Does Google understand domain names? I mean, if you have a domain name is for example mypony.com does google expect the page to be about a pony? Lisa
No , they don't why ?! because it can be easy be fooled by a domain name.... and because doing that , people with domain names like xdf23 will have problems. Google/Yahoo/MSN pays little attention of any on-site optimizations (title, keywords, domain name) and lot's of attentions to off-site optimization - > backlinks + anchor text... because of that many .gov websites suffered of the 'google bombing attacks'
It depends on what's in the content of your site, and anchor text of course, I wouldn't worry about what is in the domain name!
Google doesn't care but having pony in the domain and the site being related to 'pony' will give it more value I think.
Search Engline understand the domain name. It was a important factor for SEPR back in the day. However, it is getting less and less important
if your backlink are given with "pony", "MyPony", "My Pony" text , google will understand you. if not ,google will not understand what your domain means
From my previous experience and what i read so far, it's the content and anchor text of your backlinks that would determine what your site is about.