Domain Name Change

[Brightstar]

Hi

Just wondering what anyone thinks about changing a domain name to include a major keyword.

Presently I have the domain name www.acaciamasonic.com. I was thinking of changing it to use one of the most used keywords for my niche which is masonic regalia. The domain name would become www.acacia-masonic-regalia.com.

I am aware that 301 re-directs would be needed, along with other changes.

The question is, for all the effort, what is the opinion if it would help (or harm) SEO wise?

All my major competitors have a variation of this keyword in their domain name, and appear on page one for this keyword. I also ran an SEO tool called SEOMoz, and it suggests this change as well.

[leehack]

NO, No and NO. Your woes are nothing to do with domain name, they are to do with a number of things on your site not being as good or as relevant as your competition. Your only real question tbh should be do i keep fumbling around in the dark hoping to achieve something or do i give a professional chance to prove his worth.

Time after time we hear of stories like yours, frustrated at what you cannot achieve, yet you flout almost every basic rule there is. Give up and focus on what you are good at, SEO is not one of them i'm afraid.

[Chunkford]

Part of the ranking algo is domain age. Buying a brand new domain will restrict you short term.

[Mike Hughes]

Hi Steve,

Changing to a domain name with 'masonic regalia' in it would improve some aspects of your ranking for that search term. But remember that there are all sorts of different algorithms that kick in at different stages so it would be a rocky ride with ups and downs and you might find that Google's algorithms change again and give less prominence to domain name matching. You'd also have a bit of a nightmare with redirecting all the old urls to the new one.

At the end of the day the domain name match is only one of the 200 or so signals that Google use and while it is an important one you run the risk of doing worse on several of the others. At least in the short to medium term (which could be 1-2 years or longer).

I'd agree with Lee a bit. Don't keep changing things completely but focus on improving what you've already got. Google got smart to people making changes and watching the impact on their search reankings so you can no longer make changes and then look to say that did / didn't work. The impact will vary over time.

The other thing I'd do is focus less on the top level term 'masonic regalia' and think about what other terms people are searching for. Here's Google's estimate for the monthly UK searches.

9,900 Masonic Regalia

Versus

18,100 Masonic Pin
3,600 Masonic Rings
1,900 Masonic Music
1,900 Masonic Jewelery
1,600 Masonic Gifts
1,600 Masonic Shops
1,300 Masonic Aprons
1,300 Masonic Stores
1,300 Masonic Supplies
1,300 Masonic Watches
------
33,900
------

Is 'Masonic Pin' really that strong? It might be worth testing that.

At the end of the day though. Doing well in the more specific terms is a lot more important than the top level generic term.

Mike

[Chunkford]

Is 'Masonic Pin' really that strong? It might be worth testing that.

You might find it's actually < 10

[Mike Hughes]

You might find it's actually < 10

I did look again on the adwords tool and it still says there are almost twice as many monthly UK searches for 'masonic pin' as there are for 'masonic regalia'.

The average CPC is also higher at £0.37 versus £0.29 so it would appear to be a money making search term.

A search for masonic pin does show the right kind of adverts so it doesn't look like it's confusing the search term for something else.

It does seem oddly high though. I don't know if google are counting some (all?) other related terms against this one or not.

Which tool are you using and how do the other terms I suggested stack up against the results google give?

Mike

[leehack]

It's perhaps not that surprising as it is a specific item, whereas regalia is quite general? A pin is a regularly required/searched for item, the most common it would appear, whereas regalia is probably a not so common specific term. Research and discussion of this sort proves almost without doubt why SEO cannot be a pin a tail on the donkey in the dark exercise. That could be an absolute little gem of info found there, 30 minutes investigation that has probably eclipsed tenfold all the work done before it (if used correctly).

[Chunkford]

I did look again on the adwords tool and it still says there are almost twice as many monthly UK searches for 'masonic pin' as there are for 'masonic regalia'.

The average CPC is also higher at £0.37 versus £0.29 so it would appear to be a money making search term.

A search for masonic pin does show the right kind of adverts so it doesn't look like it's confusing the search term for something else.

It does seem oddly high though. I don't know if google are counting some (all?) other related terms against this one or not.

Which tool are you using and how do the other terms I suggested stack up against the results google give?

Mike

Adwords keyword tool.
Change it to exact not broad

[Mike Hughes]

OK. That makes more sense.

73 Masonic Lapel Pins
58 Masonic Pins
<10 Masonic Pin

So not a huge search term versus 5,400 for 'Masonic Regalia' using exact match.

It does look as if 'Masonic Regalia' is the key search term. Although some of the other terms are still quite good:

720 Masonic Rings (plus another 300 or so closely related)
480 Masonic Gifts (plus 400 odd with those same keywords)
320 Masonic Jewellery (plus 200 or so for jewelry)
200 Masonic Music
170 Masonic Watches (plus 80 or so with the same keywords)
140 Masonic Supplies (plus maybe 50 using the same keywords)
120 Masonic Aprons (plus half as much again with the same keywords)
110 Masonic Gloves (plus the same again with the same search terms)
58 Masonic Pins (plus as many again with the sme search terms)
50 Masonic Shops
---
2,168 monthly UK searches for exact matches

Not as exciting but still worth focusing on. The top 3 all seem to have an equal or higher approximate CPC than 'Masonic Regalia'.

Mike