2 Word EMD's - Good of bad for SEO

[Web3Marketing87]

Hello Again Moz Folks,

I have a domain:  www.edmontonweb.ca
It is currently on page 2 and I'm trying to figure out ways to improve its ranking.

Because it is an EMD, I considered forwarding it to    www.launchwebdesign.ca

Considering there is existing Domain Authority on edmontonweb.ca, is this a good move?
Would forwarding the domain transfer DA to launchwebdesign.ca?

Thanks,

Anton

[WhiteboardCreations]

Hi Anton! Great question and hope my response will help you out in the thought process...

1. Whether EMD's are bad or good has been discussed at great length both here in Moz and elsewhere. If your website seems spammy, poor content, poor quality links, incorrect on-page optimization, etc... then your EMD would be useless against those stronger sites/brands. Another item to strongly consider is that Google wants to see more "branding" across the web since their algo's are smart enough to correlate your products and services (most of the time and will continue to improve as they evolve) to your brand/business name/personal name. In your case, your company is called Launch, and your domain is an EMD. May be fishy. May not be. That is for Google to decide as your site doesn't look spammy or poorly executed. We just will never 100% know if Google will flag it.

2. You never mentioned what keywords your website is displaying on page 2 for... If you provided that, then we could take a very quick glimpse at the competition currently outranking your site based on PA/DA, Google PR, links, content, etc.

3. I'm really liking your other domain and here's why. It has your company name and a keyword. I'd migrate what you have from edmontonweb.ca to launchwebdesign.ca immediately. Why? Because your current domain doesn't really have too high of PA/DA, you have PR 0, and you have 5 linking root domains (LRDs). A quick fix to migrate the WordPress site over to the new domain, submit your XML sitemap, set up your Analytics and Webmasters Tools and then go back into those 5 LRDs (if you can, or place a request) to change the linking domain to your launchwebdesign.ca

4. Build your links with your keywords and your branding now to the new domain and begin building authority for that. Forward the edmontonweb.ca just in case anyone has it saved to cover any potential missed leads.

5. Your DA will not transfer to the new domain, however, as mentioned before, you don't have much to worry about if you can get the new domain set up properly, move the site and change the LRDs. Then rock and roll from there as you would before to build your Launch brand! Your DA/PA will jump up relatively fast, I'd imagine.

6. I went through your site and you could begin pumping some useful, original articles into your blog as well. Google enjoys coming back to index more content. So feed the beast!! And as you do that build links to your inter pages or other blogs articles you have written over time and any authority blogs where you can reference material, stats, facts, advice, tips, etc.

Hope this was a good answer and helps you out! - Patrick