the letter 'A' ?

what's the low-down on using the letter 'a' in a domain name?

examples...

get-a-job.com
buy-a-house.com

would visitors use these domains? or would they be put off by the hyphens?

would get-a-job.com be easy to rank for the term 'get a job'? seeing as the 'a' is not included in the search string?..or is it?

 

Words in a domain name rank better because of the way people link to you,
not because of the domain.

Links and link text is king.

<a href ="yoursite.com">your keywords</a>

 

well heres my results

i searched google for;
1) get a job http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=get+a+job&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
2) get job (since a in not included in search i left it out) http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=active&q=get+job&btnG=Search&meta=
3) get +a job (i added the + so a was included) http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=active&q=get++a+job&btnG=Search&meta=

and guess what, all 3 searches returned different results.
its basicly all the same sites getting listed in top 10, but in different order.

 

Just like we get different results for singulars and plurals.

 

I run a shop on a domain just like that. Buy-a-[product].

Google doesn't get esxcited about it but for MSN and Yahoo it means instant #1 for that phrase. Which, depending on the phrase, can mean good traffic and decent money.

I like it because of that and also, it just instantly makes recognizable to the punter what this domain is about. No doubt about it whatsoever (though it could also be limiting your boundaries in terms of the content you will put on there). The whole 'looks spammy' argument is BS IMO because your regular John Dow doesn't have a clue about SE spam. Only webmasters find it looks spammy but so what?

It works well for me and unless I have really big branding ideas, I'd do it again.

 

Visitors will not be put off by the name, they will visit if it appears that the site has the content they are looking for.

The domain name is not going to significantly effect ranking in google (others I don't know about). May be a small benefit. I don't think the 'a' will make any difference.

 

you know what I find interestin g in the search get a job?
Google doesn't give you the message
"the "a" operator is unecessary it is included in search result by default"
it does highlight it in the search get +a job, as it would any other operator.

but....
It also doesn't highlight the letter a as if it were a search term, like it does the term "get" and "job"

 

You guys are funny! I got a red rep for the above, with the comment "URL spam" !

It should have been obvious that I don't own "yoursite.com" - bah!