This topic may have been beaten to death before but since things change so much everyday in the SEO world, I decided to ask for your opinion. My client is a real estate agent having a one year old domain which is not indexed in Google and doesn't show up in Yahoo, Bing's SERPs. His website name is: homesby[hisname].com I was thinking about suggesting to him to change his domain name. I know from experience that Yahoo and Bing definitely favor having a keyword rich domain name, but Google doesn't care much anymore. I need your advice. Is it really worth it? Or should I just optimize his existing website? I have seen that there are very few domain names that show up on the first 2 pages of Yahoo and bing that don't have the keyword in their domain names. So it is possible to have a non-keyword rich domain name to rank high in Yahoo and Bing, but I don't know what it takes to do that. Also, I'm concerned that Yahoo and Bing may eventually not pay much attention to the domain name, just like Google. What do you think? On the other hand, they may have a bigger market share in the near future. What would you do if you were in my situation? Thanks
I guess you do not need to change the name as 'home' by itself would serve as a very good keyword. Just concentrate on optimising the site and building backlinks from relevant places and I am sure your client would do good! Regards, RightMan
I think it would be best if he started over with a new domain name. Trying to get ranked with the wrong name is a lesson in futility.
Try [keyword(s)].homesby[hisname].com or homesby[hisname].com/[keyword(s)] intitle: keyword(s) inanchor: keyword(s) Also maybe comment on high Alexa ranked blogs with your clients url. It doesn't matter if the links are 'no-follow' for googlebots are now following them to see if there's interesting info to be discovered on the other side (commenter's site) - (This was mentioned on Matt Cutts blog). Only pagerank is not followed though. The high ranking sites are saturated with web-crawlers so the site is bounded to get noticed. Also forum links are another good source to get SE indexed. ROOFIS
I would optimize the present site. You would have to go through a 'sandbox' period with a new domain.
I would prefer a keyword domain unless "homes by [hisname]" has a good search volume or is a well known mark because of his previous offline ads. I guess "homes by [hisname]" is not a popular search query. Otherwise you wouldn't need our opinions. homesin[his city].com would be more effective in terms of SEO. However I would recommend you to use adwords keyword tool to find the best one.
While it's true that Google loves aged domains and exact match domains, it is not the be all and end all. Do a search for "make money on the internet" and you'll find the #1 site is 3arn.net. Not exactly keyword rich is it? What he does have however is over 10k high quality backlinks from high PR sites. Focus on building awesome content, getting natural links from your visitors and building in your own backlinks from as many different sources as you can. That is the way you'll get top rankings - especially in competitive markets.
@superian; I agree with you on ranking irrelevant domains if they have good backlinks. But in fact, those irrelevant domains are too expensive if you are paying for those backlinks. Because relevant domains can reach the same ranks on SERPs with less backlinks than irrelevant domains especially at yahoo and bing. I had some bad experiences with creating sites on irrelevant domains. I saw the power of a correct domain after I create a site on a correct keyword domain. Starting with a correct domain is the vital factor of an investment. Because usually it is almost impossible to go back to the beginning and replace the domain with a correct one. Irrelevant domains are a complete waste of time, money and effort. The amount of loss can be so big if the market is so competitive.
They are hardly a complete waste of time - and I never called them irrelevant either. I could use one of my aged domains which was bought with plenty of backlinks and a PR4 and rank better than many brand new exact match domains even with no keywords in the domain. Content, backlinks and SEO are far more superior ranking factors than just the domain name. Google isn't that naive.