Two Domains, which one should be used on Social Media platforms?

[Artistic]

I have a client who changed from a Branded Domain (301 redirected this domain) to a Partial Match Domain, using the city in the domain for rich keyword. I take care of their Social Media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.). These social networks used the Branded Domain (with the company name in the domain) for years, now the new web designer is asking that we change Username and Domain to the new Partial Match Domain, which is very "generic" not mentioning the company name. I am reluctant to change for branding mention purposes. Does anyone have any advice?

[mediawyse]

Just my two-cents, but that sounds like a TERRIBLE idea. Further, it's going to look pretty disingenuous to your social followings.

If you have a brand, that you've built up social followings on over an extended period of time, it seems VERY short-term to change out different domains. And frankly, the days of partial or exact match domains having long-term, strong, SEO staying power, is really over. Branded sites with branded anchor texts are really the SAFE way to go in what is a clear war by Google on keyword-rich link building.

A domain change is never an easy decision but unless you've legally changed your name or are "rebranding" -- doing a domain change JUST to get some kind of "partial match" in your URL sounds like pretty piss-poor SEO advice. Clearly, I have limited facts here and it sounds like they are doing this for some perceived "local SEO" geographic benefit but in my experience, most of these changes don't end up being successful in the long-term.

Now, the above being said, it is very common in the legal industry to have a keyword-rich domain (ie. http://www.bestinjurylawyers.com/) but use the Firm or Brand Name for social accounts (ie. https://www.facebook.com/TheReevesLawGroup). You can find a ton of examples of firms doing this so it's not the end-of-the-world and you can easily use these examples to justify NOT making a uniform change at your end.

I hope this was helpful. Good luck with your client situation.

[JaneCopland]

Hi Denise,

I have to say that the rebrand strategy worries me too. There was a good need to have a domain name like this in 2006 / 7 or so, but it's very unnecessary now and verges on dangerous if it is seen to be a spammy move. It also reflects quite poorly from a usability point of view - if a brand-name regional insurance company like Pemco (http://www.pemco.com/) for example, and you change your domain to www.seattlecarinsurance.com, it doesn't look particularly professional.

I would definitely avoid making this change across social media as well. Is there any other reason besides SEO that this domain change was made in the first place? If not, I strongly suggest changing this back to the original name because there is unlikely to be any SEO benefit in doing this at all.

[Artistic]

Thank you so much for your response! You have no idea how helpful this is to me!  Yes, the domain was recently changed for SEO ranking and/or geographic benefits; and this is not a law firm.  This is a dentist.  It was advised by Jane Copland to go back to the branded domain (which I am inclined to agree).  If the dentist changes back to the branded domain, will this confuse SE? And, do we dare "redirect" the PMD?

Thank you, in advance, for any advice you have.

[Artistic]

Thank you Jane! I am so happy to have received two responses and also relieved to know I am advising my client correctly, with support from you and Casey Markee.  It has been less than 2 months since they changed this domain.  I asked Casey if the dentist goes back to the branded domain how it will effect SE and whether or not we should "redirect" the PMD. Your thoughts on this would be appreciated also.

Again, thank you!

[JaneCopland]

Hi Denise,

You should be safe to redirect back to the original domain - two months is long enough for Google to have completely indexed the new site and assigned it rankings, but a 301 redirect generally takes care of this and reverses the situation back to its original state. It's not optimal - optimal would have been never doing this in the first place unfortunately - but you do need to complete the redirect back again because the original site is now thought of as the new site, as far as Google is concerned. You need the 301 to say "hey Google, we're not on pmd.com anymore, we're over on brand.com!" just as you did the first time, when you changed the pmd.com two months ago.

Again, it's not optimal because they fewer redirects a domain / site can go through the better, but I'd class this sort of redirect for keywords as damaging and not something you want to keep around.

I hope this helps!

Best,

Jane