domain name advice

[Steven1976a]

How important is a domain name in terms of getting people to click through to a site?

We have a domain we registered some time ago (about 3 years) www.body--jewelry.com which I dont really like. Lets say we have it SEOd and it ranks well in the SERPs for targeted keywords but once its ranked, what makes people click through?

Would a domain that is not attractive have a negative effect? Or do general public not even look at the actual url in the SERPS and click through based on the link text and description? Or do they just click through on the top 5 searches?

The above domain has age to it which is why we put the site on it but Im starting to think we should move it to a more attractive name similar to our main website Body Jewelry shopping, wholesale fashion jewelry, silver jewellery, costume jewellery factory Bangkok Thailand maybe for fashion jewelry www.fashionjewelryshopping.com coming soon! . My main concern about moving it to a new domain is the age factor.

Any advice?

[MikeinFlorida]

Hi Steven: There are 2 schools of thought when it comes to domain names. The first is that you obtain a domain name that describes best what your site is all about. Many call this a generic domain name. You need to pick one that is as short as possible without any hyphens, numbers or anything other than the subject you are either trying to sell or inform visitors about.

The second would be a brand-able name. Now this can be a made up name but it will take you more time to be recognized as a brand and you should have a large marketing budget to make such a name popular. You can think of all sorts of brand-able names like Amazon.

A keyword in the name will help you with the search engines as far as the rankings, but you need to make the name as short as possible-- preferably under 13 letters. If you cannot find an available name by searching a domain name registry, I'd suggest buying one in the secondary market to help make your business a success. Long names are tough for the public to remember. Keep it short and sweet. Yes there seems to be an aging delay when it comes to names in the se's, but over time and lots of hard work you can over come that too. It takes lots of hard work to make a site successful.

Good luck with what ever you do!

[bj]

I can guarantee you that people won't EVER remember those hyphens, which means that bodyjewelry.com will be selling to your customers.

Hyphens and numbers in a domain name are the kiss of death. Yes, you MIGHT get clicks through from the search engines, but you're missing out on repeat business from people who remember you wrong and end up at your competitor's site. Yes, this can happen with any domain name but it's much more likely if you have hyphens or numbers in your domain name.

[DrTandem1]

This is really very simple. Domain names are for people. They should be brief, easy to remember and easy to spell. That leaves out (usually) hyphens. If your clicks come mainly from the SEs, then it really doesn't matter what the domain name is. Some will argue that keywords in the domain name will help it rank higher in the SERPs. However, there are so many examples of #1 sites without any keywords that it doesn't matter.

Now, once they click on your site from a SE, then you will hope they remember it, if they don't bookmark it. Rarely do people look at the domain name in the SERPs, they just click. What is in the description/synopsis of the site found in the SERP is more of a click-through factor that has little to do with the domain name, unless it was used in the description or title.

[olatokunbo]

I just recently changed my domain name to www.yomi11.com how soon will it be before the new domain name starts showing up in searches?

[DrK]

There are two sides to this:
1) I for one thing will not even click on any domain that looks like it was made for SEO (i.e. los-angeles-loans.info) as I recognize the pattern and don't expect to find quality content there.
2) On the other hand: most users probably won't pay any attention to the domain and even if they wouldn't care.

So, I guess it depends on which audience you are going for.
I typically recommend a setup with multiple domains and re-directs.

[jackit_chick]

I think the name of your company should ALWAYS be your domain if it's available. Maybe you're a fledling company, yes it will take a lot of work to get your branding out there, time money and marketing, but if you do become a large business named for example Ebay. But for some reason the companie's website is onlineswapmeet.com: The Leading Swapmeet Site on the Net or something, people may not remember your companies name they'll just remember the URL and if you decide to expand in magazines or wherever they won't recognize your name.

Now if you can fit keywords into your name, that's easier than starting with something so strange like Ebay for people to get to. Instead of bodyjewelry maybe bodyjewels (just a thought, sounds cute to me!).

Just don't do what's easiest now that you're just going to have to redo and refix and rebrand later on if you decide to expand your marketing from more than just the internet. Keep your eyes on the future!

[webreporter]

If you are selling a specific product or product line, doesn't it make sense to have a domain name that makes sense? If you are looking at the psychology of sales, having a relevant domain name would be more beneficial than one that does not apply at all.

All the viral marketing pundits will try to say it doesn't matter, but let's be practical and pragmatic here. You aren't trying to be viral first and foremost, so go with what makes sense.

Besides, the search engine results pages hi-light in bold, words that appear in the search on the domain name. This visually stands out to anyone looking at that page. Your question almost answers itself.

[amazonian]

Remember, you don't have to lose age of a domain name when buying a new name if you use the right kind of redirects. Or am I mistaken here?

On the other hand, I've seen sites 10 years old booted off the first page of Google. Go figure!

Domain names are the cheapest part of your business. As others have said, the marketing efforts you put into branding whatever you choose are where the real investment comes in. Where do you want to expend your effort?

[SemAdvance]

Actually I would think to go with the brand aspects first.

Simplest thing to do with the age factor is redirect the old url to the new url via 301.

Will take time but the new site will get the PR and traffic from the old.

Peace

[Matteo]

I hope I am not breaking any rules by doing this...but below you will find the basic listing on google if you search disney movies

Walt Disney Pictures -- The Official Homepage

Find out all about the latest movies from Walt Disney Pictures and get sneak peeks at upcoming films.
disney.go.com/disneypictures/index.html - 8k - Cached - Similar pages

The Title and the Meta Discription is what people see and determines if people click or don't click. Their confusing url below has little or no impact. I refer to the url only when I want to see if it's a site genuinely attributed to what I am looking for, and not a link farm. So do your SEO and as far as the customers go -- they'll find you

[lpoulsen]

When you have multiple domain names pointing to the same site, you MUST rewrite the URL with the secondary name into a permanent redirect, or else you will suffer the "duplicate content" penalty from the search engines.

Secondly: Why the double hyphen if the name is available with a single hyphen?

[Steven1976a]

thanks for all the advice and comments.

lpoulsen - I think the single hyphen was not available when we first took the domain. The name of domain I actually now dislike quite a bit. The only reason we parked our new site on this domain was because it had the age factor and it has been picked up by the SERPs quite quickly.

Amazonian Said
"Remember, you don't have to lose age of a domain name when buying a new name if you use the right kind of redirects. Or am I mistaken here?"

Can anyone expand on this? If for example i purchase the domain name www.fashionjewelryshopping.com coming soon!, how do i go about redirecting body--jewelry to keep the age factor of the domain? Is it possible??

[SemAdvance]

Place in the body jewelry site's .htacess file

redirect 301 / h ttp://w ww.fashionjewelryshopping.com/

(spaces added to stop URL from resolving)

Peace

[Simar]

Domain name with a recall value on search results help. A domain name clearly from SEO point of view is in my opinion avoided by the buyer, as it is looked at "me too". Suggest push your main site and use the "aged Domain" as an information portal with all links to your main site.

[incrediblehelp]

Short, sweet and easy to remember. That is what counts. You dont have to worry much about the keywords being in the URL anymore.

[jawn_tech]

These days keywords in domains are basically for the benefit of humans where branding hasn't set in yet. Marketing a much more catchy domain name even without keywords can definitely be a long term plus, reaching a wider audience with word of mouth.

That in itself allows more creativity with domain names, whereas people aren't so restricted with registering domain names with keywords when almost every variation of the domain has already been taken.

[HalBaumbach]

I was surprised to see a few of you talk about not using hyphens in the domain names. Three of our top web sites which get the most visitors have hypens in them.

One of the posts mentions the penalty for duplicate content. One of the top people in Google says that they do not penalize for duplicate content. They only list the one site that they think is the most relevant, but they do not ban both sites. A lot of our sites have duplicate content and they have good positions, so I believe that is really the way Google is doing it.

I agree that a domain name should be short and easy to remember. It would be nice if it could also have key words in it.

I seem to be different in another way than some of the people posting above. When I am searching the Internet, I look at the domain names to see how relevant they are. If I am searching for information on San Francisco, I would be more likely to look at SanFrancisco.com than BobsWebPage.com/placestovisit/unitedstates/sanfrancisco/

Have you noticed that we are now getting a lot of travel related web sites coming out of India? I think we will see more and more people from foreign countries competing with us where they can.

Hal

[edwinj]

I know a few years ago everyone said that using a hyphen in your domain was bad but a single hyphen separating keywords has now become more acceptable. I think this perhaps more so because good domains have become scarce. But a double hyphen, reeks of spam, sorry to say.

Some here have commented on the memorability factor. And that still holds true. It's probably harder for a customer to recall a domain with hyphen/s unless they bookmark your site the first time they visit it from search engine referral.

[MikeinFlorida]

Short, Sweet and Easy to remember as one of the famous ones here said!!! ...lol..
Then do your 301 redirect and if you do not know how to do one get some one who can do it right!

Good luck!

[itispals]

When choosing a domain name, there are plenty of aspects to decide upon. Each aspect would play a key role/deciding role depending upon the nature of the product/business/goal for which the site is being made.
Apart from the domain name, the most important factor that you would have to look at, in case if you are looking for traffic from Search Engine results, then it is the Title tags and the description. It is these two factors which can actually make the visitors click.
But the basic rule is to have a short & sweet URL, which can be easy to recall.
Similarly, when choosing an URL, see to that you donot create an undue advantage to your competitor.
Hope this helps,

itispals
BroadSpire

[lanthus]

If you buy enough names you could have everyone coming to your store ... Doesn't sound like a good prospect to be the only name and glut the Internet, though....

Diversion is probably not a good idea neither: like opening a catalog that becomes a directory ....

The double-dash looks like you didn't get your first choice name and you're an also-ran on the bandwagon ... The '-ry' ending looks like you're selling bulk parts, wholesale, not retail customers ...

Consider for example the obvious bodyjewel.com idea sells the body as well as a jewel ... one jewel at a time ... but might be too tight for you ... bodyjewels.com sounds plural ...

In reaching the mean, mode, and median of your customer base you want the solid idea over the object: Do you want them to look? buy one? buy one-per-ear? buy to match an occasion? ... If customers -all- want lots of jewels, then bodyjewelry generic-plural is on.

(If you're more edgy, it could be bawdyjewelry.com.)

Check other names that convey the same idea, the same purpose--
bodygem.com (cute titillating picture too) ...
bodyfire.com (for sale; rhymes with sapphire) ...
bodyrald.com (okay, off the wall and back-rhymes ribald) ...

What do people call jewels?-- baubles, dangles, jangles, angles ... bawdybeads.com ... bodydangles.com, bodyjangles.com (maybe too obviousl like bo-jangles; bodyangles.com redirects five-times....)

bodyshine.com
bodyshines.com
bodyshiners.com
bodyquins.com (like mannequins and sequins and body-kins may be too fluffy)

Have fun ... It's like a Rubic's Cube: keep turning and get all the angles right ... Names may be constitutional ...

bodydads.com
bingbats.com
bodygree.com (get bodigree.com to cover spelling)
bodygims.com
bodygilt.com (not everybody spells it bodyguilt.com,-- Am I finding all the unused good names available for registration?!)
bodyfrips.com
bodyjou.com (get bodijou.com too to cover spelling,- and bodyjoux.com and bodijoux.com probably too)

bodycarets.com (if you're upscale) ...
bodypoints.com
bodypredictors.com

And be sure to give your domain name room that covers and margins to expand ....

Ray.

[chadhaajay]

Hello Steven,

In my personal experience of SEO and domain names, a single hypen (-) will not make a major difference if you have it positioned properly within the domain name words. Our website knowledgebase-script.com has a hyphen in it and it is positioning very well at the top place on all the majorly used search engines for our choice of keyword i.e. "knowledge base script".

So, i won't suggest double hyphens but a single hyphen can do the job.


Sincerely,

Ajay Chadha (Director)
Chadha Software Technologies

[Mumtaz]

Hi Steven:

1. Domain name should be in line with the keywords the customers are likely to use when they search for your product. If you think bodyjewelry is the right keywords, keep it. As a marketer of your product, you should know how the customers would search for you on the search engines.

2. Domain name should be short, sweet and easy to remember as suggested by other posters. Generally, a domain name without a hyphen or number is easy to remember. Likewise, a short domain name linked to the product is also easy to remember. By sweet, we probably mean the domain name should attract the searchers.

3. Ranking has nothing to do with the hyphen or number or short or long domain name or sweet or ugly URL.

4. Domain ageing does make a difference in search engine ranking if you are already on the first 10 pages of the search engine.

5. It is the Title tag and the meta tag of Description that help a lot in search engine ranking and searching by customers. If you can get relevant one-way back-links to your site, that is most likely to give a boost to your site's ranking.

Best

Mumtaz

[seo4china]

A single hyphen separating two or three keywords will have a better SEO effects than a 20 or 30 words domain name! Some may say it's spammy but with all the good names already taken this will be the trend for years to come...

To come back to the original poster I would really recommend to get rid of that double hyphen domain name (or do a 301 redirect as some suggested). If you are in for the long term then domain age shouldn't be your own concern. I don't recall having ever seen a trusted domain with double hyphen. So get that new site, get the name right this time, do the SEO and marketing work and you should be fine a few months from now.

[Manpasand]

IMO I would not recommend hyphen (-) in domain. We have changed Web Design Company - Search Engine Optimization Services by SEO Company to Web Design Company - Search Engine Optimization Services by SEO Company due to branding issue.

Domain name should be relate your business as well as short & simple and easy to remember as suggested by other posters also. For me keyword/s in domain is not important.

[Monkey SEO]

regarding the original question about the domain name affecting click through on the SERPs, i don't think most "normal" users pay attention to the domain name, unless they are looking for a specific domain (i've seen many people type a sites url in the search box rather than in the address bar). your title and description are significantly more prominent and will definitely affect your click throughs.

as for using keywords in the domain name...like others have said creating a branded name for the long term is preferred. however, with keywords in the domain name you may more easily get your keywords in the anchor text of links pointing to your site from other sites.

[qh4dotcom]

I would be more concerned about maintaining the top rankings you have achieved than if searchers like the domain name or not.

[noel_x99]

This may apply. I just had a Jakob Neilsen newsletter today that referred to URLs in search results:

URL as UI (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Update added 2007:

Edward Cutrell and Zhiwei Guan from Microsoft Research have conducted an eyetracking study of search engine use (warning: PDF) that found that people spend 24% of their gaze time looking at the URLs in the search results.

MSR used Microsoft's own search engine (fair enough), but their results match what we found in our eyetracking research which included the current market leader as well as the #2 search engine in addition to MSN.

We found that searchers are particularly interested in the URL when they are assessing the credibility of a destination. If the URL looks like garbage, people are less likely to click on that search hit. On the other hand, if the URL looks like the page will address the user's question, they are more likely to click.

[SITEchrome]

Single hyphens in a domain name is reasonable, but our experience shows, visitors are put off by names like your-income-opportunity.com even if it appear in SE results. Which also means visitors does look at domain names in the result.

SEs does give a weight-age to the domain name as it is the first sign post directing to the site. but, not among the foremost factors influencing the site's position.
As bj pointed out, repeat business will suffer with hyphens in between. Only die hard fans tend to remember it.

[Steven1976a]

Thanks for all the good posts.
I personally feel that single hyphens are not that bad as it helps people easily read the domain name.

Anyway, I think I will go for the 301 redirect but i still had a couple of points that i would appreciate some help to clarify to me.


Is the redirect immediate? Or does it go to the old domain and say something along the lines of "please wait whilst you are redirected"

Most importantly, by redirecting does the new domain keep the age factor of the old domain?

If we have a 301 redirect to a new domain ie jewelryshopping.com . What happens to body--jewelry.com in the future? Would this always be redirected even in 6 months time. By this i mean "if" we decided in 6 months time we wanted to use body--jewelry for what ever reason could we use it because by then the new domain would have replaced it in the SERPS. Or will it forever be a redirect.



To come back to the original poster I would really recommend to get rid of that double hyphen domain name (or do a 301 redirect as some suggested). If you are in for the long term then domain age shouldn't be your own concern. I don't recall having ever seen a trusted domain with double hyphen. So get that new site, get the name right this time, do the SEO and marketing work and you should be fine a few months from now

steve