Should well-established company rebrand with my better keyword-quality domain name?

GarretB · Nov 27, 2012

Hey guys, so I wanted to get the opinion of people here on whether it'd make sense for a well-established company which uses a domain name with virtually no exact match keyword search value to consider rebranding with my domain name which is of quite a bit better keyword quality. This involves a travel domain I own though which is in the form of TourCountry.com while the other is the Official Tourism Board for this country but using a YourCountry.com domain. I believe my domain is much better in pretty much every way (except age), but in the end, searches for my keyword could be considered relatively miniscule when you consider that they are ranked in the 3rd spot on Google for their "country" keyword which receives more than 650,000 exact searches a month with cpc of $1.35+

Here are some stats for the keywords:
YourCountry - 1,900 exact searches, $0.10 cpc - 2,900 phrase searches, $0.10 cpc
TourCountry - 2,400 exact searches, $1.25+ cpc - 27,000 phrase searches, $1.25+ cpc
Country - 670,000 exact searches, $1.38 cpc

I think my domain offers a lot more keyword value, etc.. and should likely save them at least $25,000 or maybe a lot more a year in saved advertising fees or organic traffic once it was fully ranked for the exact-match keyword, While the other domain seems pretty much worthless in keyword value. But would it even make sense for them to consider rebranding with a better domain if they would lose their 3rd spot ranking for the exact "country" keyword search. I expect they could definately get this ranking back but I expect it would also take a while.

Also on a side note, does it make sense to include phrase searches in evaluating the domain and what percentage of the 27,000 phrase searches that are made a month with the keyword "tour country" do you think the owner of the TourCountry domain would get?

Thanks guys!

alien51 · Nov 27, 2012

I thought Google is now putting a dagger into that long-running search anomaly they call "keyword-quality domain".

I am mostly in the content business myself, and i am buying more "brandable" type domains lately. These are domains that do not even have keywords in them. For example, if i'm selling women lingerie, my domain would be something like "Natasha dot com" (just a hypothetical domain example).

These days, people are more concerned whether the domain/website is trustworthy. Like trustworthy enough to convince them to type-in their credit card and buy your merchandise.

A lot of "keyword-quality" domains nowadays, have been poisoned by low-quality content, parked by domainers, or even used for scams. And people these days who spend so much time on the internet, can now see the connection that when they type some keyword phrases on Google, and the domain that first shows up is like an "exact-match" domain, and what they get is poor content quality (if not scams), they tend to acquire a stigma against keyword domains.

But if it's a brandable domain, something that you can "remember" even while you're on a bus or eating in a restaurant, people tend to believe you are a serious merchandiser who is trying to protect a "brand". And if you are trying to protect a "brand", it comes with logic that you won't try to scam your customers, because you don't want your brand to be destroyed.

GarretB · Nov 27, 2012

Hey thanks for your response! This really helps me out. I definately see what you mean about the benefits of a brandable domain as they are often much more memorable and all. I was under the impression though that Google only penalized low-quality websites in regards to keyword domains though. But if it's a well-developed site (like one used by a large company) than the recent Google update shouldn't change anything from before really. Not that a company should choose a keyword domain over a brandable one necessarily, but if they did, they would have a much easier time and be the best positioned to rank at the top for that exact-keyword still. Is this true at all?

-Adam- · Nov 27, 2012

But if it's a well-developed site (like one used by a large company) than the recent Google update shouldn't change anything from before really.

But it did for several companies and they even mention their algorithm did target legitimate sites and penalized them by mistake. Some have recovered and some haven't.

As for rebranding it would depend on the size of the company and if they were willing to spend the money on marketing the new name or not. Some will some won't it.

GarretB · Nov 27, 2012

-Adam- said:
But it did for several companies and they even mention their algorithm did target legitimate sites and penalized them by mistake. Some have recovered and some haven't.

Oh really yea i didn't realize that. So has the value of exact-match domains (well short/business-targeted) to end users changed a lot since the EMD update? I've always thought, I guess from what i've read, that they still have basically the same value as before to end users, you just can't build low quality sites on them now.

Fonzie · Nov 27, 2012

alien51 said:
For example, if i'm selling women lingerie, my domain would be something like "Natasha dot com" (just a hypothetical domain example).

One that 95 in 100 'domainers' don't even begin to understand, in spite of the fact that generic keyword domains suitable as abstract brands (Apple) derive an enormous portion of their value from that very type of interest.

Appraising a good one is incredibly hard, intuitive and immensely right brain- it's like knowing good music or good art- but yes. Domains like that are very much a 'big deal'.

Domains at that level have absolutely nothing to do with the Google adwords keyword tool, search volume, cost per click or Estibot. Of course, as we see in posts like this, it's a pretty safe assumption that most people who came into domaining after 2006 or so don't even begin to understand what kind of gravity those names have, since they don't own anything within a trillion light years of that universe, never mind something within the same solar system.

Aggro · Nov 27, 2012

Fonzie lays the smackdown once again.. :bingo:

Truth is, most domainer Johnny-cum-latelies (& many middle aged "vets" who should know better) wouldn't know a good domain (coveted by end users/branding agencies) if it hit 'em in the face

It's pathetic & sad how these types adopt a kind of domaining-painting-by-numbers approach to it all

No wonder these turds call it "domaining for a living"..:lol:
They've even managed to create a full time job by adopting a rocket science approach using Google tools, & 10 different sites for various "metrics"... :lol:
And wait for it...all this is before their "marketing" emails to anyone who has an email address :lol:

So you can see it's literally a 20 hr per day job :lol:

As for the link:

1. It seems the new domainer soundbite meme misused/misunderstood word/phrase is "category killer"

2. Gotta laugh when the blogger laughs at commenters' "category killers" - when he himself thinks adding "management" as a suffix to the 1st word makes the compound keywords into a "category killer". :bah:

In that particular case, Brand(s).com would be the relevant 'category killer'

Fonzie said:
One that 95 in 100 'domainers' don't even begin to understand, in spite of the fact that generic keyword domains suitable as abstract brands (Apple) derive an enormous portion of their value from that very type of interest.

Appraising a good one is incredibly hard, intuitive and immensely right brain- it's like knowing good music or good art- but yes. Domains like that are very much a 'big deal'.

Domains at that level have absolutely nothing to do with the Google adwords keyword tool, search volume, cost per click or Estibot. Of course, as we see in posts like this, it's a pretty safe assumption that most people who came into domaining after 2006 or so don't even begin to understand what kind of gravity those names have, since they don't own anything within a trillion light years of that universe, never mind something within the same solar system.

alien51 · Nov 28, 2012

GarretB said:
But if it's a well-developed site (like one used by a large company) than the recent Google update shouldn't change anything from before really. Not that a company should choose a keyword domain over a brandable one necessarily, but if they did, they would have a much easier time and be the best positioned to rank at the top for that exact-keyword still. Is this true at all?

If it's a "well-developed" site as you say, then surely it must have been ranking on top already, and many people would have bookmarked their domain by now. Switching domains would alienate their customers (who invented the word 'alien-ate' anyway?)

If i were running Heinz.com, and got myself the keyword domain "tomatocatsup dot com", i probably would just use it to redirect traffic to Heinz.com -- which is a solid brand. But then again, redirection domains are dropped from Google search, and few people these days type keywords on the URL bar of their browsers. So pretty much useless and waste of money.

I think your best bet would be rising entrepreneurs/end-users who don't have brands yet.

The problem, however, is that nearly 90% of all quality keyword domains have already been taken by Domainers (such as "us"), asking for steep price. And from my own experience, i've seen them buy less-than-perfect keyword domains at reg fee with the "my" and "the" in the front (e.g. "myhandbags" or "theflowershop")... and to some extent, they even happily settled building end-user websites on the next best extensions like .NET or .ORG (which were available at reg fee, while domainer holding .COM hostage).

---------- Post added at 05:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:25 PM ----------

Fonzie said:
One that 95 in 100 'domainers' don't even begin to understand, in spite of the fact that generic keyword domains suitable as abstract brands (Apple) derive an enormous portion of their value from that very type of interest.

Appraising a good one is incredibly hard, intuitive and immensely right brain- it's like knowing good music or good art- but yes. Domains like that are very much a 'big deal'.

Domains at that level have absolutely nothing to do with the Google adwords keyword tool, search volume, cost per click or Estibot. Of course, as we see in posts like this, it's a pretty safe assumption that most people who came into domaining after 2006 or so don't even begin to understand what kind of gravity those names have, since they don't own anything within a trillion light years of that universe, never mind something within the same solar system.

And not to mention that "Natasha dot com" would look much better in your credit card bill statement, rather than "EdiblePanties dot com". lol

---------- Post added at 05:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:28 PM ----------

Aggro said:
(& many middle aged "vets" who should know better)

When you say middle aged vets, does that include us singing "We don't need no education... Hey teacher, leave us kids alone!" -Pink Floyd

fm1234 · Nov 28, 2012

It is not unusual for well-established companies to own keyword domains, some of which redirect to various sites they own and some of which have minisites on them for marketing purposes (one of my favourite examples is Bank of America, which at one point owned well over 10,000 keyword domains, most of which redirected to various niche subsidies.)

The idea that a brand would rebrand[/i] itself over a domain name seems pretty unlikely; however, many brands do use kw domains as redirects, market testbeds etc.

Frank

Dave · Nov 28, 2012

I can only speak for myself but the majority of my recent domain sales recently have been brandable or brandable generics so I agree 100% with Alien on this one. Just a shame other domainers haven't really woken up to this yet (or is it?)...

Should well-established company rebrand with my better keyword-quality domain name?

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GarretB

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