Here's a question I can't seem to get to the bottom of... In another thread about sandboxing, someone indicated that a website might be sandboxed if the domain name had no apparent relationship to the key words for the pages contained in that website. I have to believe that this is completely erroneous because, after all, very few businesses (especially big companies) actually have the names of their products, key words, or any other such terms contained within the name of their company or their domain name. Obviously, Google is never going to tell us this. So, the specific question here is, as it relates strictly to search engine rankings, does a domain name matter at all? Yes, I know that a more descriptive domain name is more likely to get you more clicks because someone viewing a URL containing that domain name would be able to see what that site was all about. For example, if you ranked on the first page in Google for a keyword such as "wedding dresses", but the name of your domain is something apparently unrelated like "cheap-used-cars.com", the chances of someone actually clicking on your link might be relatively low. But, specifically, does the fact that your domain name is apprently unrelated to the search term actually have any impact on your apparent search ranking?
Sorry, my bad... I see that this topic is already under discussion in another thread... 1755549 It would appear that the jury is still out...
having the keyword in the domain name does work as an additional benefit in terms of ranking for your site in search results.
@webb, that makes perfect (and obvious) sense! By the same logic, I would assume that having your keywords anywhere in the URL (sub-domain name, server name, in a virtual directory name or file name, specifically) would help in the case where someone actually uses the URL as the anchor text for a link to a page on your site. Assuming, that is, that the search engine's algorithm strips out things like ".com", hyphens, slashes, etc., and that it breaks words apart when necessary (since they're always bunched together in a url or domain name).
It definitely doesn't hurt! But its not everything. There are plenty of sites that have a keyword in the domain that dont rank high. Its all about the SEO put into the website.
it definately helps alot to have your keyword as your domain name but its not impossible to rank a non keyword site as domain name very high. you can see that while searching on google.
How would google read it if there is no spaces in the domain name! if its carsareawesome.com how could it know we are talking about cars?
This is true. It is always good to have your primary keyword in the domain name to get long lasting results. Thanks
I would assume that the Google algorithm has a giant list of key words available to it, and that it looks for the occurence of those key word strings within domain names. Doing so would pretty much be 101-level programming, and the big brains at the Googleplex certainly have the ability to do handle something like that.
Thanks for the input from everyone. My conclusion is that using the keywords in the domain name and/or URL can make a difference, but they're only one of many factors.
As my experience says, if you have particular niche website or blog then domain name very well work for seo. But if you have combined content website then it does not matter at all.
In general I think the domain name is important for most types of businesses, but it’s not crucial for all. It just might not be important in the ways you think it should be. For organic ranking and general SEO, I think your domain matters. It does force keywords into all incoming links. Some contend having these keywords in the domain part make a difference, but I haven’t really seen that. You can use a mediocre domain name the same way by creating directories and page names with keywords, or you can even use a content-sharing site that allows you to create keyword rich URLs for your content. If you have relevant keywords in your domain you are likely to get more clicks. And more clicks indicates more relevance and thus is likely to increase your Google ranking. You’ll note I never said that Google’s algorithm looks for keywords in your domain. It may have in the past, but now it doesn’t seem as important, if it’s important at all. You do need those keywords somewhere in your URL though. I’m not saying having keywords in your URLs doesn’t help, just that having it in the domain name itself isn’t necessarily better for ranking. But, the earlier the keyword is, the more likely it will appeal to a user. The reverse is true if you have a domain with a clear meaning and the page topic is totally different.
Having keywords in url is most imporatant part of SEO. it is possible to get a good ranking for that keywords are very useful.So always try to choose a url whish contain your most targeted keywords...
I think the domain name is important for a better seo effort. But it is not an essential factor in your SE optimization. It is better to have an old domain. And your domain is better to be catching and attractive. Keywords in domain will also help if you are targeting at Bing.