Is My Domain Worth Re-using? Most pages are supplemental

[shilmy]

I have idea for website. This idea fit with one of my domain name. Currently, this domain have very little traffic, hundreds of pages were indexed by google but as supplemental pages. My question is, is it better to use this domain for my new web site, or I better get new domain name?

Thanks for any insight.

[Quadrille]

Not as easy as it sounds.

There's more than one possible reason for the pages being supplemental; and it may be something that the 'new site' won't have a problem with.

For example 1 - if the current site has no metadescriptions, then that could lead to supplementals. Build a new site with metadescriptions, and you will probably not have that problem.

For example 2 - if the current site has heavy bloated code and only a para of machine-generated unique content per page, then a new site with individual content rich HTML, and you will probably not have that problem.

BUT - if you do not know why the problem exists, it may be wise to start over (carefully) with a new domain, and hope to fix the old one at some stage.

Good Luck!

[edited by: Quadrille at 1:30 am (utc) on Aug. 7, 2006]

[shilmy]

Thanks for the answer. Now my next question is, have any of you successfully fix the supplemental pages? How? I have try to change one of the supplemental page into totally different content, google crawl it several times (I know it from access log) but do not update their cache. Their cached page still dated about a year ago.

[eljefe3]

Why not use both the old domain and a new one? Make them just different enough so it's not dup content, but basically covers the same thing. Kind of an A/B testing if you will.

[Quadrille]

You get better POI if you fix the damaged one - save the new one for a diufferent topic.

Fixing supp listings depends why they are supp listed.

For example, adding a unique meta title and meta description can work wonders, as can removing duplicates and adding extra copy to (virtually) blank pages.

Think of it this way: make the site better, and Google will be much more likely to list it.

It works ...