Use established domain or keyword-specific new domain?

[prillo]

Hi,

We have been online 14 years using the same domain name. I'll call it fishingfreds.com and let's say we sell fishing tackle.

We're redesigning the site and our redesign guy asked us to get a new domain name that we'll use to test the redesign with, go live on that domain, run both sites, and then after a period he says we should decide whether to keep the old domain or the new one.

We can purchase a keyword-specific domain -- I'll call it fishingtackleshop.com -- for $1000 and let it be the new domain. But we don't know whether we'll keep it, or the old one, yet.

Is this wise advice from our redesign guy? And what's better - a 14-yr-old domain that has fewer keywords but a busy history & many links, or a keyword-attuned domain that has no history on it?

ETA: Our original domain was once a top 10 ranker in the search engines, but has slacked considerably in the last 3-4 years as we have done no SEO until now.

Thanks in advance, and Happy New Year!

[gvilleorg]

I would definitely keep the old domain. Google puts a lot of value on the age of a domain and you just can't buy a 14 year old one. You can work the keyword into other elements to get the best SEO possible.

That's my 2 cents at least!

[prillo]

Thanks gvilleorg! That was my stance too. I've since gotten our design people to change their strategy and we're using the same domain as we always have.

[youssefedward]

the best is to make redirection from the old domain to the new domain. this is because older domain may rank higher than new domains