Buying a Close Out Domain for SEO

Now, in this post, I will tackle on the things you can do on how to benefit from a close out or aged domain.

Close out domains simply refer to those domains whose owner had failed to renew its registration. Now, a lot of people are buying these closed out domains especially if they are aged ones. Meaning, they had been parked for a certain time or the owner just wanted to get rid of it.

Before you buy a Close Out Domain… Prepare a Business Plan!

Well, do not get excited and buy those aged close out domain, you better think of a business plan first! Why? Because you might end up buying it and getting it close out AGAIN because you do not have a business plan. It make sense to have a business plan because, in the first place, why had these close out domain in Auctions? – because their owners failed to plan for the long haul. They won’t sell these domains if it has been giving them income, right? So, lie low for a while. THINK! Make a strategy and make a plan on and after you have bought that close out domain you want.

Now…how can you benefit from the close out domain you’ve bought??

The 301 Redirect the Old Domain to Your Existing Domain

This is the easiest thing to do on how you can benefit from your close out domain – you can redirect the old domain to your existing site! Well, this tactic will obviously work if both the close out domain and your domain are in the same niche. Otherwise, redirecting it would be useless.

Just imagine buying an ADULT CLOSE OUT DOMAIN and redirecting it to your PET SUPPLY SITE??? This redirection would probably raise eyebrows among all the search engines. Quite comical really!Wink So make sure, when you buy a close out domain, it is, as close as possible to your niche.

Reconstruction or Creating a Micro Site or OVERHAUL the old Domain to Redirect to Your Existing Domain

Compared to your first option, this is harder and might take some time. Though this is better. You can just update the content of the old domain and sell/offer the same product you’re selling on your current site. In this way, you are leveraging your profit and time. The best thing that might happen here is that these sites of yours will rank alongside SERPs.

NOTE: Be sure that these two sites will not end up with the same content or else you will have duplicate content issues.

The problem that might arise here is that you will end up maintaining two sites which will be demanding and you might end up hiring another admin to maintain the other site.

Well, that’s it! Let me know if there’s update in google about it and let me know your views about this issue as well.

Does a Numerical Domain Good for SEO?!

Does choosing a Numeric domain affect its SEO or adding a number within your domain name boost SEO?

Well, first of all… let me ask; why in the first place would you want to have a numeric domain? Does it has something to do with your purpose, niche or just prefer it to be a numeric domain?

Numeric Domains are for those LOW in Budget

This is the connotation or how most web master interpret a numerical domain. The owner must be low in resources and does not use databases. After all, you do not have to do a lot of SEO if, in the first place, it is evident that you do not want to compete by not making your target keyword as your domain.

The Good Side: Having a numerical domain is that your domain is almost unique and competition for your domain keyword is less.

The Bad Side: Our society is lazy AND people do not want to memorize things. When people search something on the web, 75% do not take note of the web address they had found the answers they are looking for. So, your numeric domain has a high chance of being forgotten.

SEO and Numeric Domains

There had been studies that says having a numerical domain boost your SEO, especially if these numbers are within your domain like gr8.com, y8.com, w0w.com…etc.
Well, let me know what your opinions about numeric domains.

Now, having a numeric domain do affect SEO. But doing SEO for that numerical domain of yours requires a lot more attention and continuous SEO activities compared to a non-numeric domain.

Let me know of your views about this. Comment below. :)

Does your Domain Age Affects SEO? (Especially if you bought an OLD domain)

Just posting this forum entry that I posted before in a webmasters forum.

Well, I’ve discussed a little about it on my previous post here. But one thing is clear from that post of mine: DOMAIN AGE is important in SEO.

In this post, we’ll dig in a little deeper on how and why DOMAIN AGE affects SEO.

There are TWO reasons why an OLDER DOMAIN is good for SEO and why it makes sense for GOOGLE to give credit to older domains.

1.)Well established and well known sites have older domain names, thus, it follows that older domains should be well-established and a very reliable source as well

2.)Spammers do not aim and are not interested in growing their site for the next 3 or 5 years, they drop and leave their domains whenever they like. In connection, google treat a new domain as something that is likely to be just spammed after a length of time.

Well, this belief came from the patent that GOOGLE released in 2005, “Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data”

“…the date that a domain with which a document is registered may be used as an indication of the inception date of the document.”

“Certain signals may be used to distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate domains… Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains are rarely used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when the domains expire in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.”

These paragraphs surely give you a good idea that domain age is significantly important in ranking your website on search results. 

BUT…

There are cases that a really old domain was:

1.unused or parked for a certain period of time.
2.used for illegal or illegitimate purposes for a very long period of time and was just released or sold to another owner (whitehat owner), without a change in the registration date.
3.frequently used by NEW and well established companies by the old 301 redirect from an older domain

So now, what is really the stand of DOMAIN AGE when it comes to SEO?

As I have mentioned on my earlier post, buying an OLD DOMAIN AGE will give you its linking profile as well (the backlinks established, page rank, etc). Giving you an edge in GOOGLE ranks when you are the owner of an old domain. So buying an old domain is good for SEO so far…

But, there are those OLD domains that carry POTENTIAL problems. Especially, those OLD DOMAINS that was, unless you know it, was used illegally and illegitimately before. So, buying an old domain can be more of a problem than an asset in page ranking. 

So what should you do if you are still planning to buy an old domain?

Simple, you need to check its history and make sure that it carries all the good things for SEO and not those potential problems that might give you. 

My advice?

I think it’s still better that you start your site from scratch. Buying your own NEW domain. Though the first months would really be difficult and you will never see your website on the first page results, doing extensive link building and quality content will give you a fair results in no later than a year.

This is my belief and NOT my STAND. Kindly give me your thoughts about it.

Choosing Your Domain Extension: Why .COM?

This is a post I posted way back when I was a forum administrator for a webmasters forum.  

Choosing a domain extension used to be easy and fast. But with all the domain extensions that you can select, it gets harder to choose. Sure you can just go and register your company name as your domain name, but what about the extension? Which one should you select?

In this short post, I will give some fair amount of idea on why is it that a .COM extension is very much preferable than other domain extension.

Gone are the Days when .COM and .NET are the only Option

Obviously, a .COM extension remains the default option as well as .NET when choosing an extension. But what happens when some other domain is parked there? Should you think of another domain name and pursue the .COM extension? Or settle for the other extensions such as .BIZ, .NET, .INFO, etc.?

.COMmercial is STILL the Must-have

If someone had gotten first with the .COM option, then it would be better that you change your domain name and still pursue the .COM option. Why? Well, two reasons:

FIRST: that is what people are used to when typing a web address. Also, when you switch to another extension such as .BIZ or .NET, chances are, your site visitors, when they want to revisit your site, will end up typing .COM, thus, directing them to your competitor’s site.

SECOND: simply because .COM are the kind of results returned by GOOGLE.

NOTE: .COM is highly recommended for those website that are more on sales or those that are into the internet to make profit or for commercial use. (affiliates, etc.) Well, I am not discouraging you from other extension, but if your domain is available for .COM, then grab it. Unless, your website is designed not for making sales or profit, like a foundation, academic, etc., you can select the extensions below.

Also, getting your domain with a local extension can boost your page ranking in local search results. So if your server is, say, in Canada, then it makes sense to get one with a domain.ca as one your website. It will give you more boosts in penetrating your local market rather than competing worldwide, like in US for example.

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These are some of the other commonly used extensions that you can choose:

.ORG – represents the word ORGANIZATION and this is primarily used by non-profit organization and trade groups
.BIZ – is usually use for small business web store and sites
.INFO – more like a resource site where information can be obtained for use. 
.MOBI – for credible resource Web sites that is usually built for easy viewing of files or on mobile devices.
.TV – is for rich multi-media websites and commonly used by the media and entertainment industry.
.NAME – specifically designed for personal use. It is like your own personal email address that display photos and personal information of a certain person

Other extensions include the abbreviation of the server’s country such as:

.CH for China
.TW for Taiwan
.US for United States
.PH for Philippines
.IS for Israel .AM for Armenia
…and many, many others. 

SEO Importance in your Website

Did you ever wonder how search engine works? How they give your search results from the words you enter in the search bars like that of Google and Yahoo?

This search results are not randomly provided for you. They are actually ranked from the most relevant to your search to the least one. This process of ranking is SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

What is the important of SEO?

 Is SEO important? SEO is not only important. It is very crucial for the success of your business. When you published your website, you can have flashy and eye catching images or content. However, if you do not optimize it for SEO, it is better to delete that site of yours. It is like a hidden paradise, it is there, but people can’t locate it.

When you do SEO, it is like promoting your website. Though there are many ways promote your site, optimizing your site is usually free of charge. Doing SEO for your site will let you ranked higher on search engines and getting rank first and getting ranked as number one is very important because people usually click on the first item they see on search results and this means more customers, more site visitors and more profit.

 How useful is SEO for your business?

The main purpose of SEO is to have large traffic for your website through search engines. However, this traffic might not be your target audience so you must be able to screen your site visitors by effective keyword search.

 When you do SEO, search engine crawlers assess your website and they look for the dominant words they find on every page and tag it as the description for your site. These words are called keywords. This means that if the dominant word they find your site is ‘buying pets’, then when somebody enter this word in search engine, your site have a good chance of winning the top spot.

 But you must also take into consideration that many people might have used the same words in their own site as well. This means competition for the word ‘buying pets’ is very tough. You can’t just flood your content with this word for search engines might ban you for it. So you must only use these words occasionally so that you won’t have problems. Search Engines only allow at least 4-5% of keyword density. Since many people have use the keywords ‘buying pets’, you might as well venture to less famous words like ‘buying Labrador dog , buying Persian cats’ and etc. Your target traffic is people so must think what your audience might be using as words to search your site.

SEO is very important for online businesses. Your market is the whole globe and the competition is very tough. Doing SEO for your site is very hard itself but if you find your site is on the top spot, it is all worth the time and effort. You will have more conversion rates, more site visitors and more customers.

Why You Need To Do SEO?

Why you need to do SEO? It is simply because you needed a larger traffic in your website. And getting lot of traffic means more money in your pocket.

 SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of getting the first place in search results. When people needed information, they usually go to search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing. They enter the thing they wanted to get or find in the search bars and these search engines display the result from the most relevant to the least.

Doing SEO of your online store or website gets you recognize by search engines. When you optimized your site, you submit your website to search engine and they visit your site through crawlers – the software search engines used to view your files, assess and get the most dominant word that search engine view as what your site is all about.

SEO gets you a ticket to be found and get the top place for search engine results. Being on the top spot is very important since nearly 80% of online searchers click on the first result to get the information they needed.

 In 2010, online sales are growing by at least 30%. This tells us that many people prefer to shop online than drive to the stores. So getting these people to buy from your site is very crucial for your business success and survival. SEO is usually free. Some search engines site charge you for a particular fee to get your site included in search results.

SEO is not all about getting your site to rank first. Yes, people click on the first search result but if you do not have a good content, most likely they will not stay longer, exit your site and click on the second result.

Ranking first in search result is not permanent. When you rank first today, it doesn’t mean you’ll get the top spot again by next week or even on the next hour. You must always keep your web content updated and friendly for search engine crawlers. Optimizing your site is a life-long process. As long as you still have your site, you must do SEO. When you do SEO, always bear in mind that you must have an excellent content and a welcoming atmosphere on your site. You might not rank first next time but at least your site visitor will remember your URL for the excellent content and product you have.

 SEO is very important to your business. Your market is the whole globe so you must do every means on how to make people visit your site. With SEO, every site has a fair chance to rank on search engines. All you need to do is constant updating of your website content and provide an excellent environment for your site visitors. This way, you will not only get traffic by ranking first on search engines but by word of mouth, blogs and testimonials from your previous customers as well.

Important Factor You Must Know About SEO

Anyone who has an online business may be quick to jump into several SEO techniques, thinking that these will be a quick opportunity for internet success. If you think however that SEO can be accomplished in a jiffy, you’re bound to be disappointed. There are important factors you must know about search engine optimization. This includes the things to avoid, the things needed to generate a higher page rank, and finally the elements present in most excellent SEO services. 

First of all, overloading your site with keywords is not always a smart thing to do. Sure, you want to communicate your offering or your service as much as you can, and to drive the targeted traffic back to your site. Who would not want that? However, too many keywords may end up overwhelming your market. Oftentimes, it is not always about keywords but the strategic placement of the keywords as well. 

Filling your site with second-rate, plagiarized content is another way to sabotage the performance of your efforts. People are quick to recognize clichés and formulaic phrases, and if they don’t get anything fresh and useful from the website content, they will have to look for them from the next site, or the competition. 

Link farming is another SEO technique that always ends up being abused. This involves a group of websites utilizing hyperlinks on their pages, all pointing back to every other site page within the group, with the goal of engendering more traffic and increased rankings in search engines. While these may work in the beginning, the long-term consequences of this strategy will be anything but beneficial for the websites. 

Don’t fret, however because there are many ways with which you can increase your ranking consistently and effectively. If you have an easily navigable site that’s filled with high quality content, you are certain to attract a loyal following from your targeted visitors. 

A website that is too complicated for the average internet user will limit its reach and will be able to provide for a specific niche only. As much as possible, maintain a website that has navigation-friendly features and one that people can easily maneuver. In the same manner, if the site contains relevant and well-researched content, visitors are bound to stick around a bit longer. 

You can also submit high quality articles to article submission sites, so as to generate increased traffic. Well-written articles have higher chances of being accepted in these submission sites. Once you are able to provide excellent information to the readers through the articles, they will be more inclined to click on the link to your website provided at the bottom of each article.