"Near" perfect Keyword domain matches - Which would you choose?

[James77]

Hi,

I was wondering on your thoughts, or if any tests had been done on the best format of "near" perfect keyword domain matches.

Suppose I am not really interested in branding, and I am principally after the bonus given to exact keyword matching, but all the exact match high level extensions have gone - whats the next best solution?

Suppose I am after the term "car hire", and on my website I want to target many different location keywords such as - "Car Hire London"

My main extensions are gone, but I have the options to go for::

Additional Word at the FRONT:
Number - eg 4:
4carhire.co.uk  -> gives me -> 4carhire.co.uk/london/
Geo association - eg uk:
ukcarhire.co.uk  -> gives me -> ukcarhire.co.uk/london/
Info term - eg compare:
comparecarhire.co.uk -> gives me -> comparecarhire.co.uk/london/

Additional Word at the END: Number - eg 4:
carhire4.co.uk  -> gives me -> carhire4.co.uk/london/
Geo association - eg uk:
carhireuk.co.uk  -> gives me -> carhireuk.co.uk/london/
Info term - eg compare:
carhirecompare.co.uk -> gives me -> carhirecompare.co.uk/london/

Which of the domains would be best to benifit when a term like "Car Hire London" is typed in ??

If you were to choose a domain which would you go for and why?

[RyanKent]

I don't have the answer. While I would be interested in hearing feedback from others, I highly doubt anyone has gone to this level of detail in any proper testing. URLs are a ranking factor, but a low one and this focus goes past the point of any realistic difference. I am willing to bet either way would never make any difference at all in a ranking determination. You are talking about 1 component of 1 low consideration factor. It's a 0.001% type of thing in my opinion.

Take a look at the Google.co.uk results for "care hire london". Notice you don't find the exact match URLs anywhere on the first page. If you go to the lengths to acquire an exact match domain, you have to receive exceptional rankings to make it pay off.

Notice you don't even see the "carhire.co.uk" nor the "carehirelondon-rentals.co.uk" until the second page of results. If you put this type of focus in ensuring you have the best quality site design along with world-class content, you will be on the first page of SERPs with or without the EMD.

EDIT: I'll go a bit further and add my private question from last month because I think it will help you as well. I carefully examined two results from a blog article Rand shared. Every single SEO indicator to which I have visibility tells me the #2 article should outrank the #1 article, including the URL.

When I look at both results without knowing the ranking outcome, I would have bet with confidence the #2 result would beat the #1 result, and I would have been wrong obviously. There are ranking factors to which we do not have visibility to or otherwise do not understand. Again, I agree you should have good domain names and URLs, but there are other more important factors which deserve our attention. http://www.seomoz.org/q/re-rand-s-blog-the-best-kept-secret-in-the-seomoz-toolset

[James77]

Hi - thanks for your reply.

With regard to the question on the "additional" word Before/After the KW term in the domain, what I was looking for to how it would work for the sub pages.

EG - suppose my target terms is "Car Hire London"

I have options:

www.TERMcarhire.co.uk/london

www.carehireTERM.co.uk/london

My question was really which of these 2 would be better (or make any difference at all) given the first domain www.TERMcarhire.co.uk/london has the exact KW string in the URL but www.carehireTERM.co.uk/london does not - IE it has the "TERM" seperating the KW string.

[RyanKent]

My experience is relying upon domain names in this manner is not a good approach. I'll set those feelings aside and answer your query as best I can. A few options you may wish to consider:

• Since your primary goal is to improve search rankings and not brand your site, you can try alternative TLDs such as .info. Be sure to properly set up the site for the UK both on page and in WMT.

• You could also consider hyphenated domains. I normally advise to avoid them but if your specific purpose is to gain the exact match benefit, they can help.

• In my experience an exact match is a significant boost over a partial match. You can use the adwords keyword tool to locate the best keyword variations. Ideas like "hirecar" or "car for hire" come to mind.

• I would not recommend adding a 3rd term to your URL unless either you were trying to brand the site such as "mycarhire" or you were matching a keyword phrase with a tremendous amount of search volume.

Based on the above, the only option you presented which is acceptable to me are the "compare" additions. I would only choose that option if "compare" is the best addition based on the keyword tool. With respect to adding on the beginning or end, I would choose the format which is most popular.