Domain Name - Which is better?
-
I had a friend of mine ask me this question and I didn't really know how to go about answering.
He wants to know if, for example, www.cardealer.net is better than www.car-dealer.com or vice-versa? Both seem to be interchangeable to me. I hate websites with dashes in them but obviously it is necessary in some cases... ".net" is not my favorite either.
What would you recommend?
-
Both www.cardealer.net and www.car-dealer.com will lose type-in traffic to www.cardealer.com.
I would find another domain that is a .com without a hyphen. After you have put a lot of work into the site you don't want your traffic going to the competitor.
-
id take the .com
-
There are outside factors which need to be considered. The answer will not always be the same.
Clearly you prefer the cardealer.com domain. I would investigate that domain before making any decision.
Questions to ask:
-
What type of site is your friend trying to establish? Car sales?
-
What type of site currently operates the cardealer.com domain?
If you go with the .net domain, there will clearly be a percentage of your customers who type in the .com URL and wind up on cardealer.com. On one end of the spectrum, you may find that cardealer.com is a forum site discussing the good and bad points of various car dealers. That's not so bad. Some sites are even friendly enough to place a link on their home page such as "Were you looking for cardealer.com? Click here".
On the other hand, the site may be owned by a direct competitor. You will surely lose some customers who visit the wrong site. This issue can be worsened if your competitor's site is better designed then yours or offers lower prices.
You need to ask yourself "What can I do to get 100% of customers who seek me to my site without them landing on the .com site?" Determine which URL will achieve that result, and there is your answer.
-
-
I agree with dignan99 on the content points. More importantly I think you are hitting upon a marketing challenge than an SEO one. Both hyphens and .net's are not always remembered easily when verbally spoken. Another issue is that less experienced users may not think that .net is possible and instead try going to cardealer.net.com. When I have had to choose between the hyphenated or a .net domain name I just keep looking until I can find a domain name that doesn't have either.
-
It ultimately comes down to which site has the better content, is ideally optimized for your keywords and phrases, and has the best linkage presence.
All things being equal, its most likely a 1-2 scenario.
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
-
Duplicate content across domains
I have a client with 2 websites - one is a trucking and rigging company that specializes in installation / moving / removal of safes (site #1), the other offers a product line of safes (site #2). I originally designed / implemented site #1 and was able to get "safe installation New York", "safe moving New York", and "safe removal New York" in the top 3 search results in. A little over a year ago, client was approached by another marketing company to create the site #2, who also provided commercial services that I don't. It was a business decision, and we remained in good relations. As a result Site #1 went to the new marketing company and they built Site #2. Fast forward to about 3 months ago - Site #1 was infected with malware, client wasn't happy with new service, and asked me to take back the Site #1 ( and remove malware), and take Site #2, and re-work the SEO. SEO had dramatically fallen off for Site #1, so I've been working the SEO once I was able to get the malware completely removed and reviewed by Google. Site #1 had been redesigned by the other marketing company, essentially retaining the content that I created. Site #2 has mostly new content, but under "Services", it references the same services that Site #1provides, but the content is exactly the same, except that references to the company for Site #1 also link to Site #1. So there is duplicate content for 5 pages on both sites. As it happens, Site #2 that SELLS safes, is ranking #2 for "safe installation new york" for exactly the same content as Site #1 that provides the services. Site #1 ranks >50 for the same keyphrase. Why would this be? Has Site #2 taken the lead on this keyphrase because of the malware situation and now Site #1 is being penalized for duplicate content? One other major change on Site #1 is that the web technician used Wordpress's built in page nesting (page is set as child to parent page - nested 3 deep in some cases). What are the consequences (if there are any) of having a page listed as (for example) oztruckingandrigging.com/services/safe/safe-installation vs. oztruckingandrigging.com/safe-installation? The reason I ask this is that when I Moz page optimize for the first one for "safe installation" I get a lower grade then when I Moz page optimize for the second one.
Keyword Research | | chill9861 -
Point an expired domain name to web page on website.
I've found an expired domain name with the words Electrical Inspection. its a .co.uk domain. Apparently this key word has a search query of over 1000 per 12 month. I was thinking of purchasing it and having it redirect to one of my pages which is for electrical installation condition reports which is basically an electrical inspection. Is it worth purchasing and pointing to the page on my website (redirect) and how can I go about making it known to google? submit to webmaster tools and create a blog to do with EICR's? thanks for any help and advice Kev ps I found it on https://www.expireddomains.net
Keyword Research | | Peo19870 -
Domain Age
Hello I try to learn seo and find out this kind of problem. I have new domain it is registered 3 month ago and have different domain which register 3 years ago. One website is indexed and new website is not indexed. New domain have more backlinks and ahrefs authority. Doe domain age and domain expire time give any points to fast indexing and ranking ?
Keyword Research | | flickshine0 -
3 (similar) keywords - 3 (similar) domains - best strategy?
Hi all! I've got head scratcher here, your input would be super valuable! We have these 3 exact match domains. FloatTank.ca
Keyword Research | | BrightIdeas
IsolationTank.ca
SensoryDeprivationTank.ca The domains are all 3 different ways of saying the exact same thing - and each of the 3 keywords have roughly the same amount of traffic. Right now we are just providing information on Float Tanks / Isolation Tanks / Sensory Deprivation Tanks, their benefits are and how to use them, where to find a location etc. Do you have any strategies or advice considering the current domains and the points below? The content on each site would be VERY SIMILAR, as they are all talking about the same thing, "floating". Any suggestions for this? We want to (sometime in the near future) create a branded website. ie. FloatNation.ca in which we rank for all 3 of the above terms. Should we spin content for each site, and then create a 301 down the road to our main domain? Your input is appreciated! All the best,
Bright.0 -
Google ranks better apps over articles
Hello, On my quest to recover from Goolge´s updates I found out that the serps show apps and software downloads ranking better than content (articles or similar) for one of my most popular keywords. When the ads above the fold update hit my site (I can only assume that because of the date) I lost about 50% of my traffic). This keyword dopped from the first or second position to a steady fifth or sixth page position. Today, I was trying to research which sites outranked me and to my surprise no result in the first 15 position was an article, just apps and software downloads. It is not that is wrong. Let´s say that we are talking about an area similar to instagram software (although it doesn´t rank in this keyword). I´m not asking about my site. I simply want to know if the web apps (social sites) and mobile apps are taking over the content in serps. Is it that now you can´t go for a high place in the rankings (for certain keywords) if you are not a social site or an app? Thanks!
Keyword Research | | enriquef0 -
Picking the next best keyword rick domain
When keyword rich domain are occupying high serp's (exact match domain choices are already gone, ie. www.widgit1widgit2.com), what would be the next best choice for SEO www.widgit1-widgit2.com or www.mywidgit1widgit2.com Peter
Keyword Research | | peterds0 -
Keyword domain names
My two best key words are "gps tracking" and "vehicle tracking". For the Irish market I have got the two domain names: www.vehicletracking.ie www.gpstracking.ie Have a very poor landing page on www.vehicletracking.ie and just redirecting www.gpstracking.ie to our site. I am wondering what I should do thie these two assets? Should I be running them as micro sites? re directing them? Or something else? Let me know what you think. Andrew
Keyword Research | | fleurya0 -
Do building sites on expired domains help?
Many times I have wondered whether building sites on expired domains, which are sold at popular domain auction websites like TDNAM(Godaddy),SEDO etc. Is it of any worth ? Buying domains with existing parameters such as PR,Alexa ranks etc. and already indexed pages where these expired sites rank on keywords which one is looking forth and then building sites on these domains to promote your other sites. How successful would this trick be?
Keyword Research | | 99fusion0