kw.com vs kw-blah.com

Google's preference for ranking

[IITian]

Hi,

I think the answer is kw.com will rank higher than kw-blah.com when searching for kw, keeping links, anchor text, page content et cetera same.

Could be the the case for all SEs and not just Google.

Is my thinking correct? Is there any official (or semi-official) word on it? And will it make a big difference in a really competitive search, or will help only marginally?

Thanks (and sorry if this can be covered earlier in some thread I couldn't find.)

[rogerd]

Probably true, IITian, but most likely the effect is due to link text. If you have two sites, widgets.com and widgets-unlimited.com, the former is far more likely to get link text reading just "widgets" than the second domain. Links incorporating the URL only would probably be better in the first domain, too.

[IITian]

rogerd,

I didn't think of the link text factor. Makes sense. Thanks.

(Was wondering if all links have link text and all are same. Then what? I think I will experiment with two new domains to see how much difference it makes. ;) )

[rogerd]

IITian, link text is kind of a probability thing. If you can get people to link to you as "Widgets", then the domain name may not make that much difference. However, it's logical that if your domain name is WidgetsWorld.com, then you will tend to get links with "Widgets World" as the links text.