How to Beat Exact Match Domains
-
Hi all,
Has anyone got any particular methods for beating exact match domains in the SERP's?
I've got a stronger link profile than the 7 results ranking above me, but cant seem to get anywhere in the SERP.
I'm thinking:
-
links with keyword anchor text
-
aggressive on page optimisation
-
more links
Any ideas/experiences you've had would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance
James
-
-
fair point
-
Cool, thanks for the detailed response. Makes a lot of sense. J
-
Lots of people ask... how do I beat exact match domains... how do I beat spammy links... how do I beat the link buyers.... how do I beat...
Just get in there and build great content on a great site and you will defeat all of these "competitors of the month".
-
We've had some pretty good success in beating exact match and partial match domains in the SERPs. I don't think I could attribute it back to any one thing that we did, but here is something that we did:
We aggressively pursued many exact-match or near-exact anchor text links from a number of websites directly to the page we wanted to rank. Your link profile may already be stronger than theirs, but it needs to be even stronger. This is pretty tough - When I look at our stats vs the exact match domains that are still page 1 but now lower on page 1, they have very few inbound links. Below is a screenshot from page 1 of Google for "marketing automation".
I know OSE hasn't crawled a lot of inbound links for this page or some of our competitors, but you can see the rough impact. We have a DA of 86. They have an 11. You might not think they would even be in the same ballpark as the other domains ranking for this term, but Google loves exact match domains, at least for now.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
'spammy' domains redirecting to website
Hi Everyone, I hope that someone will be able to help us with this one as we have trawled the internet looking for a solution! We have multiple domains (.com/.co.uk/.net versions) which all point to the one website, however, some of these domains have a high spam score - 9-11. Our first initial reaction would be to remove the auto redirects, but, the other domains have been a source of conversion in previous months (or so analytics tells us). So what I'm wondering, is do we remove the 'spammy' links from redirecting to our site, or do we leave them there? We certainly don't want to risk a penalty. Thanks for reading!
Link Building | | hydra_creative0 -
Purchasing local domains for SEO
Hi, I'm considering buying domains to help build our SEO traffic. But, I'm looking for some advice on whether or not this can hurt us. For example, if our site is www.brandname.com and the site is all about online education, would it beneficial for us to purchase a local domain like education.boston.com and optimize with unique content so we can point back to our own site (if "education boston" is a high volume keyword)? Thanks!
Link Building | | BenchPrepCourtney0 -
Buying a domain from auction
Hi Mozer's There is a domain in auction. I can see it has a PA of 40 and DA of 29 and PR of 2 Is it worth buying for $999? any suggestions?
Link Building | | riyas_heych0 -
E-Commerce more emphasis on root domain and categories?
Hi all, I'm still in my dilema after taking over this ecommerce site. Currently running Volusion(please for your own sake never use them, 7$ for each GB over), I plan on taking the site to a dedicated server running on Magento. Should we worry too much since majority of our links are to the root domain while a small portion is to actual products? I think there should be more emphasis on the categories and root domain rather than actual product pages. I mean this is e-commerce and not a content site. Thanks!
Link Building | | William.Lau0 -
Root domain or subdomain when submitting to directories, also pr 3 and lower, is it bad to list to these directories?
Hello all, Should I use my root domain or sub domain when adding my site to local directories? I'm very new to this, so I just want to be sure, sub domains start with the www, right? I know all my listings should have the same NAP, and it makes sense to have the same root or sub domain listed as well, but I was wondering if I should try and help one type of domain if it starts to get a bad ratio of follow & no follow links. Also, do directories with a page rank of 3 or lower, or directories with a no follow link, bad for my sites rankings?
Link Building | | allstatetransmission0 -
When good domain names go bad
We have created a website to distribute a niche product. About a year ago, another vendor decided to drop the product and did not renew their domain name. We tried to acquire the domain name, but a cyber squatter picked it up. The old domain name had a few decent back links, and there was probably some value to us with a 301, but the cyber squatter was asking $8,000 and we didn't even bother countering such an absurd figure. The old domain continued to rank reasonably well for one or our search terms, even though it was just one page of spammy links. Well, this week it appears that Google Panda may have finally killed it off. Which brings me to a couple of questions. 1. In addition to a simple Google search, is there a way to determine if Google has killed a domain? 2. Assuming that Google has indeed killed the domain, is there any value in trying to 301 the domain should it ever be released? Best,
Link Building | | ChristopherGlaeser
Christopher0 -
Will No Follow Links count toward your root domain links for Domain Authority?
I am wondering if no follow links help, hurt, or do nothing when it comes to increasing page and domain authority? I know they are not supposed to pass rank and I have read discussions that some people suspect they still might, but I am wondering if I have a mix of follow plus no follow, will the no follow ones increase the count of the root domains linking to me and help boost my authority? Assuming of course the no follow links are coming from quality sites with high page and domain authority of their own. Thanks.
Link Building | | FastLearner0