If I Was Just Starting In This Industry

[themike537]

By tomorrow I will have forgot what the name of the casino site you posted was.

And I will forget BingoPort.co.uk. Any domain can be "branded", including exact match domains. IMO it's much easier to get a visitor to remember to put ".org" after "bingo" than it is to get the visitor to remember to put "port" in between "bingo" and ".co.uk".

The act of branding has far more to do with making an impression on your visitor than it does with the domain name of your site.

[ramchip]

And I will forget BingoPort.co.uk. Any domain can be "branded", including exact match domains. IMO it's much easier to get a visitor to remember to put ".org" after "bingo" than it is to get the visitor to remember to put "port" in between "bingo" and ".co.uk".

The act of branding has far more to do with making an impression on your visitor than it does with the domain name of your site.

I would say a large proportion of internet users would not even have heard of the .org TLD.

The name of any site or even any product is very important. Bingo Port is far easier to remember than bingo no deposit bonus etc.

[NickM]

Don't buy any domains that have been dropped!

Why?

I would say a large proportion of internet users would not even have heard of the .org TLD.

I would say a larger proportion of internet users have heard of .org than .co.uk. If we are talking about only a "bingo" vacuum, then it may be better right now to have a .co.uk, but your blanket statement has to be false.

[ramchip]

Why?



I would say a larger proportion of internet users have heard of .org than .co.uk. If we are talking about only a "bingo" vacuum, then it may be better right now to have a .co.uk, but your blanket statement has to be false.

I'm from the UK and most from the UK have heard about .co.uk.

Don't buy any domains that have been dropped!

Which would you prefer? A 7 year old domain that had not been dropped or a seven year old domain that has been dropped once or twice?

Not sure where this thread is going now. As I have already said prime matching domains of course have value and seo power. Yes I will take onlinecasino.org if someone wants to give it to me. For lesser matched domains I would rather give them a miss and go for a aged domain I could brand.

[themike537]

For lesser matched domains I would rather give them a miss and go for a aged domain I could brand.

Depends what you're trying to do. If you want to make a small site that will quickly rank and make money, get a keyword domain. If you're trying to build the next PL or PJ over a few years, then no, don't put thousands of pages on pokerbonuscodesonline.net.

[NickM]

Don't buy any domains that have been dropped!

I'm being serious. Why?

I'm from the UK and most from the UK have heard about .co.uk.

Like I said, if you are going after the Bingo market in a specific country, then sure, a country specific TLD is probably good, but your inferrence that .co.uk is more widely known by all internet users than .org is false.

[ramchip]

I'm being serious. Why?



Like I said, if you are going after the Bingo market in a specific country, then sure, a country specific TLD is probably good, but your inferrence that .co.uk is more widely known by all internet users than .org is false.

Well if you read back through this thread you will see we are talking about the UK and bingo. I know for a fact in a ran a survey on one of my forums and asked people to name tlds then .com and .co.uk would be top.

In regards to domains I have no doubt that aged domains rank better than new domains. A 5 year old domain will also rank better than a 5 year old domain that has been dropped lets say a year ago.

I could go one about aged domains with aged back links but that is not what this thread is about.

[ramchip]

Depends what you're trying to do. If you want to make a small site that will quickly rank and make money, get a keyword domain. If you're trying to build the next PL or PJ over a few years, then no, don't put thousands of pages on pokerbonuscodesonline.net.

Thinking about the above statement, I believe these type of statements are the ones that new affiliates follow. They want instant results plus of course they want to make instant money.

I think most new affiliates think that if they go for a matched key phrase domain they will get the traffic they see in Wordtracker. As somebody else has said in most cases if they don't get a top 3 spot they will not get any traffic. There are of course some matched key phrases domains that will get instant traffic and make money but most new affiliates don't have the skills to find them.

I will also say those looking to make quick and easy money in this industry in a few months are the ones that fail. Those that are in this industry for the long term are the ones that succeed.

So what happens to these new affiliates? Well they get it into their heads that they need matched domains. They end up with a bunch of matched domains that in most cases are never going to be ranked top 3 so 6 to 12 months down the line their only revenue is from link sales.

Nick you have a matched key phrase domain - pokerwebsite . net. How long (if you are planning to rank for this term) do you think it will take you to get a decent ranking for this key phrase? Do you think a top 3 ranking is possible in a year?

Nick you of course have Holdem Review which is s superb site and I reckon generates decent money each month. This is the type of site I believe new affiliates should be aiming for.

Poker is a bloody hard niche to crack and make money from because there are hundreds if not thousands of affiliates like Nick who have many years of experience. The great news for new affiliates is though that gambling is evolving. Bingo and other gambling games are booming in the UK and WILL expand all over the world.

Remember my initial posts was simply advice to newbies. I have made mistakes, plenty of mistakes and I still make them. Simply before you dive into buying dozens of matched domians think about it! Have a look at what sites established members of this forum have built.

I will also say I'm not trying to knock anybody in this thread. Looking at the sites of those who have posted in this thread it is clear they have worked very hard on their sites and continue to do so.

[Andy]

I couldnt help notice that bingobonus.com was mentioned (the day after I joined too).
This has been turned in to a proper cash bingo site.

[TheShortStack]

Poker

xxxwww.pokerlistings.comxxx
xxxwww.pokerjunkie.comxxx

Just thought I'd throw my hat into the ring here to suggest that perhaps PokerListings is not the best example to use. I'm assuming that when the domain was purchased, it was bought due to the keywords that were in the domain rather than for branding purposes.

Sure, the brand has now skyrocketed to such a point that they keywords are pretty much meaningless now. But the site effectively launched on a keyword rich domain, and has worked just fine.

Having said that I think it depends on the domain you've got. I agree that there's no point building a couple of hundred pages on a domain like freebingobonus.org. The niche is so small, it doesn't really deserve it.

I'm currently developing PlayPokerOnline.net which obviously contains some great keywords but also offers the opportunity to write a fair bit of content as the niche is a lot bigger. After all, if you're looking to answer all questions asked by someone looking to play online poker, you've got an awful lot of content available to you.

Long term, I'd obviously love the site to develop into a recognised brand, but even if it doesn't and I can rank even half decently for primary key phrases, the search volume is so big I should be able to pull in a fair bit of traffic.

I don't think there's anything wrong with building a site on a keyword rich domain. I just think you need to understand the value of that domain and not spend too much time on it, if your efforts could be better spent building a brand elsewhere.