Exact Match Domains - Who is feeling the pain?

[webgeek]

For those who have chosen to use exact match domain names as main money sites, or even as feeders, how many of you have checked your rankings and seen the dip?

8 billion pages have been affected by this update.

12 hours ago Matt Cutts let out the weather report warning on Twitter.

11 hours ago Matt Cutts made it official. 0.6% of the interweb is affected.

So, this is a good time to check your rankings if you live on an exact match domain, or if you rely on them for pumping up your main sites.

It's also a good time to put a nail in the coffin on the argument that EMD's are necessary for rankings. They no longer have the advantage.

The moral of the story? Build brand equity, and don't rely on keyword stuffed domain names.

 

[deniser]

I have lost all my top rankings a few days ago. We have partial matching domains.

 

[ChoosyReviews]

I have lost all my top rankings a few days ago. We have partial matching domains.

It does seem like a couple of days ago - not just as Matt tweeted as I originally understood (upcoming). Maybe there's more to come.

I've heard quite a few times now of KID's being hit - not just EMD's.

 

[deniser]

However, mine is not a " low quality" site. Might they come up again?

 

[ITsoldUK]

However, mine is not a " low quality" site. Might they come up again?

Maybe it will, who knows what the great G has in store for any of us.

I think that this move is more aimed at the sites that rely purely on the domain for seo perfection or thin sites rather than the risk of getting hit whilst having an EMD with good, robust, quality content...

This is NOT new hat though in fairness.

Many, many experts (and some novices like me) have been saying for YEARS, the key to a good ranking site that will last the test of time is GOOD QUALITY CONTENT...the only modern addendum I have picked up on in the last 18 months is to update that content with new content more frequently.

Just my novicey opinion

 

[webgeek]

Yes, it's not like a penalty has been applied, it's just a case of those keyword in domain bonus points being removed, thus leveling the ground with others.

You should be able to do a bit of link building and make up the lost ground without any problem.

 

[deniser]

Unfortunately, because it is a niche business, I am worried that G will think it is keyword stuffed as well. It is, but only because that is the only product we sell! Can't really avoid the keyword!

For years I have wanted to delete my home page and rewrite it but haven't dared. Would now be a good time?

 

[webgeek]

If you've found several key terms out of the top rankings, thus having lost a large chunk of traffic, then it is indeed the time of least risk, for undertaking improvements.

While you upgrade your home page text, tags, etc, get a handful or two of relevant links, working on those keywords you know can bring in revenue.

At this point it really is a matter of - what have you got to lose?

 

[RadiusBPO]

All my bottom feeding crap 1 spun page 4 dupe page sites with the same template over around 120 sites are still ranking today like they were yesterday, and all EMDs. But 2 of my good sites which are branded with helpful content, no ads etc have dropped...

Moral of the story, SEO is unreliable. Continue spamming with burner sites.

 

[Ali-v-8]

No pain at all
I will say it again if the fundamentals are in place you dont lose positions, others just get ahead of you.

 

[RadiusBPO]

No pain at all
I will say it again if the fundamentals are in place you dont lose positions, others just get ahead of you.

Load of rubbish. My EMD had content written by very good writers which was well researched, had no ads/aff links, very few links, basically I didn't do anything to this that I do to my burners. This one drops, the burners survive...

I've talked to a few people who since penguin and panda have been very careful and following guidelines, some of their sites dropped too.

This is just another signal that Google are trying to make SEO as unpredictable as possible to make it look like a risky investment with no guarantee of return.

 

[Ali-v-8]

I dont see it that way - may be how i optimise is different.

 

[jonny123]

I've heard quite a few times now of KID's being hit - not just EMD's.

What are KIDs?

 

[webgeek]

KID = keyword in domain, keyword included domain, keyword inclusive domain [depending on who you ask]

 

[deniser]

This is probably the final nail in the coffin for the independent retailer.

We had a thriving business employing four people and were about to take on a fifth. We have renewed our lease for another 5 years. Our sales have fallen off a cliff during the last week. If this carries on we will have to shut down.

Our number one google positions which we have had for six years have all disappeared. Some are at the bottom of page one, others on page two and others gone altogether.

As we are a niche business, the fact that the keywords are in the domain and all over the website was an indicator that we specialised in that product.

The companies above us now are Debenhams, Argos, Matalan, Monsoon, NEXT etc. Argos doesn't even sell the searched for product and the others do to a small extent as a tiny part of their business.

This is not good for consumers. First position is where we belong because we are the UK leading company in that niche. It's hopeless for someone searching for the product to arrive at Argos' website because they don't even sell it.

Yes Argos and the others have huge budgets to build paid links etc so are now getting search traffic that they shouldn't. You say that we should build links but we really can't get the high value links that the big companies, with all their marketing departments have. There is no way we can compete with them on link building.

This seems rather an extreme way of getting rid of low value sites.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Google are convinced that consumers buying brands, want the brands site. They just don't get it.

 

[amhsolutions]

I just setup a 301 redirect just in case. Better off with a brand domain name.

 

[deniser]

Google are convinced that consumers buying brands, want the brands site. They just don't get it.

Actually, it's a bit silly on Google's part to promote the large companies through organic search when surely they are the ones with money to spend on paid ads to get above the niche businesses. If they all have top positions they won't need to spend on advertising.

This makes no sense to me.

PS I meant "low quality" in my previous post, not "low value"!

 

[Ali-v-8]

Just for the record _ the domain debate was always going to be effected by what Google was doing with Google places (integration of place result with organic).
If you looked at how google started to remove people who had use exact match name, then a few months later they reverted back and then after that mixed them again. I though Google was going crazy, but IMO Google used the mass flurry of changes in title to Identify the behaviour of people trying to manipulate the system.

BUT - if its true then company's who have built businesses called what they do will suffer ie "pay day loan"

 

[Jeff FV]

I tend to agree with Deniser.

I'm no expert, but I'd have thought that having an exact match domain name or keyword in the domain name was a pretty useful indicator that the site was going to be about that word.

I know that Amazon, Tesco, argos et al will probably be selling what I'm looking for, so i'll look at those sites anyway. What I'd like (as a user) is for Google (or any search engine) to be finding those niche sites, who'll probably provide me with a bit of informed opinion and expert advice.

Just my opinion

J

 

[deniser]

If you looked at how google started to remove people who had use exact match name, then a few months later they reverted back and then after that mixed them again. I though Google was going crazy, but IMO Google used the mass flurry of changes in title to Identify the behaviour of people trying to manipulate the system.

"

We weren't affected at the "test" stage and didn't change anything.

 

[UKSBD]

This is probably the final nail in the coffin for the independent retailer.

I wrote a post about this not long ago.
http://www.sim64.co.uk/uk/why-google-is-bad-for-business-expansion/

The thing is it's not just Google, it is the Internet in general.

It's all about pop ups now, set up quick in a niche, make a profit, then get out again quick when it's no longer niche.

All at the expense of the small establised businesses.

 

[Websitehandyman]

I don't really see this ending well for business or Google.

If the internet becomes an exact copy of the high st it'll suffer the same effects of every shop being the same and selling the same products at the same prices. It'll contract.

Bad news also for hosts as the are far more "marketers" then brands or shops. Loads of these will give up.

 

[RadiusBPO]

Denser - Is your site an EMD?? Can you PM your domain so I can run it through ahrefs?

 

[fisicx]

I've just checked and 7 EMD are doing just fine. No change in ranking.

However, it was never going to last as a strong ranking signal - because too many people were promoting it as an SEO feature. And google doesn't like people gaming the system.

 

[webgeek]

This is probably the final nail in the coffin for the independent retailer.

We had a thriving business employing four people and were about to take on a fifth. We have renewed our lease for another 5 years. Our sales have fallen off a cliff during the last week. If this carries on we will have to shut down.

Our number one google positions which we have had for six years have all disappeared. Some are at the bottom of page one, others on page two and others gone altogether.

As we are a niche business, the fact that the keywords are in the domain and all over the website was an indicator that we specialised in that product.

The companies above us now are Debenhams, Argos, Matalan, Monsoon, NEXT etc. Argos doesn't even sell the searched for product and the others do to a small extent as a tiny part of their business.

This is not good for consumers. First position is where we belong because we are the UK leading company in that niche. It's hopeless for someone searching for the product to arrive at Argos' website because they don't even sell it.

Yes Argos and the others have huge budgets to build paid links etc so are now getting search traffic that they shouldn't. You say that we should build links but we really can't get the high value links that the big companies, with all their marketing departments have. There is no way we can compete with them on link building.

This seems rather an extreme way of getting rid of low value sites.

This is exactly the kind of feedback that would be ideal for the Google blog or Matt Cutts blog, though also never hurts on top sites like SEOMoz.

You squeak, and others chime in agreement, then the wheel might get some oil.

Until the voices are loud enough to gain their attention, the Google shakeup will surely continue!

I've seen a couple of client sites with mild dings, a bunch unaffected, and 1 knocked completely off the radar now sitting at position 501 (was page 1), though the latter is undergoing investigation as there must be other forces at play.

With Penguin 2.0 looming, I'd say the dust hasn't even started to settle....

 

[LianneF]

Just did some searches for gift keywords and the exact match domains have gone which I think is a good thing as there were too many sites with similar names and it was hard to remember who you bought off. However an exact match domain still ranks high for a keyword we are trying to go for, the site is old, don't think the content has changed in years and what little links it has are most likely natural.

 

[deniser]

Denser - Is your site an EMD?? Can you PM your domain so I can run it through ahrefs?

My sites are partial EMDs but all have the main keywords in the URL and meta title. I have one minor site with no links to it at all which is totally unaffected, my main site is affected as per my previous posts and my other EMD sites have disappeared completely but are still showing in google shopping.

My main site has been at no. 1 spot for all keywords for six years and the other sites at second and third place for a year or so.

I will do some further investigations tomorrow to see if computers in different locations yield different results and to see if there is any variation between different device types.

What are "ahrefs"?

 

[webgeek]

Ahrefs.com gives great backlinks insights.

Have you checked page rank on those? I've seen 2 in the past 2 weeks stripped of PR. They're still indexed (site:blahblah.com), but have PR 0 now.

 

[deniser]

Just did some searches for gift keywords and the exact match domains have gone which I think is a good thing as there were too many sites with similar names and it was hard to remember who you bought off. .

That is a good point actually. A lot of other companies copied our name in other countries and used hyphens and other small variations. Even the big companies have been using our name to get clicks via paid ads. We have even had several irate customers contact us about problems with their orders when it wasn't us at all but a different company.

 

[deniser]

This is exactly the kind of feedback that would be ideal for the Google blog or Matt Cutts blog, though also never hurts on top sites like

Is there a place for providing the feedback other than Twitter?

I take some comfort in the fact that our biggest search term bringing visitors to our site is the name of the business itself, so we are still getting some traffic albeit not in the previous numbers.

 

[webgeek]

Matt Cutts blog: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

 

[RadiusBPO]

Denser - Just a backlink checking site, will give a breakdown of your links. Probably won't find anything but interested to see the % of exact match links, branded links and deep links.

A lot of people with sites similar to yours are having problems so it's possible this will be rolled back, wait and see...

And Googles biz objective is to make more money. How do they do that? Well one way is to make SEO an unreliable investment. Another is to kick established businesses in the teeth and basically give them the option of using adwords or going bust..

 

[deniser]

You won't believe this! A whole load of orders have been coming through this evening. Just checked my main search terms for my main site and all our first places are back suddenly! They've been gone for 4 days! Some subsidiary sites are still disappeared though but I'm not as worried about those.

I can't tell you how relieved I am. Hope it stays that way! Scary times!

 

[webgeek]

Google says, DANCE!

 

[funkykitsch]

This is probably the final nail in the coffin for the independent retailer.

We had a thriving business employing four people and were about to take on a fifth. We have renewed our lease for another 5 years. Our sales have fallen off a cliff during the last week. If this carries on we will have to shut down.

Our number one google positions which we have had for six years have all disappeared. Some are at the bottom of page one, others on page two and others gone altogether.

As we are a niche business, the fact that the keywords are in the domain and all over the website was an indicator that we specialised in that product.

The companies above us now are Debenhams, Argos, Matalan, Monsoon, NEXT etc. Argos doesn't even sell the searched for product and the others do to a small extent as a tiny part of their business.

This is not good for consumers. First position is where we belong because we are the UK leading company in that niche. It's hopeless for someone searching for the product to arrive at Argos' website because they don't even sell it.

Yes Argos and the others have huge budgets to build paid links etc so are now getting search traffic that they shouldn't. You say that we should build links but we really can't get the high value links that the big companies, with all their marketing departments have. There is no way we can compete with them on link building.

This seems rather an extreme way of getting rid of low value sites.

you are right..time to move on google is seriously playing with peoples lives..but on the other side of the equation it's peoples fault that your life depends so much on having a front page position...but this just sucks big time.

 

[funkykitsch]

just found the answer to your problems - use BING!
the results are like the old google results!
You just have to persuade the rest of the world now!

 

[clara_butler]

hi all.. Please anyone tell me what this algo exactly is ? Means suppose i have a site www.abc.com, then how it will be affected by this EMD algo ? HOw would i know that m website has been hit by this algo ?

 

[fisicx]

you are right..time to move on google is seriously playing with peoples lives...

You are so wrong.

Google provides a FREE service to anyone searching for stuff. To get the results for this search service they trawl the internet looking for sites that meets its many ranking signals.

You are a website owner are taking advantage of this FREE service to attract visitors to your site.

Google on the other hand is not obliged to index your site, rank your site or include your site in the SERPs. Their T&C make it quite clear that they can do as they please. As long as their customers (people searching) are happy then they see no problem.

Before Google people relied on other forms of marketing. It seems that many are so used to the FREE service that they have forgotten that it's not the only source of traffic. When for example was the last time you advertised in a magazine, used website banners or even adwords.

 

[deniser]

OK, my main well established partial EMD site is back at first place for all search terms.

But my EMDs which were ranking 2nd or 3rd to my main site - but which have very few links - have all gone.