So I've been researching a lot into google panda and penguin updates and it seems to be a consensus that it favors exact match domains more than it used to. My question is how close does a domain have to be to be considered by google an exact match and get the benefits. Say if I get a domain that matches my keyword exactly with the word "The" in the front. As in "TheExactKeyword.com" Will that still get the benefits or does having "The" in front of it stop it from being considered an exact match? Thanks for the help
As far as I know, having additional keywords doesn't harm it in the rankings. However, abbreviations, slang, any slight deviations or anything like that would.