EMD vs Branded Name For Forum

[Tazdingo]

Longtime lurker, first time poster.
I discovered a niche that has zero competition.
The forum is setup, but one of my last issues is the name.

EMD vs Branded Name: Considering that it doesn't yet have competition, but likely will soon, what do you think is the best way to go for 2014 and beyond?

 

[Oukast]

IMO depends a bit on the EMD, but if it's something simple like "KentuckyDragQueens.com" then why not. "BuyVibratorForMom.com" might not work as well.

 

[andyf91]

You could try either but I would try the EMD probably.

 

[Nut-Nights]

Go for brand name. EMD sucks in long run, Google is a bitch.

 

[nikita12]

My advice for choosing a domain name for a normal website is to get best of both the worlds by going for a brand-able partial match domain. EMDs do not rank as well now as they used to a few years back and personally I feel that with more Penguin updates, EMDs are going to fall of the SERPs unless they have a lot of domain authority.

However, for a forum name, I think being brand-able part is more important than having the keywords. You want a name that your community can identify with. The BlackHatWorld community identifies with the name and I am sure the forum creators did not target any of the words. Look at other top forum names. None of them are EMDs. Eventually as a forum becomes famous, it will get most of its traffic from its name, no matter what its name is. The top four keywords that BHW gets its organic traffic from are "Blackhatworld", "Black Hat World", "Bhw" and "Blackhat Forum".

If you still want to benefit from the EMD/PMD, create a separate micro-site and use it to drive traffic to your forum. But remember to choose a good forum name as this is important from a user experience and is hard to change later.

 

[Tazdingo]

Thanks for your input everyone.

Look at other top forum names. None of them are EMDs. Eventually as a forum becomes famous, it will get most of its traffic from its name, no matter what its name is. The top four keywords that BHW gets its organic traffic from are "Blackhatworld", "Black Hat World", "Bhw" and "Blackhat Forum".

If you still want to benefit from the EMD/PMD, create a separate micro-site and use it to drive traffic to your forum. But remember to choose a good forum name as this is important from a user experience and is hard to change later.

Really good points. I'll have to think about this more.