Age vs relevance of domain name, which is more important for SEO?

[marvin]

Hello

I'm about to start a new website and I'm wondering whether to use an aged domain name I already have (quitegoodname.com) or to buy a new domain name which is slightly more relevant (bettername.co.uk).

The domain name I am thinking about reusing is from a website I set up 10 years ago but gave up on, it contains about 50 pages of content, has a handful of low quality backlinks and receives about 4 or 5 visitors a day. Google has ranked the pages as it shows up in searches for very specific text.

Thanks

Marvin

[netmeg]

For SEO? too negligible to matter. For branding? Maybe pick the one people are more likely to remember.

(Also, I don't think relevancy in a domain name is that big a deal. I mean... Twitter? And what the heck is a Zappo or a Zillow?)

[Sand]

At that volume (4-5 visits per day), the old domain isn't going to do you any real favors. If it was established and brought in a lot of traffic already, that could be different.

Go with the better name.

[GreyBeard123]

If you target the UK go with .co.uk

[marvin]

Thanks all. It sounds like I'm better off starting with a new domain name for my new site (it is targeting the UK market).

BTW, netmeg, my understanding is that domain name relevance is a factor in SEO as a large proportion of backlinks will have the name of the domain in the anchor text. If the domain name contains a relevant keyword then a lot of the backlinks accrued will naturally contain these keywords, helping the SEO for these terms.

I understand your point about Twitter etc, although sites such as these have such a strong brand that SEO is much less of an issue (people don't search for "real time commenting website", they go straight for Twitter). Us mere mortals, however, need all the help we can get to pick up search engine traffic!

[not2easy]

The weight of these SEO values has been reduced greatly by Google's updates over the past few years. Far more important now is page content and speed, device friendly coding and above the fold content. There are many factors that contribute to success (or failure) of a site, but the domain name and age are relatively minor today.

[marvin]

Thanks not2easy

It looks like I need to spend some time reading through this forum to get up to date on what is important for SEO nowadays! Is there a good post / link which summarises all of the important points which would be a good starting point to get up to date?

[JD_Toims]

Personally, I go with this:

If the goal is to rank, then go with an EMD/PMD and *do not* worry about building links; worry about ending the search.

If the goal is to be a brand, then go with unique/memorable and "define" the brand/phrase before anyone else does.

What I mean is:

If all you're concerned about are SE rankings then I'd go with "what search engines know" and do my best to end the search when a visitor lands.

If you want to "market a brand", then I'd likely "define" dgerfatea.com to mean "green widgets".

---

Twitter, Zappo, Zillow [posted by netmeg] are great examples of "brandable/definable" names people chose to use as a brand -- One advantage those names have by being unique to search engines is "what they say is what they are", so rather than "being grouped" based on keywords they could be "defined" to a search engine as whatever the owners wanted.

Bottom line IMO: It depends on what you're really after...

If you are going to use an EMD/PMD, then do your best to end the search and don't worry about much else. If you are going to use a "new/unique phrase", then define it in a way search engines can understand and plan to need to promote it to create a "brand name" from it, because for a SE today, you really have to "define the unknown" if you choose to go that route.

[Multimastery]

I'd choose the more relevant domain if I were you.

Also, SEO is so arbitrary these days, so don't bog yourself down about it and let it cloud your common sense judgement. After all, there is more ways to get traffic than relying on the "middle-man" traffic monster Google.