New website vs. old website

[Apex]

As I commented in my journal, I want to focus a little more my efforts in setting up a sustainable business around a website. What I need to decide is between continuing with my current website or starting a new one.

These are the data of my current website:

Spoiler: Old website data

Age - 2.8 Years
Spanish Language.
Moz: DA 21 / PA 34
Ahrefs: DR 43 / UR 33
Majestic: CF25 / TF 10
Monthly income: About € 100 ($116).

This website is technology-related. It started without any type of research, I only wrote posts about any software that interested me.

Later, I started publishing about hardware, and thanks to collaborating with some companies and stores in the sector I've published about 80 reviews of different technological products, although none of them attracts visits. In fact, revenue comes in 95% of articles on software and the same applies to visits.

In short, it started in one way, continued from another and now it is a kind of mixture without a well-fixed topic.

The reason for this thread is that I don't know if it would be best to focus my efforts on this website or open a new website, this time facing the English market, because at the time of opening the old website I had much less fluency with English.

These are some reasons why I think it might be a good idea to open the new website:

• The English market is much bigger, many more potential customers / buyers / visitors.
• I want to learn traffic leaking so as not to depend on Google or anyone else. I'm not saying that in the Spanish market it is not possible, but I think it is infinitely more likely to get results in the English market. Here Reddit in Spanish is practically a cemetery and there are no sites like Quora and the like.
• I could start on a more solid basis thanks to what I have learned this time and I would follow the Crash Course step by step to make sure I do not make basic mistakes.
• I could do a previous market research to see what niche I want to attack and the possibilities of achieving it. As I say, my current website started with pure impulsiveness and without thinking well every step I took.

Obviously there are also reasons not to start a new project, such as having to start from scratch or having to enter a new market, which is why I have not yet managed to decide and want to appeal to the wisdom of BuSo users.

What would you do in this situation? Continue with the current one or start a new project?

 

[Sutra]

I'm not clear on what you're asking. Are you saying you want to start a new website in a completely different niche, or are you saying you want to stay tech related but this time in English? If it's the latter, why would you need to start a new website?

 

[Ryuzaki]

You've laid out all of the reasons NOT to go all in on this site: Smaller market, less marketing opportunities, scattered foundation.

The reasons you have for possibly sticking around are good ones if you're concerned about SEO: Aged domain, some aged link juice, aged and plentiful content, $116 per month revenue stream.

In my non-attached, quick assessment, I'd probably abandon ship. You can't look at as having lost 2.8 years on it, but you can look at spending another 2.8 years on it as being a waste if there are better opportunities without such a market cap on them. And especially if you're feeling unsure the whole time about it.

It's not a waste. If it's a stable income then you can probably fetch an easy $2,500 - $3,000 for it. Or you can hold it and use the cash flow on the new project. You could also do something like publish one article on it that's like "Best Computer Mouse" or whatever is in the niche and has an acceptable competition level, and see how it indexes. If you get a perceived bump from the benefits of the aged domain and juice, then maybe some simple link building will push you on up. And if that goes well then you can scale that while maintaining a balance between commercial and non-commercial content. This is something that can basically be done without much time or effort with that $100 a month. Just pay someone to write it, and then you can even buy a contextual link a month and get out and hustle some manually on forums and whatever.

Anyways, my point is that it's not a completely THIS or THAT situation. You can still exploit the existing site while moving forward on a new one. You may do way better on the old site than you did in the past simply because there won't be any pressure.

But yeah, I'd start a new project that I could feel good about for the long haul. My advice would be to at least by an aged domain that hasn't ever dropped, better if it has juice. The best thing you could do is buy an entire existing site, one that has links and isn't optimized so it's not earning so you can get it for low cost. Then you can clean it up, merge content, optimize content, and start adding new content. Anything to get over that initial SEO hump, since SEO seems to be a big part of the play here.

Best of luck!

 

[Apex]

Are you saying you want to start a new website in a completely different niche, or are you saying you want to stay tech related but this time in English?

A new website, this time in English, with the niche yet to be defined.

Anyways, my point is that it's not a completely THIS or THAT situation. You can still exploit the existing site while moving forward on a new one. You may do way better on the old site than you did in the past simply because there won't be any pressure.

But yeah, I'd start a new project that I could feel good about for the long haul.

This is exactly what I think. I think the best option is to open a new site, but continue to offer some occasional attention to the old while watching his growth.

My advice would be to at least by an aged domain that hasn't ever dropped, better if it has juice. The best thing you could do is buy an entire existing site, one that has links and isn't optimized so it's not earning so you can get it for low cost. Then you can clean it up, merge content, optimize content, and start adding new content. Anything to get over that initial SEO hump, since SEO seems to be a big part of the play here.

I'll look to see what I can find, but right now my budget is laughable. Would it be a bad option to start with a new domain? I understand that for many months it will be very difficult to obtain any type of organic traffic, but perhaps it will also be an opportunity to learn traffic leaking.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Would it be a bad option to start with a new domain?

It's a better option than not starting at all. I started my most recent and main project on a brand new domain. Here I am almost three years down the road and earning a full-time living off of it, and it started at 0 days old and earning 0 dollars.

Do what you can with what you have, because we're constantly bleeding time.

But you'll find that you can purchase non-dropped domains with as much as 15-20 years of age on them for 15 bucks. They'll likely not have any links or not had a site indexed on them though. I'm not sure how beneficial that would be. I'd rather have one with multiple sites having been on it through out the years than one that never had one.

If it came down to a 20 year old domain that's never been dropped but never had a site on it, versus a brand new domain, and I liked the brand of the old domain, I'd take the old domain.

You can pay $5 to GoDaddy Auctions for a year subscription and use their filters to look at all of these domains. Alternatively you may find that @Golan's Domains R Forever and/or @serpape's Gopher Domains might have something you can work with for under $100. Their inventory is likely to be aged, had a site on it, and be spam free, while having a decent backlink profile. I'd ask either, once you have a niche in mind, what they have in their inventories.

 

[Apex]

@Ryuzaki If I buy a domain that has expired, would it be an improvement over a new domain? I think that when it expires, Google "resets" its age, so I would like to make sure that it is so before making a wrong move.

If the expired domain has links then I suppose it would be a better option than one that starts from scratch. I'm wrong?

 

[Ryuzaki]

I'd try to get expired but not dropped from an auction or a seller that scooped up the domain before it dropped. Because I agree, the age will reset on you. There's the question of whether or not the "reset age" itself can be reset if you restore the original site though, as @Rob Lowem just got done showing us. I'd be wary of buying one just for the links and not rebuilding the same site on a dropped domain though, because the links could reset too. I don't think there's any hard data saying it's always this way or that way. I think Google has some way of deciding on a case by case basis.

I don't see any reason to get a dropped domain when you can get one with that has been continuously registered for 10 or 20 years for an extra $15 bucks, unless you find one with a brand name you absolutely have to have. Another $50 would probably score you a decent backlink profile too. And paying $100 up front or so to get a quantum leap head start on SEO is absolutely worth it.

 

[Apex]

@Ryuzaki Thank you so much for all your help. Finally I decided to focus on my current website and try to raise profits, since right now I don't have the necessary resources to start the new project with a good base.

I'll open a Journal to go detailing my evolution with the project.