Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Moving established :COM site to a .ART domain
- 
					
					
					
					
 Hi! We have an existing website that has a .com TLD with our brand name, which is completely unrelated to any of the terms we want to rank for except for the brand search of our company of course. We have an online shop and the .com site has been online for a good few years. The business activity is related to art, in fact some of our customers would search for "name of artists + art" and we appear in results. From what I have read, Google is not going to give better rankings for a .art domain name, but will the extension be counted as a potential keyword and relevancy to users searches based on example above? Does anyone have any experience with regards to this consideration? Thanks! 
- 
					
					
					
					
 I agree with david, this may have been a more effective approach when exact match keywords in domains were weighted heavily, but that is not the case anymore. You would risk, and probably lose more value than you would gain from this transition 
- 
					
					
					
					
 Hi Ben, You won't get any benefit out of this and I wouldn't recommend doing it just to get "art" in the domain name. I'd 100% stick with the established .com domain. Cheers, David 
- 
					
					
					
					
 Make sure you consider the following when moving domains: - Domain Ages - the older the better
- Domain Authority - Which has a higher authority, keep that one.
- SPAM score
- Root Domain Links/Overall Links
 This are my top 4 when dealing with domains. Yes, having a keyword in the domain is beneficial, but it wont out-weigh the benefits if we are 0/4 on the above list. 
- 
					
					
					
					
 I understand what you are asking here! It is not reported to have a major impact as far as I am aware. I would be more inclined to point out the importance of having a good redirect strategy and also understanding how you tell Google you have moved domains within the search console. I have had very successful experiences with moving a site to a new domain, but make sure you tick all the boxes so you don't lose your current rankings. 
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
- 
		
		Moz ToolsChat with the community about the Moz tools. 
- 
		
		SEO TacticsDiscuss the SEO process with fellow marketers 
- 
		
		CommunityDiscuss industry events, jobs, and news! 
- 
		
		Digital MarketingChat about tactics outside of SEO 
- 
		
		Research & TrendsDive into research and trends in the search industry. 
- 
		
		SupportConnect on product support and feature requests. 
Related Questions
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		How long does google takes to crawl a single site ?
 lately i have been thinking , when a crawler visits an already visited site or indexed site, whats the duration of its scanning? Algorithm Updates | | Sam09schulz0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Site appearing and disappearing from google serps.
 Hi, My website is normally on page 2-3 on google consistently. Over the past month it has been appearing and then completely disappearing from the serps. One day it will be on page 2, then the next day completely missing from the serps. When i check the index it seems to be indexed correctly when doing site:mysite.com. I don't understand why this keeps happening, any experience with this issue? It doesn't seem to be a google dance as far as I can tell. When my other sites dance they typically just go up or down a few ranks for a couple weeks until they stabilize. Not completely fall off the search engine. Algorithm Updates | | Chris_www0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Ranking drop after sub domain to sub directory migration. Usual?
 Hi all, We had our help articles on sub-domain help.website.com. Then we moved it to sub directory website.com/help/. We expected ranking improvement of website.com as there is a wide saying of benefiting from sub domain to sub directory migration. We have noticed that ranking improvement of new sub directory pages (website.com/help/) but not for any main website pages (website.com). I presume that link juice from main website has benefited new sub directory pages but main website lost ranking due to the page rank dilution. Do you agree? Any ideas? Thanks Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		How seasonal would you expect organic on a b2b site to be?
 I have a client who has a b2b site catering to a white collar information market. Looking back in G/A, it appears that they've never had a good organic search Summer, but have made plenty of YOY gains.This Summer is a little better than past Summers. Personally, I have read about people who take Summer vacations. Mostly in France. This is a U.S. site and U.S. traffic catering to business executives. I can see it in the parking lot of the downtown office building I work in... fewer cars after Memorial Day and more cars after Labor Day. How seasonal would you expect that kind of organic search traffic to be, say from April vs July? Would prefer answers from direct B2B experience, rather than guesses. But, if a guess is all you have, I will gladly accept that! Thanks... Darcy Algorithm Updates | | 945010
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		How to Change Geo Target Location of Country Specific Domain
 Hi - I have a country specific domain (www.updater.in), used it for writing blog articles Now when i go to site settings in Webmaster - the Geo target by default is coming for India, and no option of changing geographic target. Is there any way to let Search Engines know (despite .in domain) that site Geo Location is not country specific, but is meant for users from all across !! Algorithm Updates | | Modi0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Is it better to build a large site that covers many verticals or many sites dedicated to each vertical
 Just wondering from an seo perspective is it better to build a large site that covers many verticals or build out many sites one for each vertical? Algorithm Updates | | tlhseo0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Plural vs non-plural domain name
 I'm sure this question has been answered and asked a 1,000 different ways but what would be the best domain name to use in the long term (2 years +)? The plural versions (examples.com) which has a decent domain authority and is ranking 1st in Google search results yet has less search volume or the singular version (example.com) that has no current SEO value for the search term that we'd like to target however the singular version of the keyword has a much higher search volume? so basically will it be better to have the exact match that has more volume or the plural form that has better rankings after 2 years of doing SEO for each domain? My guess is that using (examples.com) with the better domain authority and tightening the grip on its dominance in Google will still be more effective than having the exact match domain with more search volume for that keyword while performing the same amount of SEO even after two years. Any suggestions? Algorithm Updates | | ydop0
- 
		
		
		
		
		
		Why google index ip address instead of the domain name?
 I have a website ,now google index ip address of it instead of the domain name,I have used 301 redirected to the domain name,but how to change the index IP to its domain name? And why google index the IP address? Algorithm Updates | | frankfans1170
 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
			
		 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				 
					
				