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I have a site with a "branded" domain name. Within the site all of the URLs have keywords in them and I use the best combination of search terms as the url in this form www.brandname.com/search_term/search_term.html
This has been working well and I have been #1 on Google for my main search terms for over a year but only my default (index.html) page is appearing in Google AFAIK.
I've now lost #1 and have dropped back to #5. I have been overtaken by two sites which have URLs in the form of www.brandname.com/search-term/search-term.html ie they use the hyphen symbol rather than the underline symbol.
I have two questions.
1. Should I use search-term rather than search_term in the URL. ie the hyphen rather than underline?
2. I am considering creating a new site on a new domain with keywords in the domain name but many of the obvious domains have been grabbed. What are the forum's views on using three word combinations to target two word searches. If I want www.search-term.com but this has been taken would I get as good results from www.search-term-4u.com when users search Google for search term?
I'm in the UK and many domains here are registered as www.search-term-uk.com (or .co.uk) often www.uk-search-term.com (or .co.uk) is still available but I wonder if it is important to have search-term as the first two words of the domain name if you have more than two words or if the order of the words is irrelevant.
Any comments or oppinions would be very welcom.
Thanks
Sid
Weather file names should be separated by underscores("_")or hyphens("-") now we know that Google does not treat underscores as word separators.Top level domains for example .com,net,org etc ,are not a factor in Google ranking
hope this can help you!
einar
Thanks for that. Do you know if Google therefore only reads the words before the underscore. So for example if a URL was /search_term.html would Google read this simply as search? Or does in concatenate the words and read them as searchterm?
Thanks in advance for any further pointers you can give.
Best wishes
Sid
No problem with your second question:
www.uk-search-term.com will work fine, even www.domain.com/seach-term.html could be used.
I think there is no important difference.
Gus
The only real benefit keyword domains have are when they are used as anchor text to your site. Many directories do this and you can pick up good keyword anchor text links without having to negotiate them.
www.search_term.com will be seen as searchterm and therefore be useless for keyword anchor text.
www.search-term.com will work well and be read as two words. The order of the words is very important because of word proximity. Having two hyphens in a domain with three popular search words is entering the world of 'obvious optimisation' but at the moment seems to cause no problem. The keyword density is also important, so the fewer the words, the more value each has.
If you are targetting the uk, get the .co.uk domain. This has two major advantages, one is that you will appear on yahoo.co.uk and AOL for 'UK only' searches, secondly you get the word 'UK' also in your anchor text. Many people search on google.com for UK products and put 'UK' on the end of the search string, so having links in with UK helps this search phrase.
I remember GG saying that G prefers a hyphen though.
BTW, if the searcher accidentally misses a space between keywords, the only results tend to be URLs with non-separated keywords. In other words, if you search for widgetsblue, the only result might be www.domain.com/widgetsblue.
I have a site with a "branded" domain name.
Good. Keep it that way. Think about other sites that use brandname. Umm, "google"? Or how about "yahoo", "amazon"? Or "ebay" versus "online-market-auctions". Which would you pick to survive long term and be succesful?
1. Should I use search-term rather than search_term in the URL. ie the hyphen rather than underline?
Yes you should.
2. I am considering creating a new site on a new domain with keywords in the domain name but many of the obvious domains have been grabbed. What are the forum's views on using three word combinations to target two word searches. If I want www.search-term.com but this has been taken would I get as good results from www.search-term-4u.com when users search Google for search term?
Don't do it. Brandname is still king in the long term, that hasn't changed. Google (and possibly other engines) give a little extra weight to keyword.com, but it can be easily overtaken with keyword anchor text inbound links. They are your friend, and almost all that matters in google.
Tip: choose your page titles wisely as 90% of the time that's the anchor text you will get on an inbound external link.
I'm in the UK and many domains here are registered as www.search-term-uk.com (or .co.uk) often www.uk-search-term.com (or .co.uk) is still available but I wonder if it is important to have search-term as the first two words of the domain name if you have more than two words or if the order of the words is irrelevant.
Forget it unless you want a very naff image. Stick with brandname.
"Search term" does not make for a good brand. Nor does "brand" make for a great URL. But the latter is fixable with a little work and getting inbound links, having good page titles and anchor text. The former is almost irrepairable.
TJ
I very much appreciate the help and advice. I've learned a lot in a very short space of time and saved many hours of wasted work and blind alley following.
Have a great weekend.
Best wishes
Sid
As webmasters we probably look at domain names. But how many users do this when searching? I suspect the title is all important, after all, the actual domain is tucked away at the bottom of the listing. It is the title that can attract the click through more than the domain.
The choice is often being in the top 5 with a keyword domain, or 5-10 with a brand name. Keyword domains still give you an added advantage, and every bit helps.
Given the choice, I would go for a simple two word domain. If all the good ones are taken, go for brand-majorkeyword e.g. www.smiths-antiques.com (made up name). Then do a killer title, both optimised and oozing quality!
However, here's the interesting bit. Most of the good keyword domains have long gone. Surely it is unfair to give these an advantage anyway. Google must soon be considering ignoring anchor text links containing words within www..... and ...com.
Google (and possibly other engines) give a little extra weight to keyword.com, but it can be easily overtaken with keyword anchor text inbound links.
If you're going for a very competitive phrase you should include keywords somewhere in url, it gives an extra push.
Check top serps for your targeted keywords.
