Avoid Keyword in New Domain Name?
-
We are looking to rebrand our domain name. Our existing domain is www.nyc-officespace-leader.com.
We own www.metro-manhattan.com and were hoping to use this domain. The company name is Metro Manhattan Office Space, Inc.
Is the fact that the new domain contains "Manhattan" a negative? I know that the fact that it has a hyphen is weak.
Manhattan is part of such keywords as "Manhattan office space". Regarding the company name, is the fact that it contains the target phrase "Manhattan office space" bad? Our company name may sound like exact match anchor text and I am not sure what to do about this if anything. I would really prefer to keep our name but it is necessary to change it to improve SEO we will do so. Would it be better to change to a new name like "Integrity Real Estate" which does not contain target phrases or keywords ("real estate" is not a major target phrase as it is to generic) ? Or how something like www.mmos.com for the domain and leave the company name alone?
How would I go about finding a company that would assist is in creating an SEO friendly domain name and perhaps a new corporate name if necessary?
Thanks, Alan
-
I _really _doubt that you'd see any negative effects from having one hyphen in the domain name. Google is trying to discourage domains like www.best-office-space-in-nyc-new-york.com—that is, spammy, keyword-stuffed domains. Of course, I can't make any guarantees on that, but I'd be pretty surprised if that one hyphen caused any noticeable trouble.
That said, you may want to just check on the domain sans-hyphen, if only so you can sleep a little better.
-
Hi Matt:
That makes sense. Regarding competition from domains such as mta.info we are targeting a completely different set of keywords relating to office space and commercial real estate in Manhattan, so I would think that we would not have to worry about competing with them.
On another note, do you think that having one hyphen in the domain harms us from an SEO perspective? I understand that visitors might have more difficulty in remembering the domain and returning, however I wonder if there is a direct effect on ranking.
Not sure if the domain without hyphens is available and we already own metro-manhattan.
Thanks, Alan
-
I wouldn't worry too much about the TLD.
Honestly, having an exact-match domain is really only an issue when it's part of an over-optimization or spam issue—if the brand name is "Metro Manhattan Office Space, Inc." then metro-manhattan.com seems like a perfectly reasonable domain name. I sincerely doubt that you'd see any negative effect.
Of course, you'll need to keep in mind that you'll have a lot of competition on the SERPs, including from sites like mta.info (DA 88).
Make sense?
-
Hi there
King - if you're looking for a company to assist you in the domain name of your website, check out the Recommended List from Moz. There are a ton of great companies in that list.
While I will say that I still do not agree in making your domain keyword heavy (preferably sticking to brand and business name), I must say that you are asking a pretty loaded question for the Q+A section, as naming or renaming a business is something that is conversation for you and your team outside of Moz; it's not a question for strangers that have nothing to do with your business and how it functions - be careful!
To me, www.mmos.com seems totally fine - as long as your market the website name as such and are consistent in your business listings and citations. Again, as far as renaming, that's a question I do not want to touch, personally.
Hope this all helps! Good luck!
-
Hi Sandi:
Thanks for your response!!
Our niche (commercial real estate) is competitive and the most obvious/best domain names are taken. Whether it is best to use a keyword phrase in the domain seems unclear. Not sure if one desirable word (like "Manhattan" in our case) would be a plus. Not certain the effect of an actual phrase like "Manhattan office space". I have heard that now a days a competitive phrase in a domain is a ranking minus.
Many of our competitors (regus.com, 42floors.com) do not use any keyword in their domain. But they also have a massive advertising and SEO budget to build links and create brand recognition. As a small firm I don't have that budget.
There is also a question about how brand names will appear in anchor text and if that anchor text then appears more like a money term or a brand.
In terms of domains, choices would be greater if we use a non.com domain. But I don't know how Google would view this. We also have the option of getting a ".NYC" domain (we are in New York City) but not certain if this would be a ranking plus.
-
Having your targeted keyword in the domain is highly recommended but not the only deciding factor in SEO rankings. As long as you have a good Branding and relevant, fresh content on the website, build up your social media profiles - not having the keyword in domain name should not impact you too much.
Personally I would opt for something that is a bit shorter so its easy to remember, punchy in print media/business cards and reduces user error if they are trying to go to your site by typing in the URL after seeing it somewhere.
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
-
How to Measure Impact and Potential Strategies for Competitors with Similar Brand Name in the Same Industry
Hello Everyone, So we have a site (brand1.com) but one of our competitors has a very similar brand name and domain (brand2.org). They’re similar enough that could be confused by users and search engines and target the same topics. When you do a manual brand search they would come up and both have about the same Domain Authority. Assuming we can’t have them take their site down do any of you have any thoughts on how we could potentially measure potential impact they might be having or ideas on how best to approach this? Our thought was to track what they are and are not doing so we could do it at a higher level or fill in what’s missing. We would also emphasize differences with an emphasis on local optimization (they’re in a different area). We would love to be able to have some concrete data on whether they’re having an impact so thought we would find out if any of you have any experience or insight? Any help would be very much appreciated. Please let us know if there’s any further details we could provide that might help. Looking forward to hearing from all of you! Thanks in advance. Best,
Branding | | Ben-R0 -
Choosing a domain
Hello Mozzers! If given a list of 25 domains that are all owned by the client, and all relevant to their website, what criteria would you use to choose one? Long story short, the client sold the original domain and now needs a new one. Thanks!
Branding | | FrankSweeney
Frank0 -
My 40 year old, well established business has a brand name that I think is hurting my SEO. Need advice please.
Our business brand name has words in it which when we were using it as our domain name, was a) bad for our SEO and b) got our emails marked as spam in our client's inboxes. This was not a problem when we first got online, years ago. It eventually became problematic, but we didn't realize it for some time. When we realized the issue, we simply changed our domain name to something more SEO friendly, using exact match keywords. This was fine for a while, but eventually, algorithms changed again, and now with Google putting an emphasis on Brand Names and not looking as kindly on exact match keyword type domains, we are again at a place where we don't know what to do. We can't change our brand name. I don't want to post our real name or business here, but I will give an example. Brand Name: Living Free Travel The Issue: "Free Travel" gets blocked by spam filters, gets us useless traffic from people looking for free travel (which makes out bounce rates very high), gets our domain blacklisted. The Solution: travel2europe.com is the website of Living Free Travel The New Issue: travel2europe.com is not our brand, and probably doesn't look like one to Google, especially since on our site, travel2europe.com is never really mentioned because it is only our domain, not our brand. "Living Free Travel" is generally the anchor text for travel2europe.com wherever we are linked to. We assume this mismatch is problematic for us in ways we don't even know. Are we screwed? Need advice, please. THANK YOU.
Branding | | benenjerry0 -
Should we use one domain with product-specific sub-domains or separate domains per product?
We are resellers of 4 separate products. Currently we have numerous different websites promoting each product, not all of them use a URL which has any real link to our business - it's only when you land on the page that it contains brand images, etc. We are in the process of redesigning and rebranding, and want to know what would be the best course of action to take in terms of domain registration. This is what we have currently, for example: - www.accounts-solutions.co.uk - This site deals with the resale and support of a branded accounts package. www.software-accounts-systems.co.uk - This site deals with the resale and support of a second branded accounts product. In terms of moving forward with new domains, which are going to contain our business name, our options are as follows: - OPTION 1 - www.our-business-name.co.uk/product1/etc, www.our-business-name.co.uk/product2/etc, www.our-business-name/product3/etc where all products are given separate sub-domains within our main business page. OPTION 2 - www.our-business-name-product1.co.uk/etc, www.our-business-name-product2.co.uk/etc, www.our-business-name-product3.co.uk/etc where each product we resell is given it's own separate domain entirely. Does anyone think one direction over another would give any benefits in terms of SEO, or would it not matter as long as each site was well optimised with a solid content and social strategy? My initial preference is for the first option, if only because of the continuity in terms of having one main company website with each product listed in sub-domains. Each landing page would obviously be optimised for each specific product/keyword, etc. so, from a user point of view, there shouldn't be any confusion between separate products. Also, would it be recommended to install 301 redirects from our existing www.accounts-solutions.co.uk, etc pages to the relevant new sites? Thanks, John
Branding | | HBPGroup0 -
Merging domains will sum the authority?
Hi guys, I have two websites that are almost the same, I am working to merge them. One domain have authority 44 and other 24... After I merge I will have authority 68? Should I keep the older domain or the newer? The newer has my keyword in the URL but the older have 10 years. Thank you
Branding | | Felip30 -
Domain Authority Mind = Blown
Hi guys, I've focused on building my domain authority for a while now, it's stll low but i'm sure it'll increase. My competitors have 0 backlinks to most of there products which is good, i guess. However they have a domain authority of around 70-80. Which is really high. There product pages get a page authority from 60-70+ which means they rank very high with no backlinks. I can easily out rank them by getting backlinks but it's a very time consuming and costs quite a bit of money to out source it. My question is... is it really all about page/domain authority? I can't see any other factors that allow them to rank high for the products. Also my mind is blown as you can create a blog with a high Domain authority such as Wordpress but that doesn't mean your blog will instantly rank high right? Is there something i'm missing with there website? I'm so confused right now! Any help would be great. Main competitor is: http://www.stinkyinkshop.co.uk along with http://www.cartridgesave.co.uk (Stinkyink to be a member here actually)
Branding | | InkCartridgesFast0 -
New Social Media Site + META Tags for User Profiles
I'm currently in the process of building a social media site and was deciding whether or not to add META descriptions/keywords for individual user profiles. After reviewing Facebook, I noticed that in the META Description field, user profile pages just inherited the values for Facebook (there were no META keywords); and, when I reviewed LinkedIn, there was no META description/keywords at all. After this investigation, I figured it might be a question best addressed to the SEO community. With that, what do you guys think? If you were building a social media site, would you have META description + META keywords for each user's profile? If so, what would be the best way to optimize the individual profiles so they rank highly within the search engines?
Branding | | NiallSmith0 -
Branding/Domain Challenge
A year and a half ago, SEO was all new to me and I may have made a mistake that looks to be a problem now. In a misguided quest to rank higher and faster, I used a domain for it's keywords and quick ranking potential rather than using my business' name URL. I've built the links and authority to where I'm now ranking well for many of my local search terms which is important for my local business success. The situation is that now I want to expand my business nationally as a franchise which will require my company's name in the domain(?), and the addition of entirely new pages and terms. My company's name' URL> www.ImpactMMAfitness.com is pointed to my site www.austinfitnessgyms.com and GA shows a significant # of visitors type our name in to find us. I also think it would be odd for someone outside my town looking for franchise info to be pointed to a different domain with Austin in it. I was wondering what option would be best: Keep as is Change domains - ouch!? Make a new second site ? I have 'ImpactFranchise.com I could use for a new site just for franchising but I would be starting at the bottom for any rankings. Is there a solution, or did I dig myself into a hole?
Branding | | OhYeahSteve0