Domain names & SEO

[res17]

Hi there.
Can anyone help on this matter. We've been told that by buying domain names that are similar to our keywords would be an excellent way of gaining PR and also generating more traffic. We have several domain names all based on the tag flow measurement ie flow-measurement.com.
Can somebody confirm that this is a good idea of generating PR.

Also, what do you put on such satellite sites as they will all have web-forwarding? Lots of text, links, etc or even pages of content. Will just an index page of text, links and terms be good enough.

[JamesW]

I did write an article about this but I'm not allowed to post it yet due to the amount of posts I've made.

Buying a keyword-rich domain won't help your PageRank but it may indirectly increase your visitors as Google will see links that use your domain name as the anchor text as 'keyword phrase' as they ignore the '-'.

Don't worry about PR - in fact ignore it. It does more harm than good IMO.

What do you mean by satellite sites (this is beginning to sound ominous!)?

Cheers

James

[Help Desk]

In my experience any benefit to having a domain name with keywords that generate a higher pagerank is minimal if any at all.

[res17]

Sorry, what I mean by satellite sites is other external sites that refer to a central site (web forwarding)....

R

[res17]

So if for example I created a web forwarding site named beta.co.uk, with a central site alpha.co.uk, and I did a G-search for "beta" would that site come up near the top of the listings if (a) had no PR and (b) had a PR of say 4.

R

[SENewbie]

Originally Posted by JamesW

Don't worry about PR - in fact ignore it. It does more harm than good IMO.

How does ignoring PR do more harm then good?

[schlottke]

He meant worrying about getting PR does more harm than good, I think. Focus on adding content and getting relevant links instead.

[JamesW]

Res:

On this basis I wouldn't choose a keyword-rich domain name. The effects of doing so in those circumstances would, IMO, be minute.

SENewbie:

I've switched off my PR indicator on the Google Toolbar. Why? Because I don't care whether I'm a PR1 or a PR9. As long as you're adding decent content, getting incoming links and ranking well for productive terms what does PR tell me?

Cheers

James

[SENewbie]

Gotcha, I thought that's what you might have meant. Good advice, although I like the toolbar b/c I like to see how other sites are doing.

[JamesW]

Whatever works for you I guess.

Cheers

James

[disgust]

this wouldn't help your PR at all.

however it could help the SERPs in two ways:

1) the domain may count keywords for a boost in the SERPs directly
2) anchor text from sites linking to you would have those keywords in them

[relaxzoolander]

Originally Posted by disgust

this wouldn't help your PR at all.
2) anchor text from sites linking to you would have those keywords in them

assuming that the link uses the url as link text...otherwise this may not be true.

basically thats the one relevant reason for a keyword domain name...
it is a self-creating keyword link text device.
assuming that most people will list your site link as a url like this:
http://www.aroundthearea.com/
and not as a mid-sentence type link like this:
...a good place to find community resources in sussex county new jersey.

[res17]

So...
Some say that's a good idea to have keyword domain names, some don't. I'm now more confused than ever. Maybe I should do a poll. Nigritude, what's your final word on this one.
R

[relaxzoolander]

it doesnt hurt to have a keyword domain.
but theres not a real huge advantage to it.

you need to consider your company brand more that your serps in this situation.
take off your 'google goggles' for a moment and do whats best for your company image...brand...and identity.

...and if its not a 'brand' based company...then do the keyword domain thing.
just dont get crazy with too many hyphens...
...more than anything else...this looks 'cheesy'.

[ViciousSummer]

I agree with RZ...Having a keyword rich domain isn't going to effect your ranking enough to worry about it. And, personally, I think all the dashes people are using in their domains now adays are ridiculous. I think it just confuses any visitors that are trying to access your domain, NOT through a link. But, if you can get a keyword rich domain (without the dashes), I think it is useful for your customers in remembering your site and also for building anchor text links.

I know that many of you SEO guys don't market outside the web (therefore don't think about people actually typing in your domain), but I do quite a bit of off-internet marketing and I think it would be more annoying to my customers to have to remember where the dashes go. Remembering and typing in: hustlerpanties.com is much easier then hustler-panties.com. Also, while I'm on a tangent...I believe that search engines can read domain name as two (or more) keywords with out the dashes. From the day Google recognized my site, it shot to #1 for KW's Hustler Panties. And that was befored I had any links, anchor text, content, etc.

[ginostylz]

It all depends on your plan.
Keyword domains are cool, even one dash is ok.
But if you bought one hundred domains, what would you do with them?
Link them heavily with anchor text to your site?
These satilite index pages marketing your main domain is pretty worthless if you don't get imbound links to the sattillite pages too.

[uca]

U get PR mainly with incoming links.
Page weight for the SE might increase.
Anyway PR is of very little practical use.

I would use that external-satellite page as a welcome page or anyway a page optimized for keywords close and related to the main ones, with an automatic JS redirect or manual button redirect to the main page.

[Blogmaster]

Originally Posted by schlottke

He meant worrying about getting PR does more harm than good, I think. Focus on adding content and getting relevant links instead.

and that, my friend is the key

[ryanturner.com]

agreed - and any benefit from keywords in your domain name is neglible for google. In the past it was much more beneficial on the various engines than it is now.

[miko67]

Somebody has definitely said this before... Content is King