What's the current situation for exact match ecommerce domains
-
I'm looking for some current opinions on exact-match domains when it comes to ecommerce sites.
I currently own an "OK" brandable domain in a specific ecommerce niche.
The opportunity has now come along to own the exact match domain for this category.
For example catfood.com
Is it more advisable to focus on brandables these days? I know Google doesn't give weight to exact match anymore but is there still a correlation not causation factor to consider?
IE: the links back would be more targeted possibly?
-
These are personal opinions... you will find lots of people who disagree...
Google still gives a good bonus to exact match domains in the search results. I own several and believe this is true. They will not automatically rank you for highly competitive money keywords. You must still work there - but not quite as hard.
Lots of people think that EMDs get an unfair advantage in the SERPs. These are people who purchased their domain late, want to buy cheap, or just don't understand that prime domains are just like Main Street real estate in a prosperous town. If you are willing to pay the obscene price you will get all of the benefits. I go after them. I want the EMD for my important sites.
Lots of people talk about the EMD penalty... they are full of beans. What they think is a penalty is the EMDs not getting quite the full bonus that they did in the past. Now, if you publish crap on an EMD, that EMD will not perform well - just like publishing crap on any other domain.
Lots of people think that a partial match domain gives a big bonus in the SERPS... I'd say don't waste your time unless you have a brandable slogan or name.
Conversion rates can be higher on exact match domains. That is my experience.
It is easier to get cooperation from other people if you own an important EMD. The EMD can give you immediate credibility even if undeserved.
Most importantly... owning the EMD gives me mental energy. If I owned baloney.com then I would be the big baloney and build the best site around for that topic. This mindset is more powerful than any SEO.
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
-
Google's Importance on usability issues in sub directories or sub domains?
Hi Moz community, As the different usability issues like pagespeed or mobile responsiveness are playing a key role in website rankings; I wonder how much the same factors are important for sub directories or sub domain pages? Do each and every page of sub directory or sub domain must be optimised like website pages? Does Google gives same importance? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Placement of /p/ in URL structure for ecommerce site product URLs
Hi, We're a discussion about how to structure a clients ecommerce site product page URLs where 12345 represent the product SKU/number: https://domain.com/Item--i-12345 https://domain.com/product-name/p/12345 https://domain.com/p/12345 It's a toss up between the second and the third URL, but the SEO company is saying the third is best because of the placement with the /p/ and creating a silo for "products" that help search engines recognize it is a product. Does anyone have thoughts on this? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | AliMac260 -
What do you think of SearchMetrics' claim that there are no longer universal ranking factors?
I agree that Google's machine learning/AI means that Google is using a more dynamic set of factors to match searcher intent to content, but this claim feels like an overstatement: Let’s be quite clear: Except for important technical standards, there are no longer any specifc factors
Algorithm Updates | | AdamThompson
or benchmark values that are universally valid for all online marketers and SEOs. Instead, there
are different ranking factors for every single industry, or even every single search query. And these
now change continuously. Keyword-relevant content, backlinks, etc. still seem to be ranking factors across pretty much all queries/industries. For example, I can't think of a single industry where it would be a good idea to try to rank for [keyword] without including [keyword] in the visible text of the page. Also, websites that rank without any backlinks are incredibly rare (unheard of for competitive terms). Doubtless some factors change (eg Google may favor webpages with images for a query like "best hairstyle for men" but not for another query), but other factors still seem to apply to all queries (or at least 95%+). Thoughts?0 -
Ecommerce sites 30% drop in organic since the spring
I help manage SEO for a number of large retail websites and we've seen a significant drop in organic traffic (upwards of 30%) since around May 2015. It's likely we were hit my Google's Phantom Quality update, but I don't understand why it had such a big impact. Can anyone explain that Google update in more depth and advise on steps to take to recover from it? Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | JimLynch0 -
Why am i not ranking in the top 50 for the keyword 'cocktails' even though all my other cocktail related keywords are in the first 2 pages of Google???
I have checked the first 50 pages of google for my website www.socialandcocktail.co.uk using the keyword 'cocktails'. It is NOT to be found. However, if I search for other keyword combinations eg cocktail recipes, cocktail bars etc they are all in the first 2 pages! What is going on????????
Algorithm Updates | | cocktailboss0 -
Does word order matter for exact match bonus?
Hello, For a two word search does order of the two words matter to get the exact match seo bonus? For example, would matchexact.com get the same SEO bonus as exactmatch.com? I Googled many two word searches reversing the word order and I got the exact same search results suggesting order does not matter (yes I am assuming people are just doing a broad search) Thoughts? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | max20120 -
I used to rank 12 or 13 for a specific search term. Now I don't show up at all. What's cuasing this?
Used to rank on the second page for a specific search query, now we don't seem to show up at all for the same query. Has Google penalized us or is something else going on?
Algorithm Updates | | wlefevre0 -
Confused About Addon Domains and SEO
I find addon domains really confusing. Everyone I've asked so far says that they don't affect SEO but I find that really hard to believe considering the same content is on both a subdomain and a subfolder and also has it's own unique domain. PLUS (in my case) completely different niche sites are sharing the same hosting. I really don't want to pay for hosting for all of my different sites but at the same time, if it's better/safer to do so for Panda/Penguin reasons I'm happy to do that. Thank you for your time. I look forward to your opinions/suggestions!
Algorithm Updates | | annasusmiles0