Hey all. I was wondering, how important is it for seo purposes to have your targeted keywords in your domain name? Does google give you significant extra points for this? The reason I ask is because I often find that the best brandable names don't have keywords in them. So is it better to focus on brandable names or SEO names? Regards, Jordan
depends on what you are looking for...while it is a common practice, and can help, Google does not give extra points for it. The main thing to worry about anyway is not PR, but instead quality traffic. You get that, which will help with links, which in the long run will get you PR....just my $.02.
If you're looking to build a serious long-term site, and you want something brandable, then go with a brandable name. It's all in the marketing. Keyword-rich domains can help early on, but if you put the time and effort into marketing a non-keyword-rich domain, it can do just as well if not better over time. Decide what's best for your needs long-term, and go with that.
My opinion is that it helps quite a bit, but the page title is also important. It will bump you high in the SERPs alone. You'll notice when doing a search in Google that the keywords are highlighted in the url and title, along with the top text from that page. This appears to weigh very heavily compared to the same words elsewhere on the page, although they are a factor in themselves. Ofcourse there are other factors.
go to google.com and do a search on "search engine optimization" how many urls can you see that have these three words in the domain? (if you don't wish to check the answer is: none)
Right, there are many factors that come into play. I would say that page title and url are huge factors though. The other factors for 'search engine optimization' are probably outweighing the title and, if there is any out there, the url with these key words.
Keep something else in mind.... the keywords can appear in the URL in other ways than the main domain. For example, you can use subdomains, folders, post / page titles, etc. So don't let keywords stop you from getting a brandable domain name.
If you're targeting long tail keywords then having those in the domain name helps tremendously, especially with MSN. I often get top rankings for my keywords within 3 weeks by just using long tail keywords in the domain along with generating a backlink from a high PR site like www.Ezinearticles.com
instead of "car for sale" the keyword would be "car for sale in new york" just making it longer and more targeted so when people type that in you will come up on first page or first few depending on PR. But some people get ridiculous with long tail keywords
As far as I know yes, google does give you some points depending on the keyword your using, and its relevency to your website content
Keyword domain names like www.PopularScreensaver.info can be very successful very quickly, that's my domain and it's ranked 5th for 'Popular Screensavers' after 1 month and not many backlinks. 'Popular Screensavers' is a quite competitive term (12,000 searches per month) but I still rank for it easily because of the domain. Although, a brandable domain would be better in the long term if you're targeting a large array of keywords.
I think it depends on the name if it is something someone might just type then yes. As far as search engine ranking then I don't think it helps. But think about repeat visitors something catchy that they can rememebr is always best.
now here comes my personal experience...and some proof too that key word domains have a huge advantage. might end up a little longer, as I also want to tell the story how all this happend. my business webpage is online since 1999. as many others I did set it up just to be there on the net like having a business card. in the 90's that was very common and an online shop for small businesses like mine simply to expensive. I tried to renk well for my "main key word"...simply my main supplier. ;-) but did not care that much about it. years went by and I found many excuses for still not starting a real online business in addition to my RL store. about two years ago a good friend of mine finally kickt my ass and almost forced me to start an online business and update my old site. this is when I realized there was some misterious thing going on called SEO. as I always wanted to use my main suppliers name as a keyword for a new domain I had been asking quite a long time if they would let me do that and always got a negative answer. while developing my online shop, I also started checking my competitors, analizing their pages and all that stuff. as a matter of fact there where many domains gegistered with the brand name of my supplier and I was some kind of pissed seeing all those domains gone. e.g. brand-shop.com, brandshop.com,..... BUT... as we are talking about a european company, and most of my competitors being from europe too, they had missed one thing. the biggest market for that brand is the US, and in the US a shop is called store. realizing that, I registered the "brand"-store.com within minutes. the online store was set up on a subdomain of my old site, which I know is not the best option, put I still prefered it as the domain itself was very well known and I wanted to take advantage of that fact. first job was to refurbish my old site, set up the new one with the brand-store.com and start the basics of seo. to make it a little shorter now, I did of course some link building for the old page also, but my main focus was the new domain and the online store on the sub domain, using the new site like a "landing domain". I link of course from every single page to the relevant URL in my online store with a fat button. lucky me that those categories are all like brand names themselfs. so there is the key again in every URL and alt-text. the same link method is used on my old company page. and now the results: my "brand"-store.com ranks #2 behind the company itself for their name which is the most important key word for me. the same site ranks #1-5 for almost all imaginable key word combinations. the top spots not taken by that domain are filled with my online store or even my old site...hehe I have like 3-6 top 10 positions for all major key words all sites combined. this might sound easy as I am operating in a very small niche, but we all know about age and I do have some competitiors that have their websites online even longer than my old one, and it was not that easy to get passed them. of course I did have the advantage to own an old trusted domain that did not have high PR but great link power and as mentioned already a lot of trust. so my conclusion is that a key word in the domain is a major factor and a trementous push to get passed your competitors or reach the tops spots for your key words. greetz elwood
Personally I have found many sites that used dashes and are ranked high. One, in particular is very similar to mine (mine is brand new today) but the first word was different. Yet he is page one for "home based business opportunity" and the plural "opportunities". He is also listed within the first 10 pages of the huge "business opportunity". He has a lot of content but not that much back links as far as I could tell. Here is the site (not mine): perfect-home-based-business-opportunities.com