Well.. yes.. it plays a major role in SERP'S. Ofcourse, you can rank well without your major keyword in your domain.. but it will be a plus if you have that...
Google takes into account anchor text as well as the surrounding text. When people create backlinks to your site, they will cite your domain name. As <a .....</a> contains a keyword rich text, it will definitely improve overal SERPS.
It can indeed be very beneficial but you must also be careful of not getting really spammy domain names as in my experience these can be counter productive and Google wont rank them. I'm talking about domains with loads of hyphons in like http://www.please-help-me-to-rank-for-this-word.com - just doesn't work for me
keywords in the domain name are just as important as the title and h1 tags. take into consideration all your main keywords before diving in and buying a domain. if possible and makes sense, get a domain with dashes (of course it makes it harder to remember but will give a little boost to your ranking down the road!)
Exact keywords in domains are extremely important. You can rank on the first page with no links. This is very good for local or smaller niches. Almost automatic on Google. I did a test recently and started a website in a two different local niches based with the name of a town plus a service added. Both with about the same search results and competitiveness. Example of sites are not real as far as I know: DetroitConstructionCompany.com - Just created good unique content and basic seo. In 1 week after submissiion of site map it was in spot 4 on the keyword search Detroit Construction Company. DetroitPetsforSale.com - Created unique content and added a nice pr6 link related to pets. It still does not rank after 1 month on anything in google. Yahoo loves it and msn. Guess to powerful of a link! Who knows !
Keyword is in domain is more important, it will make easy to bring site in top position in search engines, backlinks are also important, but keyword in domain is more important
Domian name is very important factor on SERP. It will helps you alot if you use the keyword as your domain name
Of course it is important. But that doesnt mean you have lesser chances when your competitor is named after the keyword and your site is not. This is where backlinks enter the picture. you can also take advantage of your target keywords by using it on blogs
My whole stratedgy "has" been based on long term keyword in the domain.. little traffic but highly targetted... "however" I launched 2 new sites 7 days ago.... both have been indexed within last day but they do not rank for a single phrase.. even phrases unique to the sites... Although my sites get little traffic it is highly valuable to me, I am hoping that the latest "Vince update" has not messed things up.... my new sites usually hit between number 1 and 3 on first shwing in Google.. [ my last 8 sites all hit between 1-3 position for targett keyword ]... Now nothing I pray this is temporary...
it gives you free anchor for every link. its good one. better to have title: ZZZ domain: zzz.com than title: YYY domain: zzz.com right ? __________________ Endowment Policy Info
Its not at all important .. it took me 1Year to make my domain rank for its name .. actually it was a highly competitive keyword !! So in my personal exp domain name is not much important .. its simply 2% of the 100 factors Google consider for rankings !
The thing that cocnerns me is all my other sites worked well, one in fact one was only lauched 6 weeks ago,.. it's just since this update both my latest sites look like duds [so far anyway] ... maybe I have the usual webmaster panic syndrome.... I got this when I launched my first site way back last year.. it got indexed then totally de-indexed just weeks later... of course it came back but boy did I panic...