Hello - A question about SEO for a website that has yet to find a domain, here's the scoop.

I am working on a website for which the content & service provided is known. But the domain has yet to be picked.
The client is bidding on a handful of prime domains, but some the results of those bids might not be known for another 4-6 months.

Is there any way to optimize a page without knowing the domain?
Again, we know the content of the website, and the services the website offers - but not the domain name URL.


Any help would be appreicated!

content should be the start - grab any domain with name in it for short term... you need domain age and presence - longer you wait longer it takes... then just redirect when you get a better domain... you need to start link building and other methods to get improved rankings now not in 6 months

Not sure I totally agree with building the links before you know the domain, because when you change the domain later on, all the links will go to a redirected page and you'll lose the Page Rank. We've tried this in the past with a temporary domain name, and it takes ages to swap over all the search engine results to the new domain.

Will it really take 6 months to get the new domain, or is it a case you don't want to Beta/final launch for another 6 months?

Bradbox:

What we are trying to acquire is a domain that has our keywords within it. The client is bidding on a handful of soon to expire domains; those handful of domains are our first choices, and if by chance we are not able to register those, then we will register a new domain. So thats why I gave a time frame of 4-6 months.

AussieWebmaster:

Thanks for all your replies, I think you've posted on all my threads I really appreciate the information & input. However, as Bradbox mentioned - It doest seem like it would make sense to start with a domain now and change when we have acquired a better domain? Does it?

Getting some traction now and then 301 redirecting it later, is better than doing nothing at all until later. Especially if it will be that far in the future.

301 redirects pass the page rank and trustrank

I disagree with using the domain and building links before you know what it is. Focus on everything else...optimizing all the pages, and content.

Write unique descriptions for each page, prepare press releases, write your blog posts (don't publish them yet). You get the idea.

The name of the domain is trivial in your case...it has to be because you have no idea what its going to be yet.

Agree with chovy on this one - get the site architecture bang on, from a Search Engine AND human usability point of view.

The most important thing has to be building your site so that it works: for you, the search engines AND the potential visitors. If you have quality content, great products/services and a usable website, all the rest will follow when it needs to.

However, in these harsh economic times, I'm surprised any business can afford to sit about for 6 months waiting for a domain name. And what if you don't win _any_ of them? What will you do then?

There is some weight associated with having your keywords in your URL but not enough to justify sitting around for 6 months waiting for launch, surely? I would think that potentially could cost a fortune in lost revenue, and more so than could be expected to be brought in by just a high SERP ranking from having the "right" URL.

If the domains you want have all gone, or were registered but are due to expire, then it must be a competitive niche, and in which case I would have thought that the sooner you got in and started to build your reputation (with customers and search engines) the better.

chovy, bradbox -
My comment was based on having managed the migration of domains and subdomains many times and it's not just a guess that a 301 used this way and done properly will give the new domain a head start by capturing a large part if not all of whatever goodwill, trust and rankings that existed on the old domain. I would not recommend any heavy link building in this case but a handful of decent links will start aging the site which will also really matter, particularly during the next year or so.

The domain age start is a plus and just presence on the web is another... best way to test your site is have it live... sign up for Google's webmaster central - have it check the architecture - see how people use the site... etc. etc

If you have the content get it out there and use the time to add more... waiting on a domain name is dead time - the site is still going to about what it is about - its name is merely branding past a certain point and can be changed

This may be of interest from Bruce Clay (http://www.bruceclay.com/newsletter/volume62/movingsitecontent.html)

A little bit different perspective; Grab a darn domain already and get the darn thing live. What tiny bit... a very tiny bit a domain might have with your keywords, is worth almost nothing in the big picture. Google, yahoo, amazon, ihelpyou, etc, etc, etc...what does a keyword have to do with those? Nothing. But; they have lots to do with the site structure/architecture of the folders and file names of your new site. Get all of that right, and you are good to go. Forget about bidding on any silly domain... Grab one now and get with it.

A little bit different perspective; Grab a darn domain already and get the darn thing live. What tiny bit... a very tiny bit a domain might have with your keywords, is worth almost nothing in the big picture. Google, yahoo, amazon, ihelpyou, etc, etc, etc...what does a keyword have to do with those? Nothing. But; they have lots to do with the site structure/architecture of the folders and file names of your new site. Get all of that right, and you are good to go. Forget about bidding on any silly domain... Grab one now and get with it.

ya screw branding :)

Who's screwing branding? I don't think google, yahoo, amazon, or ihelpyou did, right? Simple domains with no keywords. Not sure where you are coming from.

Its really nice to have a keyword rich domain name for SE perspective but real audience doesn't get more interested with it.
You should choose your website domain as such it becomes BRAND of your business.
A simple exa. Delicious.com should be a domain for some foods and recipe, do any one think it can be a best social book marking website, it doesn't have any keyword in the domain name.
Though it ranks for Bookmark in Google at 5#...

AussieWebmaster and others all have really good recommendations. I would tend to agree that only do heavy link building once you've got your website running with a decent amount of content.(It's limiting to build links to a website without content...)

Another suggestion would be to jump the queue so to speak and purchase an existing website with a domain that's aged and already has inbound links.

This will get you leaps and bounds ahead of where you're at today and should get you ranking in no time (assuming the website you will be purchasing is related to your new website). You can 301 redirect indexed pages to your new website to keep the link juice.

Just a thought. Good luck!

(It's limiting to build links to a website without content...)
He, he, thanks for the eggnog on the keyboard.

content should be the start - grab any domain with name in it for short term... you need domain age and presence - longer you wait longer it takes...

Do you think it's the "domain age" or mostly the age of the links?

I have a site that has existed for over half a year, now, but I havent build any links to it (or well it used to have one from a forum which is how google knows of it), yet, which I will start doing in february (in exams, now).

I'm already interested in seeing what's going to happen. My guess is that the fact that that site will have almost a year of "domain age" (first time in google's database) by then will probably not help me much, and I'll still have to wait about half a year to a year from the first moment I start building links until I get some decent results.

Of course, I'm ready to be pleasantly surprised hehe ;)

Anyway, I guess that'll be interesting, and Ill post what happens here...or maybe someone else has walked through this experiment before already?