Category: Search Engine Optimization

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Will Changing My Domain Name Help Search Placement

Clients have asked this question “will changing my domain name improve my organic placement on search engines?” The answer is no. It is the content and links to a website that affect organic position not the name of the site. In fact changing the name of an existing website may actually do more damage than good.

Google specifically looks at many factors for organic search position, in fact nearly 150 of them. One of them is the length you have held your domain name. I do not recommend changing the domain name of an existing website, but for new sites I do recommend careful consideration of domains that are memorable or contain keywords.

Recently I had a client who does work for HUD under a large contract ask for help in deciding a new domain name as they had no traffic on their website. The marketing team felt that changing the name would make the site more popular with search engines. A name change will simply not bring the results that a work-over of content and what is on the home page will bring in conjunction with a link and content creation strategy.

So if you are thinking that you need to change your domain name to get more traffic, instead look very carefully at your content and when was the last time you updated your website before you make a change to your domain name.

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SEO “Snake Oil”

You know what snake oil was, it was a 1920’s patent medicine that supposedly offered miracle cures and was frequently sold at exorbitant prices. Now, we have the FDA to protect us, but the very idea of “snake oil” has moved into the search engine optimization market.

If you don’t think that there are companies selling supposedly miracle traffic generation schemes, think again!  Then, there are other firms that simply persuade buyers to pay for services that may provide questionable results. Here are just two of the tactics that I have seen in just the last month alone.

1. Doorway pages created by a firm in India for traffic generation. When confronted with the technique, the firm stated that it was a rogue programmer who had installed them and that they were not providing the service knowingly. There were over 100 doorway pages on the client’s server and each page had clearly taken hours upon hours to create. Do I believe that this was an oversight? No, it clearly was a thought out and comprehensive plan.

2. Directory pages supposedly for link exchanges created by a service firm located in Baltimore, Maryland. On closer look the pages content content with fake anchor text. The <a name> tag contained stuffed keywords and the keyword dense visible links went no where on the site or the web. Clearly an effort on the firms part to build bogus keyword density by using important anchor tags. When challenged on the validity of this approach the SEO “expert” said we are leaving those links as in the future we may actually find someone to link to.

When it comes to organic placement and search engine optimization, there is simply no replacement for great content, clean source code, and hard work. There is no “silver bullet” to get site traffic. Some of the tactics that we have seen implemented just this month may actually penalize you and not help you. Buyer Be Ware!