Exact match domains DOMINTATING the serps
-
For longer tail keywords with typical local monthly search volume of 50 or so, there are exact match domains that are just killing it. Take for instance "alabama registered agent", I'm showing www.alabamaregisteredagent.com in the first spot ahead of the state department, etc. This site has zero links in OSE (DA and PA 1) and is a very small site in general. Can anyone explain why this domain is doing so well?
-
Hi Mike,
If the businesses you're searching for are local in nature, then EMD one-boxes are a known, documented phenomenon currently troubling the SERPs. This is fallout from the Hummingbird update. Read more about this here:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/01/08/mining-for-google-hummingbird-guano-in-so-cal/
I'm positive that Google is aware of this unintended outcome of the update in which weak, spammy or even closed businesses are ranking in one-box fashion, but as to when Google will tweak the dial to fix this, we just don't know. Hang in there. Lots of people are writing about this, because it is creating such a blatantly poor user experience.
-
Anyone who is concerned about this should spend the money required to purchase an EMD. If you think that the EMD makes a difference in the SERPs this will be the easiest and fastest SEO that you will ever do. Just find the guy who owns it, pay him his price and write a decent page of content. DONE!
All of my websites are EMDs. They do have a tiny advantage in the SERPs if you publish decent content on them. I am willing to pay good money for an EMD when I decide to build a new site (which isn't very often because the cost of a good domain and the content for a good site is quite high).
Up until a couple years ago an EMD was a huge advantage in the SERPs. Then Google cranked back their impact upon SERPs. Today in light competition an EMD can rank you above thin competition with the effort of writing decent content for the topic - but at the same time they can be easily defeated by a person who is willing to work. In heavy competition the EMD is a very small advantage compared to the other work that must be done to win those SERPs.
In my opinion, the conversion rate on an EMD can be higher than on other sites. That is worth the price in my opinion. Also, owning the EMD gives me mental energy to work on the site. That makes all of the difference in competion. They guy with mental energy beats everyone who is slacking.
-
EMD is not by itself enough to cause Google to take action. The key is the quality of the content and value to the visitor. Typically Google is after EMD sites with thin or poor content, affiliate smothered etc.
-
Hi Mike,
I Agree with you. I am also seeing the same thing but don't know how long it will stay as it is.
In Past, Google killed the Exact match domains and now again favoring it.
Thanks
-
Hi Mike
I think this is unlikely just because they have an exact match domain.
The domain you have given as an example is nearly 5 years old so it is likely they have had their site working for them for some time. There are a decent number of pages on the site with information all based around the same subject and they have a registered address in Birmingham AL.
There's likely to be other factors at work too, but as I said, having an EMD won't be the main factor.
I hope that helps,
Peter
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
-
Domain Change Post Mortem
Hello, my company changed our domain 2 weeks ago and we are just starting to see traffic level back out, except for Organic. The site is on shopify so it made switching the domain pretty easy, as well as the 301 redirects (no url structure changes). We've taken all the proper steps with google/bing webmaster tools as well as monitoring 404's and 301 testing and don't see any red flags. Does anyone roughly know how long it takes for 301's to re-index and domain authority to start building back up for our new domain? Our old domain was about 13 years old and the new one was parked for quite awhile. p.s. I also noticed a lot of our traffic ending up as referral from our old url. I was able to wipe the sessions from analytics which cut it down, but will this persist for the foreseeable future? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | SchoolhouseElectric0 -
Bounce Rates: Leaving my domain.com/blog to shop on mydomain.com counts as bounce rate?
Hello! I have a kind of difficult question. On my main domain i have: Store: mydomain.com and wordpress blog on mydomain.com/blog If I have a link to a specific product on my blog and user goes to the product on the store, will bounce rate increase or as it's the same domain will be like a new page view? Different CMS's and blog is on a different analytics account than the store. I hope i could explain myself! Thank you
Reporting & Analytics | | prozis0 -
Google Analytics Goals - Different Domain
Hi, We currently need to setup a goal that involves a different domain. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. more info: the checkout process is redirected to a secure.domain Just let me know if I can provide any additional info that may helpful.
Reporting & Analytics | | opusvo0 -
SERPS showing wrong page
Hi there, searching Google UK for the term 'wireless alarms' returns the following page at position 39'ish - http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/security-information/gsm-gprs-alarm-systems The page that should be returned for that search is - http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/security-equipment The page being returned by Google at present is not optimised in any way for 'wireless alarms' but the page it should be showing is optimised for that term and the Moz grading tool agrees. The correct page also has a higher PA and 533 inbound links and the page being displayed has a lower PA and only 3 links. Could some kind soul tell me what i am doing wrong please? Thank you Si
Reporting & Analytics | | DaddySmurf0 -
Multiple-Domain tracking for sister sites- NO retail checkout- Please help
Hello, I have about 5 sites I want to set up multiple-domain tracking in google analytics. All posts I read seem to be focused on cross-domain tracking for the purpose of tracking a visitor from one domain across another domain for shopping cart check outs. I don't need that. I have about 3 sister sites (mastersite.com, sistersite1.com, sistersite2.com, sistersite3.com) related to my primary site. I want 1 Master Analytics Profile to track traffic for all of these sites combined. My visitors will not jump from mastersite.com over to sistersite1.com. There will be no cross-domain visits. How can I set up 1 master google analytics profile that will aggregate traffic data from all sites and present the data to me in one analytics profile. Please help
Reporting & Analytics | | AndreGant0 -
Spike in 404 Errors from a redirecting domain
All, The non www version of a site I own redirects to the www version. Recently, WMT began showing a big spike in 404 errors (1,000+) on the non www version of the site. Site traffic is off about 15% since the spike in 404 errors. There was also a brief period about two weeks ago, where the site went down due to an issue with the code that has now been resolved. Any ideas how WMT is showing 404 errors on redirected pages? Thanks, John
Reporting & Analytics | | JSOC0 -
Is there a way to calculate Domain Authority and Domain Trust on a large scale?
Hi there! Since on of our websites is hit by the Penguin update I'm trying to find spammy and low quality external links from our domain. I'm using Xenu to get all the external links. Now I want to know about the quality of the external websites our domain links to. Is there a way to calculate domain authority and domain trust on a large scale in Excel or Google spreadsheet? Kind regards, Mark
Reporting & Analytics | | StephWeigert0 -
Switching Blog to domain/blog... worth it?
So we have a great business. Let's say: Service.com. And years ago we launched a great blog. Let's call it ServiceDiscussion.com. So, both are PR5 sites. The BUSINESS gets about 50k page views a month. But the BLOG is getting about 100k page views a month. So, my question is... is it time to fold the blog into the business domain? Let's say we did a 301 redirect and turned it into Service.com/blog. We'd be folding all this extra traffic into the business domain. Would the google juice be worth doing this?
Reporting & Analytics | | brianmcc0