Should you include keywords in your domain name to rank well on Google Places?

[thegoatman]

Is it okay to include keywords in your domain name (as well as business name) to rank well on Google Places?

In my opinion, this is very spammy and the sites using this technique will be slapped by Google sooner or later.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi TheGoatMan,

This is an interesting topic. My guess is that you're asking this question because you know about the EMD penalty of recent times. Curiously, this penalty did not appear to affect local business rankings as much as virtual business rankings. That being said, the EMD penalty did indicate to all business owners that Google is not a fan of optimized website URLs being coupled with low quality websites.

If you are just starting a new business, choosing to name it with your service/geo keywords in mind is a smart idea. So, instead of being The Back Relief Doctor, your might name your business Boston Chiropractic Center (provided that doesn't already exist, or course). Thus, your domain name could be bostonchirorpacticcenter.com and both your business name and URL would be an authentic representation of your business.

If, however, your business already exists, it wouldn't be my first choice to go with an EMD domain that doesn't reflect your business. I'd rather have The Back Relief Doctor reside on backreliefdr.com than on mybostonchiro.com, simply because I feel that all of Google's moves in recent years have been towards authenticity. You'll find differing opinions on this, but this is mine

What you must not do, of course, is to misrepresent your business name anywhere by adding keywords to it. Use your legal business name or DBA at all times - on the website, building citations, social media, etc.

Finally, there is the option of re-branding a business, if you feel there would be significant benefits in renaming The Back Relief Doctor 'Boston Chiropractic Center'. However, this is not a choice to be made lightly, as re-branding of a local business requires a massive citation cleanup campaign to edit all existing references to the old name so that they reflect the new one. This can result in temporary or long-term ranking loss and other problems, so this is a choice that deserves very careful consideration.

Hope these thoughts are helpful!

[AlanBleiweiss]

Adding to what Michael said, I will also say that keyword infused domain names increase the potential for the site being more rigorously held up to the Exact Match Domain algorithm system which means your site will need to be even more trustworthy, overall to avoid getting penalized for attempting to artificially rank for that or related phrases.

[michaelp85]

From what I understand, if your business name is "ACME Sydney", then having the domain acmesydney.com with the location keyword in the URL is preferred, after all it is your business name.

However if your business name is "ACME Plumbing", I wouldn't purchase acmeplumbingsydney.com just for the sake of having a keyword rich domain name.

As for whether or not having multiple keywords in the domain is a good idea. I'd say no, if you're going to include a keyword, only include one and only if it makes sense to include it (i.e. it's your business name).