance of ranking alongside my main site for my company name, a subdomain or new domain?
Hi Moz, Do search engines really treat subdomains as separate domains in this regard? Or are we more likely to get more real estate on the first page with a new domain? Our goal is to have our main site and this new subdomain or domain ranking in positions 1 and 2 for our company name. This is going to be a careers site/portal. Thanks for reading!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DA20130 -
Should sub domains to organise content and directories?
I'm working on a site that has directories for service providers and content about those services. My idea is to organise the services into groups, e.g. Web, Graphic, Software Development since they are different topics. Each sub domain (hub) has it's own sales pages, directory of services providers and blog content. E.g. the web hub has web.servicecrowd.com.au (hub home) web.servicecrowd.com.au/blog (hub blog) http://web.servicecrowd.com.au/dir/p (hub directory) Is this overkill or will it help in the long run when there are hundreds of services like dog grooming and DJing? Seems better to have separate sub domains and unique blogs for groups of services and content topics.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ServiceCrowd_AU0 -
New Domain Vs. Existing Domain
Hello, A potential client of mine has been blacklisted because of bad SEO process basically they have over 1,500 toxic links on their site. They have penalised to such an extent that they are now on page 12 for most of their keywords and not ranking well on brand terms either. They are keen to on to a new domain entirely and ditch their current domain when we design their new site. I wanted to get people's opinion on whether this is the best course of action or should we try to salvage the current domain? Many thanks, Mat
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Barques-Design0 -
SEO value in baclklink from blog.domain VS domain
Will a back-link from "domain.com/abc" and "blog.domain.com/abc" have same value from an SEO perspective? Assume same article written on both sites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen
I have been told the bots look at the domain value and the only links from blogs that have less value are in case of comments. As long as the "blog.domain/abc" page includes a full article and not a blog comment then it counts fully for SEO. Is this correct?0 -
Content on New Domain or Sub Directory of Existing Domain?
I have a client with a well aged, high DA site. They rank well for their wedding photography business in several cities. They are launching a new service which is related to photography (photobooths and flipbooks) which they built and developed content on a new domain. The existing domain has 0 links with a DA of 1. The site is brand new.. Is there any drawback to moving the existing content on the new domain to a sub directory of the high authority domain? EX: http://domain.com/newcompany The look, feel, and design of the new site / service is much different than the high DA site. My thoughts are that this will give them an automatic step up, especially since they will be marketing this in several major cities. Also, since the design will be different, if it is good to move to the subdir, should we put the new company name in the subdir folder or something keyword friendly like domain.com/photobooth as opposed to domain.com/newcompanyname. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | itrogers0