Stop words in domain names??

[estwig]

Despite scouring the interweb for answers, the little information I have been able to glean is very contrary.

So will Google, rank these two domains the same (all other things being equal);

www.bluewidgets.com
www.thebluewidgets.com

There is very mixed opinion about the use of stop words in URLs.

Does anyone here have a definitive answer?? Or an opinion??


I have also seen stop words refereed to as poison words, what is that all about, how are they poison??



EDIT, didn't realise there is actually a website called bluewidgets!

 

[awebapart.com]

There are keyword rich domains (like thebluewidgets.com) and there are exact match domains (like bluewidgets.com).

It does seem that Google gives a little extra ranking signal to exact match domains. Search for the term exact match domains to see what other SEOs have to say on this subject.

 

[awebapart.com]

To break down keyword rich domains further, there is a scale going from focused keyword rich domains to diluted keyword rich domains. The focused ones are the ones where the keywords make up a bigger percentage of the overall domain, like thebluewidgets.com. The diluted ones are where the keywords make up a small percentage of the domain, like thejohnsonpartnershipbluewidgetscompany.com.

In this case google favours the more focused keyword rich domains above the diluted keyword rich domains.

 

[awebapart.com]

To break down focused keyword rich domains further, and perhaps this is where "stop words" comes into the equation, some domains might be more focused than others depending on what the other words are apart from the keywords in the domain. If the other words add no other meaning, stop words like the, then that would suggest a more focused domain than a domain with other words that add other meanings or other focusing.

So thebluewidgets.com might rank higher than taxbluewidgets.com

 

[estwig]

There are keyword rich domains (like thebluewidgets.com) and there are exact match domains (like bluewidgets.com).

It does seem that Google gives a little extra ranking signal to exact match domains. Search for the term exact match domains to see what other SEOs have to say on this subject.

Brilliant thankyou, I now have an understanding of exact match as opposed to phrase match.

 

[awebapart.com]

Stop words, common words that add little meaning, might cause some debate and confusion in the SEO community, because some SEOs might confuse how google handles stop words with how other full-text search systems handle stop words.

For example, the MySQL database behind this forum has a full-text search feature which is used when people use the Search feature on this site. MySQL maintains a list of stop words which it ignores. So if you use this forum's search to search for the word really, you wont find anything.

Google is different, it will index most words including words that are traditionally seen as stop words. So google searching this forum for the word really will get results, or searches for the.

So Google does not ignore stop words, but there is a difference between ignoring stop words and allowing stop words to alter the meaning or focus of content.

 

[awebapart.com]

One final thing. There are stop words and there are word separators.

Word separators are characters like dash or hyphen -, underscore _, space, full stop . etc which can help identify that the word behind it has ended, or clarify where compounded words should be split up, as in pen-island as opposed to *****-land.

Unfortunately some SEO people will call word separators stop words too, which can add to the confusion!

There is SEO debate over whether the hyphenated version of an exact match domain, e.g. yellow-bistro.com, is handled as an exact match domain by google and gets the same exact match domain benefit as the non-hyphenated version. I haven't performed any experiments on this yet so I don't know.

But I have performed other SEO keyword rich domain experiments on hyphenated vs non hyphenated domains, and there is some other inbound link benefit of hyphenated domains, where google can pick out the words and use them as anchor text.

Despite what some SEOs will say, Google does have difficulty in separating compounded words which have no word separators. Some SEOs will say that Google has no problem finding words in compound words and will back this up by explaining how Google makes the words bold in the results display. But this is the results display algorithm at work here, not the search algorithm. The search algorithm does have difficulty picking up words in compounded words in certain case, including onsite content, and link anchor text, but not onsite domain name.

Some SEOs will say that keyword rich domains are good because inbound links using the domain name will provide keyword anchor text. But from what I've seen and tested, this is not the case for domains where words are not separated, it is only the case for separated multi-word hyphenated domains like keyword1-keyword2.com or single word domains (which don't require separating, the separating is already done with the full stop either side as in: www . keyword . com).

Since the example domain in this thread is not mentioned in its separated form yet, this thread provides good proof of this. Get google to search this thread for a separated term, and google will find it. Get Google to search for the 2 word term targeted by the domain bluewidgets.com in this thread (I can't mention the 2 words as it will break the experiment), and Google will not find it (edit the first 2 words in the previous search term to confirm this).

Once this post is indexed, also repeat the search for the 2 word term targeted by the domain yellow-bistro.com and you should find it.

If anyone makes a post in this thread after this post and mentions bluewidgets.com in its separated form it will break the experiment, and google will find it. So all I can say for sure is that the experiment works as far as this post in the thread, since up to this post bluewidgets.com has not been mentioned in its separated form. To keep this mini experiment valid, please try to avoid mentioning those words separately or hyphenated.

 

[AngelSEO]

I personally would say "bluewidgets" is better for SEO because this is classed as gettoing your keywords at the beginning. Like meta title tags, the important keywords need to be placed at the start.

 

[estwig]

Thank you for such a concise answer awebapart, very interesting stuff. I've had to read this a couple of times to fully understand it, hence why I didn't say thank you the other day.

SEO is fasinating, especially once the initial steep learning curve is overcome, gaps in my knowledge start to be plugged and an overall picture starts to come to light.

 

[fisicx]

Spanner in the works now.

The SEO value of a keyword rich domain name is minute when compared to other ranking signals like the page title.

The real value is it's use as anchor text for inbound links but only if the words are separated with a hypen or underscore as Paul suggests (G treats these as spaces).

On the other hand a memorable a brand name can generate a lot more business than something made up which is why tesco have brought big-supermarket.com

 

[estwig]

Spanner in the works now.

The SEO value of a keyword rich domain name is minute when compared to other ranking signals like the page title.

The real value is it's use as anchor text for inbound links but only if the words are separated with a hypen or underscore as Paul suggests (G treats these as spaces).

So you are saying if someone types bluewidgets into the google search box, google only gives minute ranking to a website with the domain name bluewidgets. Are you sure??

Google does not treat an underscore as a space, this is a well documented fact.

 

[awebapart.com]

Spanner in the works now.

No spanner. Merely a difference of opinion, one that I do not necessarily agree with.

The SEO value of a keyword rich domain name is minute when compared to other ranking signals like the page title.

The real value is it's use as anchor text for inbound links but only if the words are separated with a hypen

I created my keyword rich domain SEO experiment because at the time I wanted to find out why keyword rich domains were beginning to suddenly rank so highly in 2007/2008. A lot of people said it was because of the natural anchor text in inbound links where just the domain name was the anchor text but I didn't believe this, because:

1. If I was designing a search engine I wouldn't assign any anchor text to a link where the visible element is the web address, because that isn't really a hyperlink with alternative meaningful words instead of a web address.

2. If this was the case, then there wouldn't have been a sudden ranking improvement for keyword rich domains in 2007/2008, they would have had the improvement all along and before 2007/2008

The main point of my experiment was to prove that no anchor text was passed on when a domain web address is used as anchor text. In the end, the results surprised me because anchor text was being passed on, but only in certain cases. Notably the case where anchor text was not being passed on was in the case of multiple word non-hyphenated domain names like bluewidgets.com.

But it was those domains like bluewidgets.com which started getting the ranking boost around 2007/2008. And without any benefit from web address inbound links, this leaves the explanation for this ranking boost firmly at a change in Google's onsite-SEO ranking algorithm giving quite a boost when keywords are in the domain names, possibly a boost similar in magnitude to a title, especially for exact match domains.

But I should also say, that just as Google giveth, it can easily taketh away too in the future.

or underscore as Paul suggests (G treats these as spaces).

Whilst I briefly mentioned underscores as an example of word separators, I have not conducted any definitive tests yet on underscores in full urls of pages (underscores in domain names are not allowed). After my surprise with the last experiment, I wouldn't like to say either way whether a particular search engine like Google treats underscores as word separators in what areas (urls, inbound links, on-page content, etc) until experiments have been carried out.

For the purpose of this thread, i.e. domain names only, underscores do not matter since you cannot have an underscore in a domain name.

Google does not treat an underscore as a space, this is a well documented fact.

That original Matt Cutts blog was from 2005, and since then Google have given out different signals, like announcing they were supporting underscores as word separators in 2007, to going quiet after then, and eventually saying in early 2009 that what they said in 2007 didn't happen but might happen in the future! There are still good reasons aside from SEO (writing for people rather than writing for the search engines) for using underscores.

But since underscores cannot be used in domain names they have little bearing on a domain name discussion, but are more relevant for a thread about what you put in the url after the domain name, a thread about deep linking (inbound links to individual pages in a website, rather than inbound links to just the domain), and a thread discussing what is the relative ranking value of the url to the right of the domain name as opposed to the domain name itself.

 

[Strontium Dog]

Sooo - from a practical viewpoint, if choosing a new domain, should I pick one with hyphens between the words or not? also, will this make it harder for punters who know the address to remember it?

 

[I, Brian]

Avoid hyphens where possible - IMO there's a negative weighting for a domain for every hyphen used. Not a problem in low traffic verticals, but not so good in more competitive areas.

And don't shy from related keywords - ie, thebluewidgets.co.uk to capture strong ranking positions for "blue widgets". It may not be exact match, but it's pretty close.

Google has had a feature that gives automatic preference to keyword domains for a couple of years now - it's nothing to do with anchor text, it's an active ranking factor that will boost established keyword domains for the domain keyword. Note that it is for the domain keyword only, not both plural and singular or related variants.

The exceptions for not being able to rank for your own domain name are if you are just launched, sandboxed, or else competition is so fierce that they have a huge arsenal of anchor text links that can browbeat keyword domains down the list. Or else penalised.

ADDED: btw, I have seen Google provide different ranking results according to whether there was a separator between the search keywords - ie, "blue widgets" as being different to "blue-widgets", though this does not automatically imply a hyphenated domain hits exact match - not tested though.

 

Avoid hyphens where possible - IMO there's a negative weighting for a domain for every hyphen used.

I uspect one might come unstuck with this and many others if you did not use hyphens:

www,expertsexchange,

Google has already outlined the benefits of hyphened URL's and hyphened URL pages.

Earl

 

[I, Brian]

I've noticed new domains trying to gain a position generally work better where there are no hyphens.

While there are successful hyphenated domain names, my own experience with these is that as brand new websites they seem to struggle more than non-hyphenated domains.

Also, on keyword match domains, related and variant keyword domains are usually well positions as opposed to hyphenated domains on competitive searches.

Of course, there are other factors involved - it just all creates the impression to myself that hyphens are best avoided if possible.