Search Engine Journal is out with a piece about the myth of keyword rich domains and their correlation to improving search engine rankings.
From the article:
Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager of Bing, claims it’s a myth that keyword rich domain names improve search engine rankings in a post published yesterday on the Bing Webmaster Blog.
This came about after Forrester attended Namescon and overheard people discussing how keyword rich or exact match domain names can make or break your site. Claiming that’s just a myth, Forrester took it upon himself to debunk this theory.
Ten years ago there may have been some truth to that way of thinking, Forrester says, but today rankings depend on so many more signals that domain names alone are starting to mean less and less. This is beneficial from both the search engines’ and the searchers’ points of view because it results in better content ranking higher instead of rewarding those who are trying to manipulate the rankings.
Read the full article here
Perception or reality has certainly changed over the years, let’s flashback to 2010 and this article from Moz.com
Michael Cottam in that article wrote:
It’s a well-known fact in the SEO world that Google shows enormous favoritism in its rankings to domain names that contain one or more of the keywords being searched for. If your domain name is a close match to the search keywords all glued together, it’s as easy as fishing with dynamite to get on page 1 of the SERPs for that search phrase. While some (like me) might argue (like, against Rand) that it’s a flaw in the algorithm, it’s not a bug–Google deliberately favors this kind of match. If the search is a company name, well the reasoning why [that phrase] .com should rank #1 is obvious…and for everything else, well…it’s pretty reasonable for Google to presume that a site named, for example, www.lightbulbs.com is probably pretty much about light bulbs. Whether it’s the BEST site for light bulbs is of course another story.
By 2011 Matt Cutts weighed in on a video:
Where does that leave the new gTLDs?
Same place where the Rolling Tumbleweeds are now : NOWHERE.
Same reason fantastic “compound terms” with equally good extensions never took off and never will:
Cars.TV
Pets.Tv
MortageLoans.info
NewYork.info
Small.Biz
The writing is on the wall.
King Dot com* offers “knee jerk” recallable memorable prestige that took nearly 20 years to establish.
(and selected Country Codes as .de, .com.br, .es, .ca)
If in doubt ask all 500 Fortune Companies. (minus a couple)
Exact match domains still rank well in Bing/Yahoo. but Penguin/Panda killed that effect at Google.
Yesterday at NamesCon Duane Forrester also stated that 80% of internet experiences result from search. That leaves 20% that result from direct navigation. I believe a keyword rich domain name that is free of hyphens is very important to capture traffic from direct navigation. In addition, from a branding standpoint a keyword rich domain name related to your industry helps build your internet identity. People will often make a judgment about you or your business in the first two seconds. As a marketing manager I would ask myself, “How many customers are you losing in the first two seconds every time someone sees your domain name.”
Hi Michael..Thanks for your input yesterday. It was I who asked Ron Jackson the question about .la domain names in the breakout session.
SEARCH IS YESTERDAY! If 5-10 years, Google’s U.S. search traffic will DROP…watch and see grasshoppers.
With regards to domains, all that matters now is BRANDABILITY and WHAT LOOKS GOOD ON A BILLBOARD, A SUPER BOWL AD, or THE SIDE OF A VAN!
AND by the way…WHO GIVES A RAT’S ASS WHAT BING HAS TO SAY ABOUT ANYTHING? Nobody uses BUNG…over and out, bitchez!
@Mike Taylor
I tottaly agree. You need to find a name for your business. That name is your virtual property. It should looks great and easy to remember.
Keywords domain are great. You dont really need a description or a picture. Micro-Homes.com for exemple. Its one of my domain name. You can’t go wrong with that one beacause it tells you what is the webaite about. Vioos.com is another domain that I own. This domain is brandable. Looks great anywhere. On a van tv ads..
They are both Winners.
What is this “Bing” they are talking about in this article? Is this a new site? IDK.
Look. We’ve picked up exact match domains and reached page one in a few months with basic SEO for moderately competitive domains.
Obviously the people over at Bing weren’t paying attention when Google loosened the strongholds on demoting exact match domains recently. I’m not talking about Google penalizing EMD’s, they just were dropping lower and are now ranking much higher in their original pre-update(s) positions.
This was never said by Google, but I am going to take an educated logical step that Google probably took as well. If you own the domain “Shoes.com” you probably have had either the authoritative forethought to have bought the domain or the bankroll to buy it and develop a site with content worth indexing and putting in front of customers. That logic will trickle down to just about every domain.
It’s not the end all of SEO and SERP theory, but having an EMD and a solid content & SEO plan works right now to have a place on page 1 of Google.
As of search being ‘yesterday’; to me that’s just pure domain investor talk. I agree, the present is keywords, the future is keywords. End of story. Humans are always searching for something. YellowPages, now Google… and I’m pretty sure Google until I’m dead and gone. Different mobile platforms sure, but it will all point back to Google and their fancy quantum computers they recently acquired.
The End.
I am not predicting the future here just relaying what, imho, I see.
I was at NamesCon and what I heard Duane say was that names are an minor point. And I further drew conclusions from his talk, as we always knew, that “Content is King”. Yes your domain name plays a role in the rankings but as common sense would dictate they play a minor role.
The new names will be good for websites and they will be very powerful in social marketing. All domain names are most important to a client who needs a easy to remember, category killer domain name. That is where the values lies. Dot com or whatever the name is
It’s a new era. Big changes..
I agree with @appyum
Penalties for EMD’s is a bit misleading. EMDs historically had a “bonus point” for ranking with G but that is no longer the case. Arguably all things being made equal, EMDs registered on the same day in the same gTLD would in effect receive the same treatment.
However, most strong, one or two word .com EMD’s have been registered (and possibly developed at some level) for a longer period of time without being dropped. This clearly brings more SERP signals into play and can confuse marketers and domain investors as these names will rank faster than their counterparts without the same positive signals.
Change is the only constant and nowhere is this truer than in the search world. Quality content (mixed longform and short) + Social virality + Quality site architecture (pagespeed, bot-friendliness, high Yslow grade) + earned media = Algo change-proof sites that will grow steadily over time.
The short: Build sites that load well and people want to visit, the bid G and little b will love you for it.
The reason you get a domain name is so that people remember you. Search Engine Optimization should be secondary. I have not seen the video above, but Matt Cutts has stated he prefers Brandables such as yahoo.com, twitter.com, etc.
These brandables take millions to promote.
So why not have a name that tells exactly what you do or sell?
Your comment has me curious Patrick Hipskind – What did Ron Jackson say about the .la domains?
Of course, this demonstrates why Bing has just not made any headway against Google. It’s typical Microsoft thinking. However, citing a Matt Cuts video from 2011 does not necessarily help with the argument that Google heavily favors keyword-matching domains. Given the algorithm updates that have come in the intervening years, a more current video would be appropriate. Google still gives plenty of play to the exact-match keyword domain, if the content on that site is geared toward the actual terms; however, an exact-match domain that has little or no content relevant to the keywords no longer gets that “enormous favoritism” that Moz addressed in 2010. In the realm of search and SERPS, quoting material from 2010 or 2011 is sort of like calling a 1970 Chevy Nova a late model car.
Brandables *can* take millions to promote but that’s not the case, most of the time.
Content relevancy is always a better way to enhance the *advantage* of having a keyword-rich domain; the latter is not a panacea.
Mike, it was a pleasure to meet again during NamesCon.
Danny, Bing did not quote them, If you read what I wrote I said if we take a look back and see the way things used to be, I stated things have changed since.
Yeah, EMDs are a waste of money, I’ll offer you $10 for all your premium EMDs, please email me your lists.
And then you can get a shiny new brandable with the $10 and make a killing with bing.
On a serious note – if you’re bootstrapping using an EMD makes a LOT of sense, don’t let anyone tell you any different. Otoh, if you’re well funded, you could get by with a brandable domain, but your CTR and CPC will be higher than someone using an EMD.
Well said Danny.
Hello MHB,
Google is becoming nothing more than a Tech Wonks Swan Song. Its techniques are fast becoming obsolesced and realized as being the weakest link in the Online Marketing strategies Success. The Marketing Strategy, Tech disconnect Syndrome of the early 2000s till now is being derailed by the smarter Online Marketing leaders. Bridging the gap between Online Marketing Strategy and technology is critical to implementing Online marketing success.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Its pretty funny that everybody likes to talk about Google being behind and using obsolete technology but Google was the first one to take away rankings from closely match domains.
The search engine algorithm is based on much more then just your domain name or even your content but the quality of everything involved including a unique domain name or business name.
Example above about the light bulbs? How many names like light bulbs are available for one to use as a business name or even to register a domain name with ? The quality of your content like spelling, keyword density, internal links, including the hosting server and online activity have much more to do with your rankings then your domain name being a exact match.
Now with that being said if you were to pick a name like philipslightbulbs.com where it at least is a unique name registered to a company that also registered the domain can have its benefits. You can read behind the lines.. Google and Microsoft are multi billion $ corps owned by the richest 1% and if there is one thing that the richest one % do not want it is for people that are less fortunate to have a fair opportunity to some how become successful internet millionaires. So yes I’m telling you that if the domain is registrar’s identity can make a difference but so can the type of server (Dedicated or Shared hosting) .
There are hundreds of factors that go into Rankings but believe me when I tell you this, Google’s search engine is not based on just a algorithm , more like artificial intelligence .