Exact match domain - should i use one

[neilhenderson]

i have the domain "region"familyholidays.co.uk for an upcoming site.

i was pleased as its memorable and tells the user what its about.  i am targetting keywords such as:

region family holidays

region family hotels

region famliy cottages

region family campsites

is it something i should avoid because of potential penalties. i will be adding plenty of good content and doing all the offsite things but dont want to start with a handicap with an emd?

thanks

neil

[Everett]

If your "brand" is going to be "Region Family Holidays" then an EMD is fine. Just make sure you're branded that way, and try to cultivate a variety of natural backlinks.

If your brand is "Acme Travel UK" and the site is regionfamilyholidays.co.uk then you'll be fighting a losing battle.

[Malika1]

The only issue is when you focus heavily on the same keyword as your domain name and things start to look suspicious. A lot of time when people link to your website, they use the name of the website and in your case it would be your keyword too. This might end up getting you in a situation where anchor text distribution in the backlinks profile is not even and has too anchors for domain name keyword.

If you can keep anchor texts distribution even across your backlinks profile then having exact anchor text domain shouldnt be a problem. This sometimes can be hard to maintain.

I would suggest going with a partial match domain. Based on my experience, I have noticed that partial match domains do really well.