Advice needed for niche site

[Sharksfan]

I have a niche site doing product reviews for some higher end brand name appliances. I have an affiliate offer for these via CJ.

Here's the problem - the domain has the manufacturer name in it. This was my first site I did out of the gate doing AM and I didn't know that you weren't supposed to do that. I plan on killing it before I get a cease and desist order (which could be any day).

However...I only ever put up three posts (wordpress review blog) reviewing products and did some simple SEO. If you Goolge "[Manufacturer name] reviews" you get my site at #1. That's awesome and it gets lots (ha! not so much...hundreds of hits per month....) of traffic.

On the down side nothing has ever converted - but there's a lack of content obviously and the blog is a bit crappy. I am sure I could up the conversions with some work. One sale though could easily be $500 in commission.

What would you do? Kill the site and 301 re-direct to a new domain like "Applicance reviews"? Kill it altogether?

 

[riddarhusetgal]

Hell yes fucking kill it. Way too much drama. Just check the hosting/domaining section it's been talked about. bad.fucking.idea.......

 

[Sharksfan]

Okay, it's dead. So now what - keep at the niche with a new domain? It's hard for me to gauge if it's worth it.

 

[gtrplyr]

run some PPC ads and bid on the name/model number of the items

"panasonic XED27 review" etc
Get people who are looking for that exact model, they are closer to buying than people searching for "panasonic tvs"

 

[Sharksfan]

run some PPC ads and bid on the name/model number of the items

"panasonic XED27 review" etc
Get people who are looking for that exact model, they are closer to buying than people searching for "panasonic tvs"

One more question: I killed the site and removed all content so it just goes to a 403/Forbidden error. Should I do a permanent re-direct to whatever the new site is? Or just leave it?

Sometimes I feel like I missed the forest for the trees. This is good advice obviously and I'm a little dumbfounded I didn't think of it....

Thanks!

 

[marfarma]

You're pretty far off the radar, so it prob won't hurt you to 301 redirect until the reg runs out. But I wouldn't renew the domain. If you leave it there permanantly, you leave yourself open to claims by the brand owner.

Good luck with it.

 

[fm1234]

Won't jump into the domain discussion; having actually been through domain disputes doesn't seem to give me any credit with the experts who read forums about domain disputes.

But as far as gtrplyr's tip goes, you can get some good brand/model search data just by running an EPN feed on the brand name through your blog. ie. set up searches for the brand name in question with separate feeds for each product line, then let it autopopulate and keep an eye on the stats. You'll also get good info on side purchases, repairs and parts etc. that way.


Frank