How much does having the keywords in your domain help?

**twells22** · 11-30-2007, 07:33 PM

Say you're main keyword phrase is "play ball" and your site is playball.us, how much will that help with search engines?

**Togoodhlth** · 11-30-2007, 07:46 PM

In my experience A LOT!
For instance my domain StorageSheds.org is in the top 5 in google for the search term: "storage sheds".
There are no back links and I only submitted to other search engines and directories after it was in the top 5.

This goes for a lot of my other sites. ff12 dot us is between 1 and 2 and has been for a long time.

I ALWAYS try and get my most important keyword for my domain name.

**beantown** · 11-30-2007, 07:59 PM

I had this exact question. If I owned a popular keyword domain in .biz, would this still help? Does it matter if it's a .biz and not the .com or .net?

**twells22** · 11-30-2007, 08:03 PM

Thanks Togoodhlth

**Tom K.** · 11-30-2007, 08:07 PM

According to the book Google Hacks, it means very little, next to nothing. But my experience has been very similar to the comment above. BUT... this is an important but.. only if the domain contains the exact keyword match and no more. For other related keyword combinations it doesn't work. Content and SEO is necessary. The domain alone isn't enough.

**Togoodhlth** · 11-30-2007, 08:47 PM

Originally Posted by beantown

I had this exact question. If I owned a popular keyword domain in .biz, would this still help? Does it matter if it's a .biz and not the .com or .net?

I rank #1 or close to #1 with the following extensions for many sites:
.com
.net
.org
.us

I haven't tried it with other extensions yet though.

Originally Posted by twells22

Thanks Togoodhlth

you're welcome!

Originally Posted by ecafe

According to the book Google Hacks, it means very little, next to nothing. But my experience has been very similar to the comment above. BUT... this is an important but.. only if the domain contains the exact keyword match and no more. For other related keyword combinations it doesn't work. Content and SEO is necessary. The domain alone isn't enough.

I actually think content is important even if you have the exact keyword domain.
For instance if you are parking a domain or have virtually no content I don't think it will work.

If you have keyword domain put some content on it. Write decent meta tags and it will probably be indexed well relatively quickly!

**stock_post** · 12-01-2007, 02:21 AM

In my experience it is valuable and to the exact keyword only.

**hugegrowth** · 12-01-2007, 02:55 AM

I think it definitely helps, probably best to have a .com, net, org, us, ca or country code where you are from. If people are searching for 'red chairs', sometimes they type in 'redchairs', and it decreases the search results for them but helps you because your domain is, for example, 'redchairs.net'. It picks it up as one word, and it matches your domain. If you have great content, fresh, lots of links, etc that is better for your search results, but if you are doing basic pages and minimum development, the domain can add a lot to the search results.

**harsha** · 12-03-2007, 04:42 AM

Originally Posted by twells22

Say you're main keyword phrase is "play ball" and your site is playball.us, how much will that help with search engines?

To be honest it have quite a bit importance ,if not why will loan.com other keywords domain go at high price

Originally Posted by beantown

I had this exact question. If I owned a popular keyword domain in .biz, would this still help? Does it matter if it's a .biz and not the .com or .net?

No google treats every extension equally including .edu and .gov

**beantown** · 02-29-2008, 12:04 PM

Does anyone know if having the keywords in a domain name but in reverse order will still provide good results in google? For example, for the phrase red chairs to have a domain that is chairsred.com?

**Doogles** · 03-19-2008, 03:12 PM

Assuming your site is effectively optimized, then the keyword domain will make all the difference between being in the first 100 results and being in the top 3.

All else being equal, the extension also matters, with .com being the Kingmaker and .us being farther down the list.

Originally Posted by twells22

Say you're main keyword phrase is "play ball" and your site is playball.us, how much will that help with search engines?

**draggar** · 03-19-2008, 03:20 PM

Originally Posted by Doogles

All else being equal, the extension also matters, with .com being the Kingmaker and .us being farther down the list.

It's hard to test that theory without duplicate content but I have a .org that almost always beats out a .com (personal searches: 8-9 out of 10).

I'm sure a better job was done with the .com, too, since that person has been doing web pages a lot longer.

The two sites are similar content (both a PersonsName.tld) with articles written by the person (I'm doing it with no ads and with his permission, the .com is the opposite).

Good SEO will always beat out a "higher ranked" TLD. Even if the .com has backlinks.

**kylewill** · 03-19-2008, 03:26 PM

Search engines place no preference on a site's TLD. This is a common form of misinformation spattered all over the series of tubes that make up the Internets.

**Doogles** · 03-19-2008, 03:33 PM

red chairs or chairs red will return the same results in Google. Surely you tried that already!

But redchairs or redchairs.com will get more type-in traffic than chairsred. Nevertheless, the type-in traffic will be marginal at best.

If you build a site and optimize it properly then you can get decent traffic and easily out-rank a poorly optimized site that owns the redchairs.com domain. If your preferred domain (redchairs.com) were not available, then red-chairs.com would be a better choice than chairsred.com, from an SEO point of view. Of course, you could optimize just as well for redchairs. net or redchairs.org.

The way I handle this kind of thing is to simply register all the available options and SEO all the sites, with one of them being the primary one. But you have to do this properly and respectfully . . . or Google will hate you.

For more on this issue, see my comments in this thread:
http://www.dnforum.com/f510/dash-ca-...ad-256678.html

Originally Posted by beantown

Does anyone know if having the keywords in a domain name but in reverse order will still provide good results in google? For example, for the phrase red chairs to have a domain that is chairsred.com?

Originally Posted by kylewill

Search engines place no preference on a site's TLD. This is a common form of misinformation spattered all over the series of tubes that make up the Internets.

That has not been my experience.

Do you have any data (or code from the Google algorithm) that would disprove a study like this one?

http://www.thegooglecache.com/white-...ards-org-tlds/

**kylewill** · 03-19-2008, 04:42 PM

Many SEO professionals get annoyed by these theories being perpetuated on the Internet because potential clients get bad information resulting in sloppy business.

I've been doing SEO pre-Google, since 1997 and have relied entirely on organic rankings which yield multiple Christmas season affiliate sales in the $500-$600k range. When areas like these are believed (the -950 penalty, TLD preference, etc.), part of me is annoyed, and part of me happy that much of my competition is still so far behind.

I have no proof, only logic. But I'm fairly confident this has been officially responded to by Google or Matt Cutts recently, I just don't have the post right now to prove it. Between Google Groups, Matt Cutts blogs, Search Engine conferences, and Google Webmaster Q&A section... there is a LOT of areas to dig for official responses.

**Sinfully Wicked** · 03-19-2008, 05:03 PM

I think the whole keyword in domain thing is over rated, it may have worked back in 1992 but search technology has progressed dramatically. It really does not matter if you have the keyword in the domain or not, it does not help you're rankings in the slightest.

That comes from the straight from search engine reps

It makes more sense to get a domain that you can build the product/service around. People will remember a brand than "RedChairshq.com or whatever.

Sin

**GeoOwners** · 03-30-2008, 09:53 PM

Originally Posted by Sinfully Wicked

I think the whole keyword in domain thing is over rated, it may have worked back in 1992 but search technology has progressed dramatically. It really does not matter if you have the keyword in the domain or not, it does not help you're rankings in the slightest.

That comes from the straight from search engine reps

It makes more sense to get a domain that you can build the product/service around. People will remember a brand than "RedChairshq.com or whatever.

Sin

all things being equal though...if johnsbigrestaurantinchicago.com and chicagorestaurants.com are 1 and 2 on the results page...which would get more visits from peeps looking for chicago restaurants...good keywords in the domain have alot of value...imo

**beantown** · 03-30-2008, 10:23 PM

The best search engine placement on Google I ever got for a keyword was for a .net with the exact keyword phrase and this keyword appeared on millions of websites. I also just picked up a domain name with under 5 links that is the exact keyword in the .com and it's already on the 5th page of google for that term with a parking page. I have a hard time believing Google does not offer a boost for the exact keyword in the domain. I mean maybe the whole domain has to be the keyword like redchairs.com instead of redchairs3.com. These keywords don't seem to help me on other search engines though. I'm still unsure about anything besides .net and .com.

**dcristo** · 03-30-2008, 10:38 PM

Exact match domains are helpful for SEO, not to mention they appear as more of an authority on the subject.

**imarketing** · 03-31-2008, 01:09 AM

Since a G update some months back (maybe 8 months) the domain has more importance for defining its results. Recently G seems to have merged plural and no-plural.

For me, in very competitive areas I think it can give you an edge to get number 1.

For my AU credit cards site - www.creditcardoffers.com.au - In G in AU I am number 1 for credit card, best credit cards, credit cards australia etc, number 2 for term credit cards.

Though a point is that you can get the keyword in subdomain or folder extension and it appears to have a very similar affect. I have seen some SEO people do this incredibly well.

In the end, content (in page SEO) and in bound links are the 2 major SERP factors for G.

In closing I always try to get my major key phrase as the domain name if possible.