Domains with key words

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I have tried the search function on here and expected it to be done to death by now but I don't think its working this morning

Simple question do you think they are still relevant
The jokers that want to sell them for £300 think they are I had this argument with one of these sales people yesterday as I personally think they are a waste of time now

15 years ago I brought up about 30 relevant domains for my business for 90p each but no longer have them

 

[StephenSumner]

Google did give them some actual added value in their algorithm up until a few years ago but no more.

However there is a marginal SEO benefit still if you are able to earn backlinks naturally as people may well use your domain name exact match words as the anchor text when linking to you and that can be pretty powerful and would be one of the main ways you can get away with a slightly higher keyword related anchor text ratio that sites that don't use these types of domains.

It could be argued that there can also be some form of perceived added trust from a potential customer also if you have a good exact match domain.

 

[splashweb]

Google did give them some actual added value in their algorithm up until a few years ago but no more.

This hasn't been confirmed either way as far as I'm aware, and won't be. It seems very likely that most, if not all, of the direct algorithmic benefit was de-tuned some years ago on Google.

Exact match domains, which usually target a specific search phrase, can still work well in terms of driving click-through and conversions, and implying authority, but they don't lend themselves to branding.

Unless you're looking to build a true brand then it probably still pays most businesses to include at least one relevant keyword in their address, simply to help clarify their offering; plus much more likely to available or affordable if already registered.

I'm suspect others will disagree with some of this, an ongoing debate, as there are no clear-cut rules about what works best - horses for courses, but I certainly wouldn't dismiss keyword domains.

Why someone should be considered as a "joker" for looking for £300, for presumably a decent keyword domain, I don't understand; that makes me (a domain trader) absolutely hillarious!!

 

[StephenSumner]

Look for an update from Google called the EMD update around 2012, there it was confirmed that they did make some changes to the main algorithm.

 

[SEO Lady]

HI @JEREMY HAWKE

The jokers that want to sell them for £300 think they are I had this argument with one of these sales people yesterday as I personally think they are a waste of time now

Not teaching you to suck eggs but have you checked Who.is for the desired domain?

It's just that I've had emails selling domains for silly money and it's a ruse as they are about to naturally expire anyways and I've gone on to purchase them in a few week's time.

Or is this a bona fide UK company?

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

HI @JEREMY HAWKE


Not teaching you to suck eggs but have you checked Who.is for the desired domain?

It's just that I've had emails selling domains for silly money and it's a ruse as they are about to naturally expire anyways and I've gone on to purchase them in a few week's time.

Or is this a bona fide UK company?

Probably not

 

[Paul Murray]

I'm suspect others will disagree with some of this, an ongoing debate, as there are no clear-cut rules about what works best - horses for courses, but I certainly wouldn't dismiss keyword domains.

I've generally always ignored keyword domains, mainly because they're normally already taken or are being resold at a mark-up. Sometimes people will try and get clever and add some extra words at the start ("first", "best", "top", etc) or hyphenate, but I've always advised against this from a usability perspective.

Regardless of any actual SEO value, a domain that perfectly matches a users organic thought/search process can be very valuable. If you want cheap carpets, you might expect cheapcarpets.com to be a thing. If you own that domain you're likely to get a lot of direct traffic organically simply because it's what pops into people's heads.

£300 for a domain like that may not be such a bad thing.

 

[websensejim]

EMDs are still ranking well in many niches but it has nothing to do with any magical power assigned to the domain name. Its just down to anchor text. The great majority of a site's inbound links will have the URL as the anchor (or link text). Anchor text remains a powerful link signal although more dangerous to use for placing keywords since Penguin etc. However if you have the keywords in your brand name (and domain name), Google seems to treat it more like a brand link than a keyword/money link. Not all the time though. The EMDs that do best are ones which have an established brand, or exhibit enough brand behaviour.

 

[Highland Spring]

There is a marginal advantage but I would select a domain based on it being memorable and not too much of a cliche. So avoid - cleanersinnorthwestlondonandsurroundingareas.com etc short is also good!

 

[webhostuk]

There is a marginal advantage but I would select a domain based on it being memorable and not too much of a cliche. So avoid - cleanersinnorthwestlondonandsurroundingareas.com etc short is also good!

You are right ,you get a bit of advantage if you can use it correctly.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Its fine to state its no advantage or little advantage, BUT the real question is there any disadvantage

If there is a slight chance it may be advantages then for a large company that advantage could be a lot of extra money

 

[splashweb]

Its fine to state its no advantage or little advantage, BUT the real question is there any disadvantage

Only one I can see is the inability to gain trade mark on topic.

If there is a slight chance it may be advantages then for a large company that advantage could be a lot of extra money

The main one is potentially higher click through rates, due to high relevance with matching search phrase. With a good UX/UI that would translate into higher conversion rates too. Once search results stop displaying the URL though this one's gone.

 

[StevePoster]

Keyword domains are already ignored because Google is more on understanding the domain itself it is less important and expected to be nothing at all.

 

[splashweb]

Keyword domains are already ignored because Google is more on understanding the domain itself it is less important and expected to be nothing at all.

This may well be true, but surely it's not just about what Google says or does, but also what visitors do and how they respond. My observations are that keyword domains can perform well once they are seen by eyeballs and not robots.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

This may well be true, but surely it's not just about what Google says or does, but also what visitors do and how they respond. My observations are that keyword domains can perform well once they are seen by eyeballs and not robots.

I would rather be at the top for Rusty rivet removal tool than on page 3 with rustyrivitremomovaltool.com

 

[splashweb]

I would rather be at the top for Rusty rivet removal tool than on page 3 with rustyrivitremomovaltool.com

LOL. In this case I probably wouldn't go for the .com though!!

 

[ukbf0001]

Think about it for a second and apply the scenario in real life.
If Google gave preference to EMDs then as you walk down the high street (or Google page 1) every business name / brand name would be Car Tyres London Ltd, Car Tyre London, London Tyre Cars etc. You dont get that on the High St - and you no longer get in Google as an SEO advantage.
There maybe some leverage as people have said in the keywords in the domain that links back - so you post somewhere that Car Tyres London is great etc - google sees the keywords in the link back.
So the gold mine of selling EMDs for thousands wont be worth investing in for me - I'm out - as they say.
ps - Ive checked cartyreslondon.co.uk domain is just an empty domain..

 

[Paul Murray]

If Google gave preference to EMDs then as you walk down the high street (or Google page 1) every business name / brand name would be Car Tyres London Ltd, Car Tyre London, London Tyre Cars etc.

Surely you mean A1 Car Tyres London Ltd? Don't forget the analogue search optimisation!

 

[websensejim]

Funny you should mention tyres as an example. I used to do the SEO for an online tyre retailer. We were going up against huge brands like KwikFit and high street giants (ATS Euromaster, National Tyres etc). But I ranked their website no.1 for tyres and we dominated the SERPs for hundreds of tyre phrases. All without having the word "tyres" anywhere in their domain name or brand name.

 

[Killua7]

It's not really necessary to have keywords in domains. You may insert a part of keywords into domains or you can create a domain like [your name].com