How Do You Balance Factors In Domain Selection?
-
Recently, there has been considerable discussion and debate about the value of choosing keyword-rich and exact-match domains. In a recent webmaster Q&A, Matt Cutts seems to suggest that google is planning on "turning down the dial" on keyword domain signals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAWFv43qubI
How will these changes (if at all) impact your advice to clients on domain selection?
-
This has always been my way of looking at it. But it's easy enough for Google to tone this down too. A lot of mass keyword domain strategies do result in low quality or outright spammy sites.
-
"However I can't foresee an instance where an exact match domain would not be telling of the relevance of that domain's content."
To me, this is at the core of the issue. If the domain contains keywords relevant to the subject-matter of the site, it is undeniable that it provides signal information about the site.
In a link vacuum, searchengine.com provides more information than dogpile.com for the search "search engine".
-
Reducing the weighting towards exact match domains was always going to be inevitable given that it has been so incredibly overpowered for organic ranking. However I can't foresee an instance where an exact match domain would not be telling of the relevance of that domain's content. i.e. I'm sure Google & Bing will always take into account domain keywords when calculating rank.
Personally I think Mr Cutts sums it up incredibly well. It's branding vs SEO. And, as an SEO, I want to build a website that is getting as much organic traffic as possible and therefore I will always purchase EMDs. It's a serious question of long term goals and how you want to develop the website. Anyway, if you go with an EMD in the first instance there's no harm in 301ing to the new domain if you change your mind in the future!
-
General rule of thumb; make your decisons based on the customer, not the bots.
A descriptive domain name is always a good thing if you're telling someone what you do in the elevator. It helps with SEO too, if your keyword is in it. Just don't go spammy - not www.blue-green-red-widget-widgets.com
Or you can go for memorable; flickr.com, etc.
The best of course is when you manage to do both, but given the choice I would always try for my premium keyword.com!
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
-
Same URL names in one domain
Hi All, I have 9 different subdirectories for languages in the same domain example: www.example.com/page.html www.example.com/uk/page-uk.html www.example.com/es/page-es.html we are implementing hreflang tags for the languages. I know it is better to translate URLs, but we won't for now, because all the NON-ASCII characters. But we are thinking to get rid of the dashes on the languages URL: -uk or -es, so it will be: www.example.com/page.html www.example.com/uk/page.html www.example.com/es/page.hrml would this be a problem? to have same page names even if they are in different subdirectories? would we need to add canonical tags, at least for the main domain URLs? www.example.com/page.html Thank you, Rachel
Technical SEO | | RaquelSaiz0 -
Blogging on multiple domains
We have three different domains for geotargeting (za,uk and .com). Each site at at the moment has the same content with only country specific details changed like currency etc. What is the best way to get maximum SEO benefit when posting new content.When we post new content should we repost to all three domains (the same content) or will Google only index the url on the domain which is crawled first. Thanks in advance
Technical SEO | | aquaspressovending0 -
301 - Specific Domain
In Google our main website page url is <cite class="_Rm">www.wheelchairparts.com</cite> it has 25 root domain links & PA 34. When you go to our website from there, the homepage url is http://www.wheelchairparts.com/store/pc/home.asp it only has 3 root domain links & PA 27. Do I need to add a 301 Redirect here? What kind of redirect is on it now? Thanks, - Mike Bean
Technical SEO | | Mike.Bean0 -
Google Not Recognizing Domain Name Change
It has been over a month since we have switch https://www.iwdextensions.com
Technical SEO | | lsujoe
to
https://www.iwdagency.com/extensions/ Yet Google is still ranking the old domain name in their search results. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=iwd extensions Are we doing something wrong or does it take Google more than a month to update their results for this type of change? We have 301 redirected the old url to the new one and submitted a domain name change in GWT. Let me know your thoughts!0 -
I've consolidated other domains to a single one with 301 redirects, yet the new domain authority in MOZ is much less that the redirected ones. Is that right?
I'm trying to increase the domain authority of my main site, so decided to consolidate other sites. One of the other sites has a much higher domain authority, but I don't know why after a 301 redirect, the new site's domain authority hasn't changed on over a month. Does MOZ take account of thes types of things?
Technical SEO | | bytecgroup2 -
Preferred domain registrar AU
I need to register a domain in Australia. Does anybody have a trusted domain registrar I can go to? The person in our Australian office gave me a list of registrars she found where she can purchase the domain, but I wanted to see if anyone here had recommendations.
Technical SEO | | spackle0 -
Default.aspx and domain name difference
I am getting duplicate page content and duplicate page title errors for www.mydomain.com and www.mydomain.com/default.aspx. I thought that they were the same page, so I'm not sure how to avoid getting the duplicate content and title errors. Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | DMacy0 -
Best Way to change domain name
Hi, I have a driving instructor wordpress website called www.drivnglessonsbrightonandhove.co.uk, done a little link building. But before I start this properly, I want to change it to www.drivingbrighton.co.uk (as the first is too long to fit on the car etc!!!!) Whats the best way to do this? Is there a way to help keep its position in google as just got into top10 for different keywords?
Technical SEO | | Ant710