Hey, i am thinking of starting a site related to a certain travel destination but all the good domains including the "good" keywords are taken. Is the domain name its self of real importance for SEO? Thanks Danny
Depends what search engine your talking about. I feel like this was a more important factor years ago in the algorithms, but now its of less importance. I would just try to come up with a catchy phrase that people will remember vs. www.thisismykeyowrd-but-its-taken-keyword.com
They will help somewhat but you can certainly do well without keywords in your domain. This is a rather old post and the weight of keyword domains seems to be a little higher now, but still provides some good info. http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=631
That's debatable. From a branding perspective, hyphens suck. Users very frequently don't type them in, and they'll end up on a competing site.
My 4000+ member forum begs to differ. In that scenario I had no choice but to use hyphens. If someone likes a site, you can bet they will bookmark it. I see what your saying though.
So by what i am gathering i should try to find a domain name with the keywords in it but i could manage without. Thanks for the advice. Danny
Pretty much man, I just think a good domain helps things. At the end of the day, it will be your marketing efforts which ultimately decide the success of the site. Good luck.
I think it's getting harder 'rich' URL's ranked - and you might be more likely to break the rules in the future. If it's a long-term business I'd more inclined to advise you to go with a good brand name, not worry too much about keywords in the domain name, and focus on in site & inbound SEO.
Not important, but very useful. I've a new site which don't rank well for any keywords i optimized, but one competitive keyword rank very well (msn, google) because of my domain is the keyword itself
proving: that domain keywords will increase your ranks and are stronlgy related to the subject, meaning the visitor will have a nicer time remmembering it
I think "good" keywords in the domain name is just one of the many factors which help in the site's SEO. It helps your efforts a bit if you have an important keyword in your domain name. Without a keyword rich domain name, a site can still rank well in the SEs, which more or less relies on your optimization efforts.
Hey, thanks for all the replys, you comments are much appreciated. i will start my domain search now! Thanks again Danny