I grabbed a better domain name. What next?

[Banknotes]

I have been trying to rank well for the key word "National Currency" forever and can't seem to make it into the top ten.  I would really like to have the URL NationalCurrency but it's taken and can't be bought.

My url is nationalcurrencyvalues.  After reading the forums and various other SEO advice it occurred to me that National-Currency is as good or better than NationalCurrency for that keyword because it's seen as two words.  (right)

So,  I grabbed that domain name.   Now,  my question...  is there some way to make use of the National-Currency domain name without building an entirely new site?

I don't think I want transfer all of my content from nationalcurrencyvalues. Would there be any benefit to my nationalcurrencyvalues if I set up 303's on National-Currency?

[CoreyEulas]

• The dash doesn't make it two words, and isn't more valuable  Hence the reason it was available for registration.

• Doesn't make sense to 301 it.  And once your start engaging in this strategy you run the risk of appearing malicious, as explained here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91XhqF6iZk0

• The reason you're not ranking is because you have no links.  A quick check on OSE shows that.  I'd say read this about link building, roll up the sleeves and get busy :).

Good luck!

[RobertFisher]

Greg

Actually, I find this a bit funny on a couple of levels. First, I think exact match keywords in url/title tag still matter even though we all thought they would not by now. Corey says that the dash does not make it two words...what does? Matt Cutts says it does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3SFVfDIS5k and, when you look on this subject a response from Dr. Pete even showed that an underscore can do the same: http://www.seomoz.org/q/hyphens-vs-underscores

As to the 303 I am at a loss as to why you would want to use that type redirect, but am open to hear it. If you are going to do a redirect I would use a 301 as that will pass most of the link juice and a 302 will not. I do not believe a 303 will either.

Now, Corey makes a good point about your needing links and that is important. The other thing I would look at is have you done keyword research on your field of expertise (I know nothing of national currency). Are there many searches on sameare there searches on Natonal currency values, etc.?

If you are going to use this for the exact match, two keyword reason, you need to do it because you have some link value and you want to exploit that (with a 301 url to url in the .htaccess file or equivalent.) Without the links now, maybe you just billed a new site or clone the old and move on down the road with the new domain.

Best

[activitysuper]

national-currency is not better or even as good as nationalcurrency when it comes to exact match domains BUT I would say it still holds some weight.

BUT I would still focus all my efforts on your current site, the domain name does still contain your target term and any natural linking to your url will have some targeted anchor text.

If your not moving in the serp's, your better off letting us know what kind of link building you are doing because you might find a shift in link building to a different type might create some movement.

[Banknotes]

I meant to say 301...   My current site has a ton of them due to a naming convention change.

I haven't done a thing with this nationalcurrencyvalues regarding link building because all my link building efforts have concentrated on a third site.  I guess I will retrace my steps in that effort for the benefit of the nationalcurrencyvalues site.

I think I should probably move my site but it's not something I am going to rush into.  It tooks me seemingly forever to finally get noticed but the OSE tool.

[Banknotes]

I've seen it said several places that Google treats a dash like two words so I can't see how NationalCurrency would be better than National-Currency for keyword "National Currency"

Wonder if there is a way to confirm this?

[activitysuper]

Go into Google and type 'Exact Match Domains' your notice loads of people talking about the benefit.

Just so you know exact match means exactly what it says on the tin, exactly the same - NationalCurrency.com is a EMD for the term 'National Currency' - National-Currency.com is not.

Your proof? http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited

[RobertFisher]

Greg, see the link above where Matt Cutts confirms it:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3...

[RobertFisher]

Activity super, you state the link is proof that national-currency.com is not an exact match domain. I see that in a correlation study exact match and exact match hyphenated are two categories out of four. Are you saying because they created a category "exact match hyphenated" that makes it not an exact match?

I could find nothing else within the post that stated your assertion so I am curious as to how or where you are seeing that.

Thanks

[CoreyEulas]

Greg Agree technically dashes mean two words. That video is primarily targeted to page level not domain level. From experience, I own/ed 100+ domains that are two word dash and no dash and first hande experience I'd go with non all day long. Since I don't have fast and hard facts here I'll just end with a Cutts reference that mentions Google dialing back the value of keywords in domains here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAWFv43qubI&feature=youtube_gdata_player .. Even though Im not particularly sure this is the case. *written from an iPhone so excuse typos.

[activitysuper]

I did notice my contradiction from what I stated and the link I provided.

But decided to go with it anyway because most talk about an EMD as a way to boost rankings and I have tried and tested and find a true exact (non-hyphenated) to have significant ranking benefits over the hyphened.

So yes you are right and I am wrong that hyphened are a type of EMD but in my eyes a true EMD is a non-hyphened domain.

[RobertFisher]

Activitysuper

We use exact match domains with and without hyphens so I am quite interested in this. As an agency we handle a few sites so exact match/keyword in domain is an often discussed question. Most believed that there would be some mod to the algo in the last year or so, but we have not seen it. So, understand that my question is driven by curiosity on this interesting subject; I am always looking for answers that improve the outcomes of our clients.

The more I read your response: "national-currency is not better or even as good as nationalcurrency when it comes to exact match domains" and your subsequent reply to Greg(( NationalCurrency.com is a EMD for the term 'National Currency' - National-Currency.com is not.) , I am curious as to where you are getting this from? If it is the same link in the reply, is there anything newer? This link is from a correlation study that is 18 months old - an 18 months in which a lot of change took place - and given more and more people are trying to possess and seem to have exact match domains, there might be a higher correlation of exact match utilizing a hyphen due to the larger data set.

Also, given that correlation does not equal causation, any one piece of the findings or all the findings in aggregate could be proof of nothing...or something.

Thanks

Note: My stating exact match with hyphen is simply a way of differentiating a piece in the question here.

[activitysuper]

Ok,

I have done some serious testing on EMD's this year and have seen results such as country coded domains rank 1st page with 500 words of content and a social sharing tool to add with no link building.

I have done a lot of research into more competitive search terms using the seomoz tool bar and have seen 100's of EMD's with low mozstats (DA:30) against the surrounding results with (DA:50/70).

I've done the same sort of stuff with hyphened and other extensions and nothing comes anywhere near the true exact match.

But thats just me and my findings.