SEO Benefit/Liability of changing URLs of a 2 year old site

[steve-288618]

I sell RV Parts online.  Our organization is called The ROUTE 66 RV Network, so we brand everything around ROUTE 66.  When we launched our store 2 years ago, we launched it with the domain:

parts66.com

We have a PR of 2, and we have been doing an SEO linkbuilding campaign ever since it has been around.

Our primary keyword that we are trying to rank for is RV PARTS

We also own the domain:

rvparts66.com

My question is:

Is there a significant benefit to switching our URL to RVPARTS66.COM?  Does having our primary keyword a part of our URL give us an SEO benefit?  If so, what is the best way to keep any credit we have built for our original domain?

We are in the process of a complete site overhaul which will launch in a couple weeks, so if there is ever a time to switch domains, the time is now.

Thanks!

jc

[RyanKent]

** Does having our primary keyword a part of our URL give us an SEO benefit? **

Yes. You will receive a benefit on all searches using that keyword.

Your current URL already has "parts" in it. By adding "rv" to the URL, your ranking will be boosted on any search for "rv" and especially for "rv parts", but you will not do as well for "parts" without "rv" anymore.

what is the best way to keep any credit we have built for our original domain?

If you decide to make the change, you should use a 301 redirect. All traffic and links will be redirected from the old site to the new site. Your links will retain 90%+ of their value for the new site. When possible, update the links so you can keep 100% of their value.

[steve-288618]

Thanks for the response Ryan.  Do you have any kind of basis for how much it will benefit the search engine rankings?  A little?  A lot?

I have spoken with my programmers and there is not really a technical challenge in switching domains, I am just trying to get some sort of expectation...we are currently on page 2 (~rank of 13) for RV Parts on GOogle and Bing...

What could I expect from this change?

Thanks again for your response.

jc

[RyanKent]

Do you have any kind of basis for how much it will benefit the search engine rankings?

If you were moving from "parts.com" to "carparts.com" it is likely you would see a noticeable improvement for exact match searches.

Moving from parts66.com to rvparts66.com presents a complication. Even an "rv parts" search would not be an exact match as you have the "66" included in the domain name. Your site will never have an Exact Match Domain which receives the highest benefit. Instead you would be seeking to move from a partial match domain to a better partial match domain, and the improvement may not be noticeable.

I would suggest substantial testing and research prior to making any change. I am not aware of any case studies on a change similar to the one you are considering.