What's in a domain name?

[JethroSmythe]

OK, a short story!

I started a forum, and made the URL a subfolder of the domain (mysite.com/blahpoop-folder/index.php), and when submitted to Google it came up about middle of page three of search results for the subject concerned.

I then thought, "get a dedicated domain name". So I did, not the dot com one I wanted, but a dot co dot uk one. So now we were blahpoop.co.uk/index.php and when submitted to Google it came up bottom of page two of search results initially, and then within the first six of page one after only a few days. I was impressed!

While all this had been going on I was in 'conversation' with the owner of the dot com domain I wanted for the site, and after exchanging a few pieces of silver I aquired the dot com domain. Finally I had my blahpoop.com domain I always wanted, and so proceeded to swap the site over and submit it to Google.

Horror! Unlike the first two domain names, this final dot com URL landed me a crappy 168th position in searches (about page 17-18 in search results), and has not improved since.

In all cases the site had exactly the same content (yes, I did use the webmaster tools on Google to remove the previous sites etc.) so I'm puzzled as to why the ranking has bombed in this manner.

The first two domains I used were 'new' i.e. just registered, whereas the last domain had been registered nearly five years ago, but had not been used (it had been siting on Sedo up for sale!).

Also, I have noticed that if I search on AOL for similarly themed domains, AOL links sponsored ads appropriate to that theme, but when I test my domain name it links lots of 'girls up for it' (for want of a better expression!) ads, which is a bit of a puzzle since it's an electronics site!?


So the questions are:

1. What the heck is going on?
2. Why did the first two domains rank high but the last one really low?
3. Why on earth does AOL think my electronics site is connected to 'girls up for it'?
4. Will it get better (the page rank) or should I start again?
5. My experiences seem to dispel the 'Sandbox' theory.

Any and all thoughts will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks...