I read on this forum with interest how say money.com would rank higher in a search on google for "money" than any other site because it's in the web address. Ok, but what about a url called moneyabc.com or money-1.com. Of course they won't be higher than money.com in a search but which url is most effective (with or without hyphen?).
The domain definitely helps, but that's not to say no site could ever rank higher... Just would need more links. - Shawn
Misohoni, Just to echo Shawn's comment, check out this Google Search for African Safari Pictures and at least right now, the #8 listing is the one that has "most" of those keywords in the domainname, whereas none of the others do. There's an even better example if you click on images - ditto down to #3 ... and "picture" is one of the keywords. BTW, images SEO is bizzare at times to me - see what Google Images has for #1 for 'alek' - I made no efforts to make that happen! ;-) I actually just noticed this earlier this evening, so it was kinda funny to see your question about it. alek
Thanks guys, I know what you are saying - it all links to keywords and title description. But read that Url name also counts for something... If you put "african safari" in google then african-safari.com ends up in 2nd. Would africansafari.com rank higher?
A good question I think we all wish we knew. I.e. what is the preferred delimiter between keywords in domainname and pathnames of the URL ... and what is the influence/weighting factor that Google assigns it. Without having access to the the Google source code/algorithms, one can only guess/infer from the behavior. Here is another Google example using the keywords Surf and Turf where you see several top-10 items that use those terms in the domainname and/or pathname. alek
Yea, you gotta watch that komar.org guy, he "grabs" all sort of funky keywords! ;-) FYI FWIW: I only did this because my wife works at a wildlife adventure travel company and I was demonstrating to her boss/owner about some simple SEO, so I figured I had a chance on a non-competitive (but relevant) keyword phrase and threw that page up - the other one is Churchill Polar Bear Tours. I just do this as a hobby, so before one of you professional SEO's goes out and stomps me on those keywords (!), rest assured that the eyeball-traffic, and resulting Adsense revenue in the last week is enough to buy a cup of coffee, but you better not order a large expresso - I have a seperate Adsense channel on 'em, and therefore know the exact numbers ... so they end up being more of a conversation piece. I.e. they are big fish in an extremely small pond ... or perhaps big animals in a tiny savanna/glacier. alek P.S. For those who want a little Monday afternoon humour, that Africa Safari page has a picture of a 5-legged elephant - check it out! ;-)
I read on another SEO forum (forgot the name-sorry) that african-safari.com is the best choice..can't remember the reason why?