Do Exact Match Domains Still Have Value?
-
I realise that there has probably been a lot said about Exact Match Domains, however, I want to know 2 things:
-
Is this two exact match domains or one EMD: "londonfootball.com" and "footballlondon.com" so is "London Football" one EMD, and "Football London" another?
-
Does having an EMD add a big advantage in getting ranked? Is it worth paying 2 months SEO expense to buy an EMD? To me if it still has an advantage then it probably is. However, I would like to hear the opinion of the experts.
I would specially like to hear from anyone who owns or bought an EMD to rank.
Thank you.
-
-
Glad to help Ryan. It sounds like you have a good plan going forward. As long as the site has good content and seo, I'm sure you will be fine. Best of luck with the new site!
-
Thanks to all for your responses.
@VZ Pro The domain in question was not londonfootball.com , this was just an example.
I personally have made a domain rank 2 years ago constantly for about 1.5 years on the top of Google, until the most recent Google update, with very little links, just by being an EMD, it was just a simple brochure site. Nothing spammy, and the business I was involved with made substantial amount of money through just this one domain. To make matters worse, this was a org.uk domain, which, for those in the UK, are often considered low value domains, and I think Google gives it far less weight then co.uk. So this proved to my that EMD's can be well worth it. This was also in a very small geographic niche, which probably made it easier to rank. I only paid around £6 ($10) for 2 years registration. The site stopped ranking because we made the mistake of using someone who got us some bad links, so the Google update hit it badly. But since disavow, it still continues to bring in some business.
Now currently I am negotiating with someone on a domain broking site for an EMD for a niche. I am hoping to I can negotiate him to $1,000. I was just debating in my head if there is still potential in the domains. Based on what you guys are saying, it seems like there is still quite a lot of potential. Especially if you make the site good, and make sure it has quality content and is not spammy.
-
I agree and the EMD update in Google wasn't about Exact Math Domains themselves, as much as EMDS with very little or "thin" content. Before, you could literally rank a EMD with no backlinks. I own a sports ticket buying site that I never did SEO for and was making around $6000 during the college football season until the update came out. I never had a single link pointing to it and it floated in the number 3 to number 5 spot for a 10k per month search. Not so much any more...
Here is a great article from over at Search Engine Land on some EMD rearch http://searchengineland.com/google-emd-update-research-and-thoughts-137340
-
EMD or keyword-driven domains can carry a huge amount of weight when optimized correctly. I agree with William "EMDs still carry weight, more than they should IMO"
If you use a EMD, you can potentially limit the exposure of the site, due to focusing only on one keyword or subject matter. This is where I agree with VZPro, where a branded EMD would provide more benefit.
I'm guessing you are referencing the cost due to someone selling the domains mentioned at a high cost?
-
I think that EMDS are still good if they are BRANDED EMDs. If you want to name your company that particular EMD then you'll be alright. I think domain metrics are a better judgement of a value of a domain name vs just the name itself. Neither one of them will give you much value (I ran them through MajesticSEO). You are basically starting from scratch either way. I would spend my money elsewhere unless you plan on branding the company "London Football".
-
EMDs still carry weight, more than they should IMO.
LondonFootball.com and FootballLondon.com are two different EMDs, just similar.
Is it worth paying two months of your SEO budget? Depends on the EMD and the SEO you were going to hire. Also make sure to do a lot of research on the EMD to see what it's history is. It is indexed? Does it have an acceptable backlink profile? Was it used for anything shady in the past?
There are very few domains I would drop thousands on, and even fewer that I would purchase strictly for SEO gain.
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
-
If I have an https page with an http img that redirects to an https img, is it still considered by google to be a mixed content page?
With Google starting to crack down on mixed content I was wondering, if I have an https page with an http img that redirects to an https img, is it still considered by Google to be a mixed content page? e.g. In an old blog article, there are images that weren't updated when the blog migrated to https, but just 301ed to new https images. is it still considered a mixed content page?
Algorithm Updates | | David-Stern0 -
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 -
Is Moz Domain Authority still relvant when it comes to Google ranking?
My understanding of Moz DA is that it is predominantly based on external links. Since Penguin I am noticing more and more websites ranking high in Google with a "low" number of links and certainly a low DA but quality and relevancy of content and also of offering. I understand that there was always more to ranking than DA but is it anymore even relevant to how a site will rank in Google?
Algorithm Updates | | halloranc0 -
Direct Domain Name Anchor Text Spammy Links
Hello! I have a website that has been hit with around 120-150 spammy bookmarking sites which I believe are just scraping content from one another or were added by someone that was hired earlier or maybe some other action, but that really doesn't matter. My question is whether I should be worried about that many domains linking to the site in question with anchor text that is "www.domainname.com" and linking to the domain itself? I have done quite a few researches on this issue and the general conclusion is these don't help, but they don't hurt your rankings either. I wanted to hear from the SEOMoz community about it though. My opinion is Google doesn't take them seriously and we shouldn't worry about them, try to take them off and we should simply work on our content, guest posts, produce our generally great deals on our services and move on. Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | Njave_MCP0 -
So, useless link exchange pages still work?!
After 3 years out of SEO I thought things might have moved on, but apparently not. Bit of back link research and all the top sites in my niche have tons of reciprocal links to barely relevant sites. Do I really have to do this? I mean I thought this was so out of date, it's not much better than keyword stuffing. So, should I just forget my lofty principles asking myself 'is this of any value to my users?' and just take the medicine?
Algorithm Updates | | Cornwall0 -
Using the canonical tag across multiple domains...
Hi guys I am looking for some help in regards to using canonical tags in other domains that have similar content to our main site. Would this be the right way to go about it? For example www.main.com is the website i would like to achieve best ranking with, but i also have other websites, www.secondary.com and www.somethingelse.com which have similar content and all link back to www.main.com So in order to make sure the google bot knows these other pages are a reference to the main.com page can i put a canonical tag in secondary.com that goes like this: rel="canonical" href="www.main.com" /> and put that same tag in somethingelse.com Would i achieve a better ranking for doing so on main.com or am i on the wrong track and will doing so not change a thing? I hope I'm making sense 😉 Best regards, Manny
Algorithm Updates | | Manny20000 -
Which is the better option in 2012, sub-domains or sub-directories?
Pinnion offers online software for surveys and trivia games. Information about our product is at www.pinnion.com and then interested users create their accounts at secure.pinnion.com. The surveys that they create link back to secure.pinnion.com, so we would obviously like to gain whatever SEO benefits we can from that structure. We've been advised that moving from secure.pinnion.com to www.pinnion.com/secure would be the best way to accomplish this. A 2009 post by Rand seems to support that POV, but then a 2011 post over SEObook claims that everything has changed 100% since then. There was a little conversation here and here in Q&A last Fall that touched on this subject, but nothing really definitive. Would love to get thoughts on this subject based on the collective wisdom today. Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | yahuie0 -
Was Panda applied at sub-domain or root-domain level?
Does anyone have any case studies or examples of sites where a specific sub-domain was hit by Panda while other sub-domains were fine? What's the general consensus on whether this was applied at the sub-domain or root-domain level? My thinking is that Google already knows broadly whether a "site" is a root-domain (e.g. SEOmoz) or a sub-domain (e.g. tumblr) and that they use this logic when rolling out Panda. I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions though?
Algorithm Updates | | TomCritchlow1