Exact Keywords Domain name
-
Hello everyone!,
I would love to have your opinion on this matter.
I am working on a company e-commerce site; these guys would like to change their domain name AND their company name, so the most logical thing that came to mind was to name the domain after the company name. However, they also bought in the past a domain that have the exact keyword they would like to rank for.
I know that keywords in the URL are not as important as they used to be in the past, but nonetheless when I do a Google search for those keywords, 3 domains out of 10 on the first page are slight variations of those same keywords, meaning that they might have a really good domain name (also the other result are government, medical stuff and so on). And, no matter how many times I have read that keywords in the URL are not so important anymore, I still see a lot of sites ranking also because of their domain name (well at least outside the US)
So, my question here is: would it be better for them to use the exact match keyword-domain name or should they use their company name for their new site? Or some sort combination of the two? (the keyword-domain that in some way points also to the brand domain).
Thanks for your opinions on this; really appreciate it!
Cheers
-
Am guessing the easier way out of things is just to say build a blog, which in a sense means more content, fresh content, involvement from the company and maybe new links. It also allows you to attract new keywords.. so blog is not such a bad idea. I just hope that you could find more people that would devote their time on their content and website rather than just say "ohh I have an seo to do that, he does everything and we don't wanna get involved"
but yes there is tens of other things other than a blog that are more important..
-
eheheheh I like your thinking
-
---> SEO's often say "build a blog" blah, blah, blah. If you believe you'll have a 'following' with your blog, or if you believe you can create 'compelling' content on an ongoing basis that is related to what your site is about, and if you can create unique (no duplicate) content on a regular basis... go for it. If not; don't waste your time.
Recently I heard an SEO 'Content Representative' for an SEO company advise a small local oil pipe fabrication company to build a blog... Well, I could have advised 10+ considerably more important things they should have been doing that would have been much more important at bringing in targeted traffic than starting a blog, for almost no one who could care less
-
Hi Andy,
thanks a lot for your answers
I see what you mean, and the geo modifier thing makes sense actually. Just out of curiosity what would be the reason behind your using a blog on an ecommerce? I mean, a useful blog helps users and create brand awareness but as a consequence it brings in links, likes, retweets and all this stuff
Thanks again
Elio
-
"If they are good sites I don’t see why Google should penalize them just because of their domain name"
"If they made a really good site, would the domain name still be a problem? "
---> Google has done this to a good number of 'good sites'."a blog would make more sense on their main site because it would attract links."
---> that would not be the reason I'd create a blog.
---> I wouldn't bother using the kw rich domain name if you choose to go with a brand name domain name.- my name is Andy Kuiper, andykuiper.com ranks #1 for most (and in the top 4 for the rest) SEO related search terms in Edmonton 'and' Calgary Canada. (each city is 1 million+ population). "andykuiper" clearly isn't a commercial kw... I think you might be putting too much emphasis on the kw
* and - just reading the comment posted above, if you add a geo modifier to the KW, you're "unlikely" to have an issue with Google It wouldn't be an EMD, and Google (so far) has been pretty good about not giving a hard time to domain names that contain KW's and 'city name' (as an example) URL's
-
I was reading a few things here and there and came across a couple of interesting things.
Here, Casey Meraz’s contribution doesn’t seem to go against EMDs…at least for local searches (but that would not be a problem since it would be a local ecommerce).
On the other hand according to the searchmetrics’ white paper ranking report, keywords in URL have a negative effect …if I’m getting it right……
-
Hello everyone and thanks for your opinions Very much appreciated!
So, the specific keyword itself would bring a decent amount of traffic, but I totally agree that the company name should communicate something and not just be a keyword name (and it is also common sense if they want their site to be part of their overall marketing strategy). From an SEO perspective, I also sense that having exact keyword domain names might be a problem in the future, but there are two things that still puzzle me:
1) If they are good sites I don’t see why Google should penalize them just because of their domain name. And this is also true for those guys. If they made a really good site, would the domain name still be a problem? I am not saying that keyword-domain-name sites are necessarily good, but they could be….
2) If they chose to go for a unique brand name domain, would the keyword domain name (they already own it) still good for something? I mean, like a company blog, and I know that private networks are evil, but a simple link from that site would be SO bad? But then again, a blog would make more sense on their main site because it would attract links.
Baffling stuff….
Thanks again you all for your contribution
Elio
-
---> ..."dynamically generated string of random characters" instead of targeted kw's in URL's
ack! - I definitely wouldn't do that
-
Been thinking about this lately for our situation. We are revamping a major section of our site and are considering a URL structure that no longer includes a targeted keyword but rather a dynamically generated string of random characters. As much as I tell my colleagues that URLs aren't the ranking factor that they once were, I'm finding it hard to leave the old URL structure behind.
Mike
-
The 2 answers you have received are dead on - whatever you do, I wouldn't create an exact match domain name period. You're likely asking for trouble down the road if you do that. Partial match domain names are much safer. As for the company name - I wouldn't bother trying to create a company name with the intention of making it 'work'; as a domain name
Andy
-
Hi there,
This is a long disputed question in the search marketing community, the answer of which depends not only on how different search engines treat keywords in your domain name, or URL, but also the size of your advertising budget, and other factors.
While it may be true that search engines take into account keywords in your domain name, it’s important to consider how much traffic that will really get you in the long run. At the time of this writing, domain names have become quite sparse, and the odds of registering a domain name that also has high search volume for its keywords is slim.
3 tips to choosing your domain name:
- Easy to Remember – your domain name should be catchy, simple, and easy to remember. Remember that people will need to type in your domain name. You should therefore take into account potential misspellings and keep it short to avoid typos.
- Makes Sense – you want your domain name to make sense, to reflect what it is you do. Since you haven’t had the money or time to make people understand what yabaloo.com means – you will need to create a name that makes sense right off the bat without having spent money on branding. An example would be bluewidgets.com – your customer automatically expects to find blue widgets.
- **.COM – **ideally (unless you live outside the United States), you’ll want to register a .com (dot com) domain name, because that’s what people default to when typing in a domain name. Additionally, it helps to avoid hyphens if possible.
Hope it helps you.
-
They way you are thinking is something that has bothered the community for more than a decade. Yes, you are actually right that keyword based domain names are ranking higher than non-keyword based. Most likely over time this will change. Something that I always seen with Google is that they are trying to implement changes slowly (meaning that over time these keyword based domain would most likely fade away).
But if you look at the issue at a marketing prospective does this client only want to rank for one keyword? Y/N?
- Yes: then go for it! if this eCommerce will not be targeting now or in the future other keywords then stick to a keyword based domain
- No: if you have a lot of different products and you are looking to rank for different keywords, its better to build a brand name for your company by having a brand name oriented domain name!
I tend to focus to the brandability of the domain name (short,catchy, .com, etc) rather than the keyword focus, UNLESS we you are going to target an extremely competitive keyword which by it self could bring tons of traffic!
Some articles worth reading are:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-your-domain-name-will-impact-seo-social-media-marketing/
http://www.motocms.com/blog/marketing/10-tips-choosing-domain-name/
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
-
Have you ever changed the logo anchor text from "logo" to "keyword"? How Google considers?
Hi all, We know that generally logo with the website homepage link is the first link crawled by Google and other search engines. Can we change the anchor text from "logo" to "keyword"? Have any one tried or seen others doing? How Google considers it? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
New Website Old Domain - Still Poor Rankings after 1 Year - Tagging & Content the culprit?
I've run a live wedding band in Boston for almost 30 years, that used to rank very well in organic search. I was hit by the Panda Updates August of 2014, and rankings literally vanished. I hired an SEO company to rectify the situation and create a new WordPress website -which launched January 15, 2015. Kept my old domain: www.shineband.com Rankings remained pretty much non-existent. I was then told that 10% of my links were bad. After lots of grunt work, I sent in a disavow request in early June via Google Wemaster Tools. It's now mid October, rankings have remained pretty much non-existent. Without much experience, I got Moz Pro to help take control of my own SEO and help identify some problems (over 60 pages of medium priority issues: title tag character length and meta description). Also some helpful reports by www.siteliner.com and www.feinternational.com both mentioned a Duplicate Content issue. I had old blog posts from a different domain (now 301 redirecting to the main site) migrated to my new website's internal blog, http://www.shineband.com/best-boston-wedding-band-blog/ as suggested by the SEO company I hired. It appears that by doing that -the the older blog posts show as pages in the back end of WordPress with the poor meta and tile issues AS WELL AS probably creating a primary reason for duplicate content issues (with links back to the site). Could this most likely be viewed as spamming or (unofficial) SEO penalty? As SEO companies far and wide daily try to persuade me to hire them to fix my ranking -can't say I trust much. My plan: put most of the old blog posts into the Trash, via WordPress -rather than try and optimize each page (over 60) adjusting tagging, titles and duplicate content. Nobody really reads a quick post from 2009... I believe this could be beneficial and that those pages are more hurtful than helpful. Is that a bad idea, not knowing if those pages carry much juice? Realize my domain authority not great. No grand expectations, but is this a good move? What would be my next step afterwards, some kind of resubmitting of the site, then? This has been painful, business has fallen, can't through more dough at this. THANK YOU!
Algorithm Updates | | Shineband1 -
301'ing old (2000), high PR, high pages indexed domain
Hi, I have an old (2000), very high PR, 20M+ pages indexed by goog domain which... got adsense banned. The domain has taken a few hits over the years from penguin/panda, but come out pretty well compared to many competitors. The problem is it was adsense banned in the big adsense acct ban of 2012 for invalid activity. No, I still have no idea what the issue was. I'd like to start using a new domain if I can safely get goog to pass the PR & indexing love so I can run adsense & Adx. What are your initial thoughts? Am I out of my mind to try?
Algorithm Updates | | comfortsteve1 -
Complete website redesign: original domain vs subdomain vs new domain ?
Hello dear community fellas!
Algorithm Updates | | PayPro
The story goes like this: my company has a good ol' website launched back in 2008 and since then nothing much was updated there. Our rank dropped significantly because, well, barely any SEO was done for it. Me and my team decided to redesign the whole thing: content, structure, visuals, links, everything but this time really making it right. However, with our oldie we managed to get a nice user base, so we still want to get all the traffic juice out of it. Now the questions is where do you think is the best place to publish our new website: Our original domain www.companyname.com? Create a subdomain new.companyname.com? Totally new domain www.namecompany.com? Cheers!0 -
Keyword Stuffing - Where Do You Draw the Line?
I have a tax software website for which there a multiple pages that compete using different keywords. However, all pages but my home page have recently fallen out of the rankings completely and I really just don't know why. For instance, my page - http://www.1099pro.com/prod1099proEnt.asp - has the title keywords "1099 Efile Software | 1099 Software | 1099 Electronic Filing". When I run a Moz report on the keyword "1099 E-File Software" I get an "A" rating and it finds a total of 8 instances of the keyword. However, when I run a Moz report on the keyword "1099 Software" it finds a total of 26 instances of the keyword - still with an "A" rating. When I search the actual text/html there are only 6 instances of the keyword "1099 software" which leads me to believe that Moz/Google/Search Engines are ignoring the middle term in words like "1099 printing software" or "1099 e-filing software" and only picking up "1099 software". Is this supposed to be happening? Does anyone know why or how many terms can be ignored in that fashion? I used to have multiple landing pages in the top 3 results and now all of my other landing pages have completely fallen from the rankings even though I am not keyword stuffing and am providing unique & relevant content. If anyone has an idea as to why my rankings have dropped so drastically I would really appreciate it (I take no part in black-hat link building so that isn't the reason).
Algorithm Updates | | Stew2220 -
Home page rank for keyword
Hi Mozers I have traded from my website balloon.co.uk for over 10 years. For a long while the site ranked first for the word 'balloon' across the UK on google.co.uk (first out of 41 million). Around the time Penguin launched the site began to drop and currently sits on about page 5. What's confusing is that for a search on 'balloons' ('s' on the end of balloon) it ranks 2nd in the location of Birmingham where I'm based. That's 2nd in the real search rather than a map local search. But - if I search 'balloon' from the location of Birmingham my contact page ranks 5th: http://www.balloon.co.uk/contact.htm but the home page ranks nowhere. So - it's gone from ranking 1st nationally to ranking nowhere with my contact page ranking above the home page (which is a generic word domain). Any ideas?
Algorithm Updates | | balloon.co.uk0 -
Decline in ranking for a particular theme of keywords after Penguin 2.0
Hi everyone Last month we found on of our clients rankings were seeing significant declines in ranking (like from 3 to 28). This occurred around the time of the Penguin 2.0 update. After further investigation we found that only a collection of keywords were affected. If we were hit by the algorithm update we would expect to find all keywords declining. We have not been manually penalized and other keyword themes are seeing moderate day to day ranking improvements. I know that rankings jump from day to day but a sudden decline of around 20 places for a theme of keywords isn't what we would expect. Thanks all.
Algorithm Updates | | PeteW0 -
Meta keywords tag?
Because Google is cracking on spammy keywords should I remove my meta keywords tag altogether? I hear they dont factor it in anyway?
Algorithm Updates | | dfwgolfer0