Today I'm beginning a series of posts on launching a website. Domains are part of my strategy but the domain name is less important than site architecture. I'll explain fully when I discuss website information architecture in an upcoming article. All of the techniques will be outlined as soon as I implement them. Hopefully those who are watching the rankings of the site will see the effectiveness as they are completed. This will slow down the postioning of the site but... what we'll learn is worth more down the road.
Why? Because most of my techniques except for the social stuff is old school. I know because these are techniques I've used for 15 years! Some like referential integrity are just being talked about now. That is the main reason I thought optimization through IBL's was not needed. Why? A link is a stinkin' link... Google doresn't care what site it's on so long as you don't screw yourself using spammy linking schemes which I'm convinced do little good and raise a big red flag on all your work. IMO, they know who deoes it and the degree to which they do it.
Do Links From Expired Domains Count With Google? by Danny Sullivan is interesting in as much as it is more "Googleze" where GoogleGuy Matt Cutts assumes situations that are not so routine. There are some assumptions made that when considered make the "Googleze" less useful, in fact it takes a legitimate tactic out of the SEO arsenal. It assumes there are no flags of imminent domain demise, there are! You see the opportunity for the leaches when you do the domain name availability searches. For a few bucks you can know when the domain is available, who owns it (whois is a search tool on any registry) likely information available through a domaining service, etc. and the $'s at risk are low. Then you can obtain the name cheaply, after all, it is expiring... I'm not going to tell you what to do bevond here just assume I'd arrange for the domain not to expire and gain control of it without the ownership in the domain registration changing. Domain renewal or changes I know beyond a doubt trigger domain snooping by Gpoogle.:-)
Is this a legitimate tactic? Yes, because in the real world that is the natural course of business. If a business is "done like dinner" you know that "goodwill" and inventory are at their lowest value. You could buy a location and the public would be none the wiser, unless, they knew the previous owner. This inevitable course in business preserves capital and resources and that is the way capitalism is supposed to work. Capitalism in and of itself increases an economy's efficiency and productivity.
Stars .com is a classic example of a useless expired domain name for "obtaining links". Why? Simple it makes sense if the original content which was advanced "web development" and internet marketing was related to the new content. That domain I believe was called stars .com because it was mainly tutorials from talented web developers and a directory of resources (you might even have seen me in there). Before stars it had the words virtual and library but that's all of the domain name that pops into my foggy memory.
Through the years I have been very interested in how domain names affect rankings. Do I think they matter? Yes, I do... International Website Builders has no external links except for in the results for Canada on SeoPros. The domain is about a year old and has only been "finished" for about two weeks (April 5/2009) but was likely picked up when I posted a tutorial on this blog for a client months before (sloppy but useful ...).
Note that the ranking I see is likely a little different than what you will see due to Google's personal and Universal/Blended SERPs. Would it make sense if I didn't own T's World to buy the domain? Also interesting is the indented result was added after the text on the home page was changed to test "referential integrity" that was an almost instant change to that SERP and the site moved to the #2 position with the indented result. My next Promotional task will be a business listing on the major Search Engines.
The fact Ts world is above the International Website Builders site is likely due to the International Website Builders reference only being edited occasionally to change the date. International Website Builders is not exactly a hamster/strawman term if it results in targeted traffic. I don't believe there is a single link on or to T'sWorld with the link text "International Website Builders". There is a lot of web development and website builder info on the site and the copyright is identified as International Website Builders. I am going to link this up first ala' link condom and then without. First I have to get it out of the penalty box by going to webmaster central's kangaroo court (I'm innocent!) and grovel away. It will be interesting to watch this SEO experiment play out.
Yes, adding referential integrity to a new domain makers sense. Since IWB does "International"... especially NA website building this is a "relevant site". Whether it has "referential integrity" and the corresponding "authority" is another question altogether. I will be "hooking" IWB up with TsWorld using a "nofollow". Every search engine out there knew the original site was dead (even before I finally killed the site) and Ts world was where the fresh relevant content is. Google thinks Ts World is spam because I did what was right for the user. Of course, Google assumed I was spamming and buried Ts World years ago... unless the page is linked to by a "legit" authority site.
Yes, it has 000's of links T's world is 12/13 yrs old with an older version, the reason why it's boxed even though it's likely one of the oldest resources for SEO techniques available. Interesting in that 90% of the document structure and HUB strategy that Webmaster T touted are still successful techniques that work as well today as he theorized they did in 95/6. To date I have let great domain names expire... a few times, and repurchased them, more on that later. 1 will blow your socks off;-)