How important is your URL name relevancy in SEO?

[hamachi]

How important is the relevancy of your URL in SEO? For instance if I own a flower shop in NYC. Is it important to have NYCflowers.com instead of GregsTulips.com? How much consideration if any do search engines take in the URL when deciding placement?

Is it good to buy keyword variations of my domain name? Will that hurt my standings in search? I am considering buying other names but am not sure if this will hurt or help me. Thanks so much..

[dcristo]

Keyword rich domain names are good for SEO, whether it be exact match or hyphenated.

[FuseFX]

And it also helps you get more targeted anchor texts -- which Search Engines give LOT more value to.

[gariben]

It is one of the most important factors.

If I have SEOBook .com, I can even outrank Aaron Wall with the keyword "SEO Book"

That is how important URL is for now. I'm guessing pretty soon, they will devalue the domain keywords

[dcristo]

If I have SEOBook .com, I can even outrank Aaron Wall with the keyword "SEO Book"

umm, no you couldn't. I think it's more to do with the fact Aaron is one of the best SEO's in the industry. You would rank on the first page for "seo" too?

http://www.google.com/search?q=seo

[gariben]

Well.. don't take it so literally. Who doesn't know Aaron Wall. I was just saying that domain keywords is one of the most important factors.

did you know that SEOBook contains the keyword "SEO". The top 10 domain ranking for "SEO" all contains SEO in the domain URL, besides wikipedia.

Yes..domain keyword is extremely important but it is only one of major factors as you are well aware

Search for "web Hosting", "lawyers" and "credit cards" and see who is #1. Those are probably the most competitive keywords out there.

I would have a hard time picking a winner between an amateur SEO with awesome keyword domain vs. a SEO guru without the keyword domain.

[dcristo]

Maybe I took what you said too literally, but your implying having the exact match domain gurantees being #1, which is not the case. It's important, but only 1 of about 200 factors which is determined when ranking pages.

[webd]

Keywords in the URL matter most when it's an exact match and a .com, .org, or .net name. That is because Google assumes that you might be looking for a specific site or brand.

Other than that don't worry about it too much. A good memorable, brandable domain name without keywords is much better than a weaker domain that contains keywords.

[zorag]

Keywords in the URL matter most when it's an exact match and a .com, .org, or .net name. That is because Google assumes that you might be looking for a specific site or brand.

Other than that don't worry about it too much. A good memorable, brandable domain name without keywords is much better than a weaker domain that contains keywords.

I would also agree with webd, it's the content that mater's the most not so much the domain/URL name

On the other hand, I've just been thinking that hyphenated domains could work better as far as keyword identification is concerned, don't know if anyone agrees with this but maybe SEO-Web-Services.com could work better than SEOWebServices.com ??

Just a thought..

[dcristo]

I would also agree with webd, it's the content that mater's the most not so much the domain/URL name

The adsense bot considers keywords in the domain when determining relevance of ads.

[grace5]

backlinks is king, not content,nor domain name quality,although they do not hinder your seo,they help.

I would go for a domain that folks will remember,and names your already est.business

[MobileDesigner]

what about subdomains? or adding letters to subdomains like:

http://m.oney.com?

the original domain would be "www.oney.com" but adding a subdomain "M"

[cursal]

what about subdomains? or adding letters to subdomains like:

http://m.oney.com?

the original domain would be "www.oney.com" but adding a subdomain "M"

Sub domains have gone up from what I've seen. Your example would be better designed as Money.oney.com

I'm surprised at how well G has taken to raking the subdomain market...

backlinks, content, anchor text, and general on page seo are all still factors in play.

[MobileDesigner]

hmmm...


Money.oney.com/Money

someone already took oney.com... drats!

I hope G doesnt see that as spamming the bots...

[dcristo]

what about subdomains? or adding letters to subdomains like:

http://m.oney.com?

the original domain would be "www.oney.com" but adding a subdomain "M"

Not as good as exatch match. I would imagine the "." acts as a separator.

[cursal]

Not as good as exatch match. I would imagine the "." acts as a separator.

My point exactly