So, I just brought one of my old domains back from the dead and after adding 3 blog articles I did a search to look at my competition and what do you know, 2nd result. I know you guys talk a lot about honeymoons but I posted about this before. I have a few domains with exact match keywords and they always hit top spot or somewhere on first page and stay there. All I do is use Wordpress, install All In One SEO Plugin and voila. Set keywords, description, title and it all shows up for me in the results (title/description from All In One) Usually the keywords are low, less than 10000 monthly searches but it still brings me a lot of traffic and when I put a lot of them together I've made as much as high $300 before. They're also all within the same niche. So is exact match keyword/domain really that helpful to the point seo doesn't matter as much?
of course, one of the biggest seo secrets, is to get your main keyword into your domain name behind on-page seo, and some backlinks google see your site more specific for that keyword and rank your site higher than others. to your success, Ayman X
I think it also depends on how competitive that keyword is. I just bought a domain that I have high hopes for but it will likely be a rough road just based on the fact the keyword is for a specific place and is reported on often by NY Times, Washington Post, etc.
When you say exact match - you are actually talking about long term keywords, right? If you use those keywords - which are mostly low in traffic but high in conversion rates, and you link it properly to their landing pages, then it will do good for you.
Since the Google Panda update, exact match domains carry no special value except one thing - it is easier to get listed on directories (and backlinks in general) with the domain keywords.
In my view its very helpful having a keyword in the domain name. very recently I've bought the domain name with a keyword "contribute" in it. Now i am preparing a plan to implement the new site in a proper way and to achieve good PR.
Having your keyword in your domain will almost certainly improve your SEO It won't do all the work, but every little helps!
In my experience, exact match domains still make a big difference post-Panda and I try to get them as much as possible. You just need to ALSO have good content on there (before Panda, you could pretty much get a blank page ranking just because of the domain), like others have said. Even if it didn't make a difference for SEO, I still think it creates a stronger brand.
If you get your main keyword in the domain name. Then it is very beneficial for the site to rank on Google.
I swear by EMD keywords they are the best in terms of ranking. Most of my sites are usually on page 1 or 2 after a week without building any links.
Without a doubt exact match domains do work, but if the niche is competitive you will have to do a little bit more
Extact Match Domains are really worth to buy for website if we are focusing to get traffic from Search engines. yes is ture it excellent for low competitive terms but you know it assist also to picks up your from website on related low competitive keywords in search engines thats why all those low competitive generate great ratio to your traffic bar. : )
@Seventh Army: you are true exact match keyword in url take benefits to rank in google and need less efforts to rank in search engine. i found this yahoo gives it more weight compare to google.