Google: Exact Match Keyword Domain Does Not Mean Rankings

[djbaxter]

Google: Exact Match Keyword Domain Does Not Mean Rankings
Search Engine Roundtable
Oct 27, 2011

A Google Webmaster Help thread has a site owner complaining that his new site that he purchased and rebuilt doesn't rank well for it's domain.He bought stocktips.com and is upset it doesn't rank for the phrase [stock tips]. He said:

We bought this domain few months back and we're struggling to rank for our own name. We completely re-designed the website, done a good job with on-page SEO, no black-hat whatsoever, what could be wrong?​

In response to that, Google's JohnMu responded saying a few things:
(1) Buying the site made it appear as if it is a new site.
(2) Buying an established site and running similar content on it in the future does help you get a jump start.
(3) Exact match domains does not equal rankings for that keyword phrase.

Read more...

 

[Sweet Tooth No. 3]

This is 100% true. But don't try to tell this to any of the folks at the domain name forums.

Exact match domains offer very little, if any, SEO value. Here's how I know:

When I first started out, I was counting on the domains I was able to find for rankings. I thought I would get a new domain for each key phrase I targeted. Now when I say exact match domain, a couple of them have 1 hyphen. A lot of people don't consider that an EMD.

Long story short, I tried to get my homepages to rank for their domain keywords. I built links and added some more content to make my sites bigger. The results were not impressive. Today, most are on the first page, but not #1.

So I couldn't rank my homepages for my domain keyword. I can hear people saying right now..."that's not proof." And they're right. But IMO, this is...

I started adding more content to my sites because my domain keywords weren't ranking. I noticed some of my blog posts were ranking pretty well for the terms I was targeting.

Right now, I have dozens of blog posts that bring in decent traffic. Of all the phrases I target, about 80% of them have at least 1 EMD that competes with me for a particular key phrase. Many have EMD's in all TLD's, and with some hyphenated versions, plus several "stop word" keyword domains.

Only a couple of them outrank my blog posts. And most have higher PR, and more backlinks, yet I still outrank them. I'm PR 0 across the board.

So IMO, having the exact keyword phrase as the first text in your title tag is more important than having an EMD. I would like to think that an EMD would give some benefit, and it seems like it should. But I just don't see it.

And consider this, do you want to end up with a domain name that sounds stupid, just so you can target a key phrase? The 3 and 4 word versions usually look really dumb. Has any major news organization ever run a story about how to spot a spammy website?

If you search a 4 word phrase, and the result you see has your search phrase in the domain, it's probably a low quality website. Knowing what I know, I don't click through to such web sites.

Ok, I'm babbling now...but i think I made my point.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Actually there is one place keyword domains work well. Local!

That isn't to say you can just reg a domain and jump to the top on that alone. But many of the top local listings are citykeyword.com type domains.

 

[Sweet Tooth No. 3]

Actually there is one place keyword domains work well. Local!

That isn't to say you can just reg a domain and jump to the top on that alone. But many of the top local listings are citykeyword.com type domains.

Thanks for the heads up Linda. This is great timing because I'm getting ready to target my first local keyword. And I am using a keyword domain for this one, mainly because this site will only target 1 keyphrase.

I don't normally go this approach, but this is a unique opportunity.

And there is a keyword domain in the top 3.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Go for it and good luck!

 

[SEO Journalist]

I had no idea about the local listing matching with direct domain matching plus the city.
Thanks for the great help.