JamesR - 10:40 pm on Sep 21, 2000 (gmt 0)

Ok, I'll let you in on another not-so-secret secret. You want high placement? Find a keyword phrase alot of people are using. Get the domain name (hyphenated or not), name the site and the business the keyword phrase exactly. Every directory will list your title as the keyword phrase (a powerful ranking position I believe we would all agree with). Beyond that, every site linking to you will use that keyword phrase in the link or description. People searching on the phrase are more likely to go to an "official sounding site" with the URL than some unrelated or funky domain name.

Here is the thing: search engines are becoming (or have become) spidering-directories. They are building vectors and organizing sites into term categories just like directories do but their system is automated to allow for a greater number of sites. The problem for most sites is that they want to show up under alot of keyword phrases that are sometimes unrelated. That is real tough. SEs don't care how many terms you show up under, they just want to satisfy queries right? Of course they want to give the authority on a topic top position to give the searcher the most information possible. What kind of site will they choose for keyword search, say "mp3"? Joe blow's site that lists his favorite mp3s along with video games, nostalgic toys, and past girlfriends or will they post first a site with the most information possible on mp3s? This is the same for corporations that sell alot of unrelated products but why would any search engine want to put up a site in the top 10 with 1 page about mp3 products versus a site with 1000 pages about mp3s? Back to the url, no company is going to name their URL after only one product, that is foolish. Sites that have the keyword as the URL are mostly focusing just on that term throughout the site. However, this can be scammed and checks and balances must be implemented. In come titles, body text, in and out going links and voila, themes and the perfect check against the domain name.

Rencke, this info came from following up on the hints Brett has dropped in the past few months and reading a whole lot of SE engineer papers. Know what the engineers are thinking and it gives you a much tighter box to work with and eliminates a lot of conjecture. The rest is all about testing (which is my weak point). You don't have to have the perfect domain name, themes can work on their own but the site with the more consistent, focused phrase throughout and links to match will beat you.

Sorry to post so much...better stop writing so much on company time (glad my boss doesn't read here often ;))