2 domains - which should I redirect to?

[garyfoote]

I have two domains and want to redirct one to the other. Unfortunately I can't decide which to redirect to which. My main keyphrase is auto repairs. The domains are importechnh.com and autorepairsnh.com. Which should I redirect to the other for best SEO?

BTW - Both domains are brand new.

[scanmonkey]

I would use http://www.importechnh.com
and stay away from a generic domain name.

What happens if your competitors or domainers go out and buy the net/org/biz/us/info/ for autorepairsnh.com and confuse your clients.

autorepairsnh.com will give you a little boost, but, defending generic domain names is very difficult.

[garyfoote]

Originally Posted by scanmonkey

I would use http://www.importechnh.com
and stay away from a generic domain name.

What happens if your competitors or domainers go out and buy the net/org/biz/us/info/ for autorepairsnh.com and confuse your clients.

autorepairsnh.com will give you a little boost, but, defending generic domain names is very difficult.

Understood. I will have to think about that aspect of it more deeply.

In the meantime I think I missed being as clear as I could be. What I want to find out is, if I redirect autorepairsnh.com to the other domain and submit autorepairsnh.com will this give an extra 'oomph' to the search positioning or am I thinking backwards? Is it the submitted domain or the redirected-to domain that gets considered/used in the SEs algorythms?

[cyanide]

I would install your website on autorepairsnh.com and have the other one redirect to.

Why? The main reason, is that the domain is keyword-rich for your market.

[scanmonkey]

Originally Posted by cyanide

I would install your website on autorepairsnh.com and have the other one redirect to.

Actually that's good. Put the www.importechnh.com on your business cards and enjoy the keywood boost from autorepairsnh.com.

[Duncan Pollock]

What happens if your competitors or domainers go out and buy the net/org/biz/us/info/ for autorepairsnh.com and confuse your clients.

On the other hand, what's to stop you from buying up all these alternative domains yourself? You can probably get them all for $100 or so a year and there doesn't need to be a website for any of them. You can simply hang on to them (out of sheer orneryness?!!).
In any case -- and the chance of competition aside -- a keyword rich domain is the best kind to have.

Duncan

[cyanide]

Originally Posted by scanmonkey

Actually that's good. Put the www.importechnh.com on your business cards and enjoy the keywood boost from autorepairsnh.com.

Exactly :)

[webstar]

Hi there,
I've set up a few clients with a longer keyword rich domain name for search engine purposes, and a short easy to remember (or business name) domain name for putting on business cards. Both of the names lead to the same hosting account so you get the same info no matter which one you use.

When submitting sites to directories and doing links campaigns, I use the keyword rich domain name. My question is, what would happen if someone decides they want to link to the site and uses the short version domain name? Would it look like a duplicate site and would Google penalize you for it?

Thanks for your help!
:)

[scanmonkey]

Google recommends using a 301 redirect