Of all the things that go into search engine optimization, one of the most important is one that a lot of business owners never really thought much about at the time, at least not in terms of Google's preferences: their website's domain.
More often than not, URLs are chosen simply because they're simple, mirror the name of the business, or were just available at the time. Who knew that the right keywords in a domain may help make it to the top of search engine listings? Should you consider moving your website to a new domain just for the search engine benefits?
In most cases, the answer is no. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one of the most important is that new domains aren't given as much weight by Google, Yahoo, and Bing as ones that have been around for a while. In other words, the longer you hang around, the better you're doing.
Besides that, changing domains typically means updating all kinds of links, working with your hosting company to get the content moved, and going through a long and painful process where some customers can’t find you at all… and that's assuming you can find a better URL that's available, which is no easy trick these days.
In fact, the only time we would really recommend moving to a new domain name would be when you're very new and haven't made much progress yet, or when your current URL is close to a bigger brand, or one that people have some sort of negative association with. In other words, unless your domain was registered last week or is actively hurting business, you're probably better off building your search engine profile through new content, social media profiles, and other methods than you are picking up and heading for greener pastures.