A Directory or New Domain? That is the question.

[squared]

I'm expanding my informational site to include e-commerce capabilities. I'm trying to get good results in Google for "widgets." I'm wondering if I should buy a new domain with "widgets" in it and then link to the new site from the old one with keywords in the anchor text. Or, should I just create a directory that holds the e-commerce part of the site, but still link to it with the appropriate keywords. I've read that people get better results with keywords in the domain name and am debating if buying a new domain makes sense.

Any recommendations?

-Squared

[Marcia]

squared, there are differences of opinion about keyworded domain names. They can help and it certainly helps to have the keywords in the "site name" especially for directories, but it can depend on how competitive your terms are, too.

If you put the e-commerce area in a directory, you can still have the keyword in the URL, which is good, as in

www.example.com/widgets/

Or you can put the ecommerce part into a subdomain like

widgets.example.com

If you've established branding for your current domain name and have good linking and Page Rank, you might not want to go through it all again for promoting a second domain. Plenty of sites do fine without, and if you've got traffic to your site from other than search engines, like off-line or type-ins, you may be best off sticking with what you've got.

It can also depend on what kind of Page Rank you've got for your current site and the interior pages, how big it is, and what the linking structure is.

[squared]

Marcia,

Thanks for the info.

I think I'll just set up the e-commerce part in a directory. I hope everything will work out fine.

domo arigato,
Squared