Outranking a crappy outdated site with domain age & keywords in URL.

[DCochrane]

I'm trying to outrank a website with the following:

Website with #1 ranking for a search query with "City & Brand"

• Domain Authority - 2
• Domain Age - 11 years & 9 months old
• Has both the City & brand in the URL name.
• The site is crap, outdated.. probably last designed in the 90's, old layouts, not a lot of content & NO keywords in the titles & descriptions on all pages.

My site ranks 5th for the same keyword.. BEHIND 4 pages from the site described above.

• Domain Authority - 2
• Domain Age - 4 years & 2 months old
• Has only the CITY in the URL.
• Brand new site design this past year, new content & individual keywords in the titles, descriptions on each page.

My main question is.... do you think it would be be beneficial to buy a new domain name with the BRAND in the URL  & CITY & 301 redirect my 4 year old domain to the new domain to pass along the authority it has gained.

Will having the brand in the URL make much of a difference?

Do you think that small step would even help to beat the crappy but old site out?

Thanks for any help & suggestions on how to beat this old site or at least show up second.

[irvingw]

Absolutely not, your site is aged. A new site is like starting all over even if you do 301 the old site to the new.

a) work on improving the on page SEO on your site

b) if that new domain is available you could play around with setting that up as a stand alone site and see if you can get it ranked #1, it could take 6-12 months before Google really trusts it enough.

c) if it's that old and outdated maybe he wants to sell it at a reasonable price if it's worth that much to you?

[EGOL]

**Will having the brand in the URL make much of a difference? **

The brand?   Yes, if people know you.

Really, I would not change domains for the tiny advantage that you think a keyword in the domain might bring.  It is very possible that you will lose more linkjuice in the redirect than you will gain from the keyword in the domain.

Do you think that small step would even help to beat the crappy but old site out?

heh... That crappy old site is beating you because they are beating you. 

It is easier to beat an old crappy site with "work" than it is to beat them with "tricks'.

[eli.boda]

I like irving's suggestion to see if the webmaster is willing to sell the site. whats the link profile like? any particular high authority links that might be giving it the advantage over your site?

[JarnoNijzing]

I personally lean more towards the reaction of EGOL. If you put enough effort in it, keep it straight white hat and do all the steps suggested in the SEOblog section (like link earning in stead of link building) then over time you can outrank that site for sure. But keep working on it. Be social.. share everything you can on facebook, twitter and off course the BIG G+.

Tricks can help you in the short run but hurt you in the long run so i wouldn't go for that straight away.

You could also try registering the other domain you mentioned, put up some content and everything and build it next to your existing website (without copying text etc.). You could do this as a supporting role for your primary website if you wish. But i would focus on my primary website first and improving that one.

regards

Jarno

[DCochrane]

Thanks all. This is what I had recommended to the client to begin with. I just needed some backup from all you smart SEO's out there.

Unfortunately the URL would not be for sale as it's a brick and mortar business.

Thanks again!