Understanding keywords in a domain

[WillG]

I have looked at a many pages here and never really found a clear answer to this question. I am trying to decide on a 3 word domain for a .com site. As an example if I choose roundbluewidget.com how would those three words work together. Based on what I have read the keywords words carry weight by order. How would they work based on the single use of round blue and widget tied to a second search term. Exp Round hole, blue bag, widget shop. I understand links and on page make a difference but just as a domain name how would it affect rankings.
I am having a hard time deciding on a name and want to fully understand how a domain name works from a ranking aspect tied to other keywords on the site.

[Webwork]

The issue your raise is so granular that I would be very surprised if you found an answer "in the wild". Why? Because answers to questions such as this, though they may exist, often come at a very high "experiment and burn" cost and therefore the results of the analysis are not made public.

In the emerging scheme of SERPs-things I'd say investing further time on this issue won't yield a payoff worth the further investment . . . buy ya never know.

[HuskyPup]

I have some keyword domain name sites however they are directly related to the exclusive products I own and market.

I also have some keyword domain name sites which are specific trade-related keywords, and being honest, even though those sites are good their rankings and traffic are nowhere near what they used to be.

I also have some single keyword trade-related domains with generic tlds, nuff said, I'm thinking of selling those.

By far my most successful sites are the company name sites each of which covers the same type of products but sourced from different regions of the world.

If your site is going to be an all-encompassing one I would suggest going down the brandable name route rather than a specific keyword domain however if it is going to be a one-trick site the keyword may be fine, just ensure you have it in the regular spoken order as in ice-cream-cornet not cornet-cream-ice.

As a matter of interest one of my keyword domains is one of the biggest selling products in my industry worldwide, everyone but everyone knows about it and most supply it...do you know what, even though I rank #1 for it the actual traffic is, I consider, extremely low and by that I mean ~40 pages a day, yes, a day.

I have another site that ranks #1 for a specific keyword term and it hardly gets any visitors for that term whatsoever.

I am in a fairly high-value product sector but something that is bought only every few years, I would say keyword domains may work better on lower-value high-consumer awareness and purchases.

YMMV!

[Webwork]

Nice summary HP.

My personal default, as a domainer-developer (eventually . . ), has always been to register the generic descriptive phrase in the order or manner in which it is most commonly spoken or typed.

I didn't choose this method because I anticipated a search engine advantage - which advantages often come and go like the weather - but because I believed in the advantage of having an easily memorable and innately/intuitively (common sense) discoverable website address in an online world that I believed would become increasingly address-crowded and would have businesses clamoring, or paying, to be heard/discovered . . and remembered . . above the din of all those other businesses.

[WillG]

Thanks for the input guys. I bought a test domain to try out a few ideas and see if I could come up with a few tested solutions.