11 replies to this topic

[WaldenPond]

I plan to build a site for a new product that has a narrow audience and considering purchasing some difference domains to represent variations of the keyword, with the domains 301'd to the main site. Does the following make sense assuming the guy sells custom picks for electric guitars. Is it worth the extra bucks and does the hyphenated version help.

electricguitarpicks.com - Main Site

custompicksforelectricguitars.com

custom-picks-for-electric-guitars.com

custom-plastic-guitar-picks.com


Andrew

[Jill]

As per the numerous other threads on this subject, if you 301 redirect a domain to another site, you lose any advantage (if there even is any) in having a keyword rich domain as far as search engines go.

It works for type in traffic though if that's what you're going for.

[WaldenPond]

if you 301 redirect a domain to another site, you lose any advantage (if there even is any) in having a keyword rich domain as far as search engines go.

Thanks I have used 301's before but never realized you would lose advantage. But yeah upon reflection that makes perfect sense.

Many thanks.

Andrew

[inspiroHost]

Personally I'm not a fan of hyphenated domain names -- and too many of them just look plain spammy.

[doogie88]

I seen a site that is #3 in google for a term that is searched for 100,000 times a month. Nothing in the page or title had anything to do with the site. I then found out they own the domain of the keyword, ie keyword.com and it's just 301 redirected(I'm assuming) to their site. So it must hold some value, amazingly.

[chrishirst]

Or probably not.

THAT'S what starts off the myths, taking one isolated thing and assuming that it MUST be the cause of the effect you can see.

[Jill]

Agree with Chris.

And how did you find out that the keyword domain is redirected to that one? (Just curious!)

[qwerty]

I seen a site that is #3 in google for a term that is searched for 100,000 times a month. Nothing in the page or title had anything to do with the site. I then found out they own the domain of the keyword, ie keyword.com and it's just 301 redirected(I'm assuming) to their site. So it must hold some value, amazingly.

If that's true (and if it's the actual cause of the effect), I imagine that keyword.com had been around for a while, and had plenty of links pointing to it, many of them with the keyword in the anchor text before the redirect was put in place. That's not the same thing as buying a keyword-rich domain name with no history and immediately redirecting it to your site.

[Narcotic]

Toys R Us bought toys.com for $5m and when you google the word toys (at the time of writing this) toys r us with there toysrus.co.uk domain is 2Nd in the organic listing but toys.com is nowhere to be seen.

Here is the article: throw the http without the www on to this to see the news report "news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7923433.stm"

I believe if you name your pages with keywords this helps like "mysite.com/keyword.html"

[qwerty]

I get toys.com at #9 for the [toys] search. But they clearly didn't buy it to either compete with their main sites, or to redirect it to them. Right now, they appear to be using it as an umbrella site for deals on their other sites (kind of a branded version of Woot Deals), and it wouldn't surprise me if they found a better use for it at some point in the future -- and I'm not suggesting that redirecting it would be a better use for it.

[doogie88]

Agree with Chris.

And how did you find out that the keyword domain is redirected to that one? (Just curious!)

I was looking who owned the keyword's .com, and the owner was the same.

If that's true (and if it's the actual cause of the effect), I imagine that keyword.com had been around for a while, and had plenty of links pointing to it, many of them with the keyword in the anchor text before the redirect was put in place. That's not the same thing as buying a keyword-rich domain name with no history and immediately redirecting it to your site.

I agree, there must be something that would explain it.

[Hic]

I don't think it will help .. it will only prevent your competitors from registering these domains in the future ..

Keyword reach domain is great and helpful for small niches, if there is no competition, otherwise I don't think it has a great value comparing to hundreds and thousands of inbound links with the main keyword as an anchor text ...