Changing the domain - To do or not to do - that is the question
-
Hello,
I am in the process of updating my website (hopefully to improve SEO). It is a major update as we are going from 20,000 product line to 200,000 product lines and hiring two marketing people to work on more content. Unfortunately, I think my domain isn't the best
i.e.
Some of the parts have long part numbers and I am worried that my URLs will be too long i.e. I will lose link juice from the search engines.
typical url
www.direct-tractorparts.com/6XY41210TTTAZCAz2
I am thinking of launching the new site with a shorter domain name rather than updating the old site. My site doesn't have that many backlinks but generates a decent level of business for my company. Not sure if it would be worth setting up another brand or not
Anyone got any advice?
-
I think having a dash is no longer a negative thing. Matt Cutts has made many open public statements about using dashes in the URL. We currently have a domain in an extremely competitive keyword "keyword1--keyword2.com". it's performing extremely well after about three months. It's also a brand new domain. If you do end up going with the newer domain, make sure you use a permanent redirect (301) from your aged domain to your new one. This will pass most, if not all, of your link juice to your new domain. Google also tends to give new domains a quick boost in SERPs. This usually doesn't last too long, but could be a welcome surprise if your website of high quality. Cheers! Dmac
-
thanks for all the pointer.
I know the dash was a bad idea. We kind of fell into ecommerce by accident and it has been a case of trial and error.
My domain authority is 26/100 - so a lot of work to be done.
-
I would agree with Phil, I think the URL is pretty good. Ensure you categorise your site so your URLs don't end up massive and you'll be fine.
Your URL isn't actually that long.
DD
-
yeah I agree with searchpl, dashes in domain names should be one of the last resorts of making a domain name
-
There are a couple ways to go about this.
- It would be better if the new domain doesn't have a dash (-) in the name. Dashes are considered best practice after the .com. For example: www.brandname.com/dashes-go-here-instead
Then you could just 301 redirect the old domain to the new one so you get credit for most of the links you had on there.
- The deeper you get down in the site your URLS are going to get longer anyway. Example www.mystore.com/company/product/long-part-number
Changing your URL just to save characters isn't worth it. You would only wind up getting rid of a short amount of characters anyway (unless you plan on buying www.ab.com).
So only change the URL if it would be better for your brand in the long run.
-
www.direct-tractorparts.com/abc
If abc is a tractor part that will be searched for then your url seems pretty good to me. Your site is not available so I can only guess but you might want to look at categorising the site. eg where abc is a tractor engine part:
www.direct-tractorparts.com/engines/abc
I would not be concerned with urls this length but maybe someone else more expreieced might have a different opinion.
Phil
-
If the actual site have decent keywords in the url and is old enough, you should keep it.
Switch to another domain if the domain name is extremely good.
What domain authority do you have on the actual domain ?
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
-
Directing a domain.com/BLOG to a different host
Hello,
Web Design | | SharonEKG
i cant seem to figure out how to approach this matter. we have a website and a domain setup in one place and we wanted to setup a blog for that website on a different hosting, what do i have to do to link between the two to make it so when a user type domain com /blog he will get to our blog that is hosted on a different hosting plan? with the blog hosting plan we received a temporary domain that does not expire but i have been told that if i redirect to that temporary domain it wont work correctly also, if we do manage to go through that process will accessing the blog will the URL show domain com/blog or will still show the temporary given domain? is my only option is buying a new domain and just link between the two? Thanks!0 -
Domain name change
Dear team, If a website with a domain name - example - raisins.com wishes to change to peanuts.com is this a dangerous task or a relatively simple one? I hope that by keeping my Q short, provides ease.
Web Design | | AdrianCGreen0 -
Creating a new website, but I'd like to control it under a different domain.
I'd like to control it under the domain of another website with a higher DA. Can I create the new website (website A) and do an immediate re-direct to another website (website B)? Or would I be better at putting it as a subdomain? Such as www.websitea.websiteb.com? Cheers all, Rhys
Web Design | | SwanseaMedicine0 -
Changing top level navigation between site sections
We've got an internal proposal to change our top level nav depending on the section of the site. For example, on our homepage it might read: Products, Library, About with relevant links dropping down below. As we have varied products, the drop down underneath it would include the various families. When arriving on the product family page the top-level nav would change to represent more specific offerings. For example: xxx.com 1. Products; 2. Library; 3. About xxx.com/xxx 1. Product family 1; 2. Product family 2; 3. Product family 3; 4. Library; 5. About What are the SEO/UX implications of this? It seems confusing but allows more specific navigation via the main nav depending on the section of the site. Also it seems that an alternating TLN might not be too Google-friendly.
Web Design | | gwelch0 -
Is it possible to move a couple of posts and comments from one WP domain to another
Hi, We want to move a couple of dozen articles from one of our self-hosted wordpress website to another self-hosted Wordpress website. Is there a way to this such that the following content is also included in the migration:
Web Design | | seocuppa
1. Post content (including images and meta if possible)
2. Comments Do note the older site from which we want to move out the content has more than 2000 posts and we just want to move 60-70 posts. Thanks.0 -
Homepage Title Question? Multi-Keywords or All Encompassing Keyword
Okay so I am currently redesigning my company's webpage. I am making it responsive and giving it a more up to date look with newer features, etc. A facelift, basically. While updating the site i'm also doing some on-page optimization here and there, and am curious about the page title for my homepage. My company offers video production, web development & design, and web marketing. While we do offer each service individually, we are really trying to sell the combination of all three services to our clients and show them how they can work together effectively. Now my question is, in my homepage title, should i list each service offering keyword (which is what i do now) like this : "Video Production - Web Design - Web Marketing • Company Name" Or, should i try to find one keyword that kind of sums up what we do, like this: "Magic All-Encompassing Keyword • Company Name" I'm thinking that since three sort of unrelated keywords are in the page title, it may be viewed as over-optimizing and we won't see as good of results as just focusing on one keyword, which leads me to think that i should try to sum all of our services into one "all-encompassing" keyword such as "media production", which isn't the best choice, i'm just throwing it out there for the sake of this discussion. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Web Design | | RenderPerfect0 -
URL question for SEO...
I'm thinking of creating a new url off an existing url and was wondering if there would be any impact. For example I have the URL www.baseball.com and rather than secure a new url for a new product launch such as www.newbaseballproduct.com I want to do newproduct.baseball.com Will this hurt my SEO rankings for this new site? Basically wanting to figure out if this will hurt me or not? Should I get a new url or re-utilize an existing URL... really for a landing page/micro site, etc.,
Web Design | | gritacco0