Domain name change - advantages and disadvantages

[buyonaut]

Hi all,

Badly need advice from you guys; recently I bought one really cool TLD that perfectly goes with my current established website.

Now, established site has traffic, is ranked well and indexed by SE's, has ok page rank, backlinks and all those cute things that makes site working fine...

Is it worthwhile to change domain at this point where there is brand awareness at visitors mind, good traffic and so on?

IF I decide to change domain name, site would need re-branding and ages to pick up... I guess

Anybody did it with well established site? Any thoughts?

I like the new domain name so much I'm really tempted here...

[thepokerkeep]

I wouldn't redirect the established site if you already have good traffic and brand awareness. Why mess with success?

Why not build a new site? Focus on similar but different keywords. Interlinking the two sites will benefit both (the new one now - both later).

[bets@betsfreebets.co]

Just make a separate site

[RayUK]

What the others said - "... ages to pick up ..." is almost an understatement - what you currently have in terms of ranking, traffic, etc. etc. would be gone and you may well never get it back as good as you have it now, even if you did it would take a very long time.

With the excellent-name-match domain you have you could build what I think of as a portal site - unfortunate choice of words, but this is how I used to think of them before I got into gambling affiliating where a portal site is what most of us have! Let's call it a gateway. Anyway, this is a 'gateway' to your main site. You have articles on the same subjects (keywords, keyword phrases etc.) but they are more introductory articles (and different from those on your current established site). In these articles you have a few 'For more on this see *link to main site section or article or category or...* <link to="" main="" site="" section="" on="" whatever="">'.

Then build a few links into this new gateway site and let it get indexed and mature in Google and see what happens.

Just one idea!

[dhayman]

Yeah, never mess with success. I agree with last poster - introduce the new site with new content, and go from there. These 2 sites can co-exist.

[buyonaut]

You guys are right 100% - thanks for input!

I will get down on it and build another site, that is it...

Def not want to lose what I have now... I just got restless and excited about this new domain....

[clearlyportals]

I too would agree with the others, but just out of interest, want to share the name? Or top secret next project?

[buyonaut]

Nah, it is not the secret Domain name is betnget.com - something like that you can't find anymore

At the domain there is some test page, not functional at the moment...but will start to develop it after WC and vacation....

[Vrindavan]

i made this mistake by abandon aged domains in the past, big big mistake for me.

[buyonaut]

This was your domain before it expired?

[baldidiot]

I like the name! You could use it as some kind of rewards program - either focussing on bookmakers etc.. that have VIP/rewards points or if you can get suitable agreements you could do the rewards yourself.

Just a suggestion!