Keyword domains and search engines

[perfectlover]

As per SEO experts keyword domain should be avoided, but i don't agree with this theory not having a keyword domain. I am running a quite pouplar site in my area. It's 4 year old site. I was among top 3 for most of the keyword and I was number one for the most popular keyword which comes in the title of my site.
But now two different people have made sites for that particular keyword and now my ranking is no where in top 10. Yesterday, I found that another site with same keyowrd( with different domain extension). So I am competing with these MFA sites. Search engines don't like me, even though, I have oldest site with real content, listed in DMOZ and have back links from many educational institutes. I am so fed up with these MFA sites that I am planning to register all available domain extentions for that keyword and point them to main site.

Moral of the story is KEYWORD domain is necessary to get traffic from the Search engines.
I might be completely wrong on this but my personal experience says in that way.

I am looking forward for inputs from Industry experts on this. I also want to know how do you point another domain( keyword based) to your existing site in order to get traffic from SE? Is there any way to achieve this?

[Heywood_J]

Any SEO "expert" that tells you to avoid keyword domains in not an expert in my book. I have developed over a dozen of sites and most of the ones with keywords in the domain are dominating the search results. The are doing much better than the non keyword domains.

A good keyword domain in the right category is like gold if the site is developed correctly with the right content.

[perfectlover]

Actually I was referring to Brett's notes which are quite impressive anyway.

[webmasterworld.com...]

B) Domain name:
Easily brandable. You want "google.com" and not "mykeyword.com". Keyword domains are out - branding and name recognition are in - big time in. The value of keywords in a domain name have never been less to se's. Learn the lesson of "goto.com" becomes "Overture.com" and why they did it. It's one of the most powerful gut check calls I've ever seen on the internet. That took serious resolve and nerve to blow away several years of branding. (that is a whole 'nother article, but learn the lesson as it applies to all of us).

[percentages]

>Moral of the story is KEYWORD domain is necessary to get traffic from the Search engines.
>I might be completely wrong on this but my personal experience says in that way.

You are completely wrong. Keywords in domains help a small tad, maybe 5% as an average across the major engines. They are not the "holy Grail" of SEO.

They help a small tad, many other things are much more important.

If you only look for search traffic, then get a keyword dominated name. If you look for type in traffic, sticky content, name/brand recognition then get a domain that is not keyword dominated, but, is easy to remember and type!

Search traffic is huge, type in traffic is large, other froms of ads that generate direct access are considerable. The bottom line is your business plan, that determines the domain name you need!

[arran]

You are completely wrong. Keywords in domains help a small tad, maybe 5% as an average across the major engines. They are not the "holy Grail" of SEO.

You could also argue that having keywords in a domain leads to keyword-rich anchor text in unsolicited inbounds.

[gamb]

Brett wasn't referring more to choosing a name for your site rather than choosing a domain from an SEO perspective.

[Pedent]

You could also argue that having keywords in a domain leads to keyword-rich anchor text in unsolicited inbounds.

Absolutely. This is the main advantage of keyword domains in terms of the SERPs.

[perfectlover]

In continuation to my Original Post. I have following question:

I am running a site and I have bought another domain(Keyword based). I want to point this keyword based domain to the existing one in a way that search engines could index this new domain too based on Keyword entered and redirected to my old site. How should I accomplish this with SEO friendly approach.

Should I create I new account and then redirect it too?
Should I use Domain forwarding?
Should I use Addon domain feature?

Thank you,

Staffan