Could the EMD update affect my domain?
-
My domain is: http://www.freescrabbledictionary.com/
"Scrabble Dictionary" is a huge keyword in my niche where I used to rank top 4. Do you see this domain as possibly being hit by the EMD?
My Google Analytics does not show that I was initially hit back in Sept 2012 when it first same out.
-
When you say "I would not do it" are you meaning that you would not add "- Free Scrabble Dictionary" at the end of all titles?
Right... I used to have my domain at the end of the titles and removed it.
If you believe that your title tag becomes irrelevant without that, and could be confused with any dictionary or any other type of site, then leaving it in would be a good idea.
What I am advocating works for my sites, which are a mix of information and retail.
When you say "I would not do it" are you meaning that you would not add "- Free Scrabble Dictionary" at the end of all titles?
-
I'm sorry but I think I didn't describe my title issue properly.
I currently use "- Free Scrabble Dictionary" on all my 500,000+ pages at the end of the titles. My homepage title only contains my brand name "Free Scrabble Dictionary"
When you say "I would not do it" are you meaning that you would not add "- Free Scrabble Dictionary" at the end of all titles?
Also when you said "because your domain name will appear immediately below the title in the SERPs - thus it is redundant." are you referring to the example in the image?
-
If it was my site, I would not do it because your domain name will appear immediately below the title in the SERPs - thus it is redundant.
Leaving it out of the title tag also frees space there for more keywords, a value proposition, or empty space to emphasize the words on the left.
-
What about using my brand at the end of all my titles
Example: - Free Scrabble Dictionary
Because of "Scrabble Dictionary" in that title on all of my 500,000+ pages could that possible be seen as spamming that keyword even though its my brand?
Maybe change my titles to "- FSD"?
-
Hi Cesar!
I dont think it's a problem unless you were blatantly over optimizing the site or maybe just stopped working on it if it's dropping in the rankings.
I love my EMD's. It's not as favoured as before from my POV but its still pretty effective.
-
I will agree with EGOL! In my opinion Google does not discriminate EMDs but according to the latest Moz’s ranking survey it is believed that Google still favor EMD’s to an extent. If you are losing rankings with EMD there can be other issues which can be over optimization, under optimization, low quality links pointing back to the website and more.
Hope this helps!
-
Could you try make your domain name 'Free Scrabble Dictionary' look like a brand rather than just a URL?
I thought the EMD update was quite old, and if it was going to affect your domain it should have by now?
-
Do you see this domain as possibly being hit by the EMD?
All of the domains that are important to my business are EMDs. I know other people who use EMDs as important parts of their businesses. In my opinion, Google does not discriminate against these domains. In fact, I believe that Google still favors these domains. So, if you have an EMD with ranking issues it is likely caused by other factors such as Panda, Penguin, competitors, technical issues, low-quality SEO, among others.
And, if I was going to start another business, the first thing that I would to is go straight to the person who owns the appropriate EMD and try to get it from them - and be willing to pay good money.
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
-
Are domain variations hurting our rank?
Hi, I have a client who registered many different variations of their domain name, that are pointing to the website. Now I see that many high value links are not linking to the main domain, but a hyphen variation. So when the main domain is something like www.brandservicename.com The links go to www.brand-service-name.com I suppose they should change all those links (if possible), but does it really make a difference? Thank you!
Technical SEO | | alism0 -
Hit hard by EMD update, used to be #1 now not in top 50, what can I do?
We have what I think is a pretty good site, unique articles a few widgets, lots of reviews, decent enough bounce rates and user times (60% and 2:15) based on drupal. Previous updates haven't touched us and an almost identical duplicate (same site compltely different content) of the site targetting a different but related EMD is unaffected which provides a control. I have seen some discussion on it having to do with link profiles. We did pay some backlinkers to link to us, much more on the site that has dropped, and quite a few for a partial match keyword. I'm supposing this is a lot of the issue. If we try and delete these backlinks will it make the situation better or worse? I have also notice some duplicate content warnings in seomoz that weren't there previously. Any ideas?
Technical SEO | | btrr690 -
Drupal Updates = errors
We have worked diligently to correct our SEO Moz crawl diagnostic errors to below 20. However, at least twice now, our coder updates the drupal security warnings and BINGO- every time - our errors go sky high again. Any thoughts?
Technical SEO | | Stevej240 -
301 redirect domain to page on another domain
Hi, If I wanted to do a 301 permanent redirect on a domain to a page on another domain will this cause any problems? Lets say I have 4 domains (all indexed with content), I decide to create a new domain with 4 pages, one for each domain. I copy the content from the old domains to the relevant page on the new domain and set it live. At the same time as setting the new site live I do a 301 permanent redirect on the 4 domains to the relevant pages on the new domain. What happens if Google indexes the new site before visiting the redirected domains, could this cause a duplicate content penalty? Cheers
Technical SEO | | activitysuper0 -
How often Google Places updates?
Hi, My first question in SEOMoz :). I have just finished doing citations and optimisations for a local business. I now want to know how often Google Places update their database to look for citations etc to improve rankings? Many Thanks
Technical SEO | | TheReachers0 -
How I implement the cross domain rel canonical?
I just watched the WBF on cross domain rel canonicals. I understand the concept, but not sure how I go about actually doing the rel canonical? If I have www.mysite.com and someone we just partnered with, www.othersite.com wants to create new pages and use my content, what will the rel canonical tag look like on www.othersite.com? Do I need to also put this tag on www.mysite.com? I want to make sure each of my pages that the other site is copying is getting the "SEO credit."
Technical SEO | | NueMD0 -
Question about domain redirects
One of my clients has an odd domain redirect situation. See if you can get your head round this: Domain A is set-up as a domain alias of Domain B Entering domain A or domain B takes you to default.asp on domain B. The default.asp includes VB script to check the HTTP_HOST variable. It checks whether the main doman name for domain A is present in the HTTP_HOST and if so redirects it to domain A/sub-folder/index.htm. If not present it redirects to domain B/index.htm. In both cases the redirect uses a response.Redirect clause. I think what is trying to be achieved is to redirect requests to Domain A to a sub-folder of Domain B. It works but seems extremely convoluted. Can anyone see problems with this set-up? Will link juice be lost along the redirect paths?
Technical SEO | | bjalc20110 -
Sub Domain SEO
I am thinking to Add Sub Domains to get better rankings for Local Searches. So I will develop City Specific Sites with Specific Language. For Example qatar.wisnetsol.com. IT will be in Arabic. If my Good standing and Ranking on Google for wisnetsol.com will help my subdomain to rank better? if we setup wisnetsol.com/qatar, how it can target Qatar in Google Webmaster tools? Will links for qatar.wisnetsol.com and wisnetsol.com are seprate? What do you think about this strategy? Is it good or bad?
Technical SEO | | Khuram0