Forum Moderators: open
or
2. Would Google simply ignore the second repetition of the keyword?
We already know Google treats dashes as a space.
So if you bought: www.keyword1-keyword1.com
(with keyword1 being the same word) how would Google read this?
If it simply ignores the repetition of the word the second time, then could this be great for a SEO technique for a short, one word keyword domain you want to use but is already taken?
SECONDLY:
Many of us already know the old trick of buying -- (double hyphens inbetween keywords when the keyword with a single dash is taken (since google simply treats hyphens as a space). I know for a fact many of these types of domains are listed in Google and some of them rather high for some keywords.
My second question, does Google penalize these double hyphen domains in any way?
On the other hand, having one word repeated in your domain will appear tacky and unprofessional to your users.
Ideally, I would go for www.brand-keyword.com, or www.keyword-brand.com, where brand is your own unique brand that you can build over time.
JOAT
I always buy domains with hyphens because they are useful in the real world. Just make it freds-widgets.com instead of widgets.com or maybe use freds-little-green-widgets.com if that's more specific for your offering.
Sure as heck looks like the exact reverse to me with Google, JOAT. As for what the original poster asked, I'd assume www.keyword1-keyword1.com would not get any penalty from Google, and you'd just get the benefit of the keyword once.
As far as how much impact, we don't really know (although I agree that it may be little, but every "little" bit can move you up a position or two). In my experience I found it to always help (but it COULD be because of my other optimization techniques).
First a little backround on myself:
I am a SEO for a online software company (in a very competitive field). I do SEO for them as well for myself (to supplement my income). I have been extremeley successful thus far.
"On the other hand, having one word repeated in your domain will appear tacky and unprofessional to your users."
I agree, however I build content rich informational/doorway pages. I own and have worked on over 50+ domains and have been successful with almost every one of them (the majority being top 3 positions). I have several 1 page sites with PR7s. Of these domains I only purchased one double keyword domain as an experiment (which has not been indexed yet). It is the same length as domain-domain.com. I dont think this would bother a visitor.
What I realy care about is if Google penalizes these...
Still awaiting an answer about penalization of -- domains as well.
Thank You for your input and opinions thus far and great forums :)
Still awaiting an answer about penalization of -- domains as well. "
At this point in time nobody can answer this except google.. as far as I know there is no penalty.
How competitive is your industry though?
I think there is too much importance placed on KW1-KW2 domains and there are other factors to take into account.
Look at this way:
You have www.blue-widgets.com and you rank number one for "blue widgets", so logic would suggest that your domain has an impact.
But we know that content plays the largest part in the Google algo (or at least we assume that), along with inbound links.
Keeping this in mind, with a domain www.blue-widgets.com your content is going to be entirely focused on blue widgets. In addition your inbound links will come from sites, or pages that relate to blue widgets (or most of them anyway).
Therefore there are a number of factors that influence your rank, and as your domain name can in no way indicate the quality of your information, then it would be illogical to assume that it has a major impact on your ranking.
It can also be argued that a lot of the highly competitive SERPs are dominated by KW1-KW2 domains, therefore it must work.
But, these sites are obviously run by people who have more than a small knowledge of SEO, therefore judging their ranking by domain name is pointless. It is only an indication of their knowledge and therefore an indication of how SEO'd their sites are.
IMHO anyway! :)
JOAT
If Google were to announce that domains with the same keyword repeated 4 times would move your website up the SERPs anywhere from 1-3 spots, guaranteed, would you run out and purchase www.bluewidgets-bluewidgets-bluewidgets-bluewidgets.com?
Just wondering.
Cheers and Happy New Year,
- Chad
>> Reason for edit - Ungood grammer <<
;)
[edited by: SlyGuy at 6:26 pm (utc) on Jan. 2, 2003]
I am listed in the dmoz.org directory and before this crawl i had about 400 pages in google and now i have just the index of the site.
The PR of the site is 3 but i've seen it bouncing to 4 then back to three over the last day or two.
Quick example of my links:
When you view a DVD details you will be given a link to each performer (unique html page) which has keywords for that performer (dvds they star in and stuff) and has a link back to every dvd they star in, again a unique html page for each dvd.
I guess overall i have about 20,000 unique webpages which link to eachother at one point or another. Good idea? Would google consider that spamming?
If i was banned would the domain name be completely removed from the index (and my adwords stop working)?
I have two backward links, one from the google directory and one from dmoz.org directory.
Any help would be welcomed.
You have a point that it could be that keyword stuffed domains tend to be better SEOed all around, and as such may tend to rise to the top. However, I've seen a lot of these high on the SERPs that don't appear to be all that well SEOed.
Our conception of what works well and what Google actually ranks well are two different things.
Even if we knew exactly what factors Google wanted to rank pages on, the reality is that it isnt an exact science and even the perfect SEO results wouldnt provide optimal results.
The hit or miss factor plays a large part of SEO! ;)
At least when i do it, it does! :)
JOAT
Having a domain Widgets-Widgets.com
1. would be a ridiculous domain name
2. IF people would link to you they'd probably link to you using the link text "Total Widgetmania" ... wow great ...
;)
Id use the linktext "Spammy Widgets".... ;)
Then how do you explain all these smallish e-commerce firms doing so well with these domains stuffed with so many keywords? These sites DON'T have a lot of people linking to them. One of the problems with e-commerce sites is that competitors don't tend to link to you in most cases. The core of Google's algo, PageRank, in fact tends be poor for ranking business sites for this reason. Info sites tend to link to other info sites, and the best info sites tend to get the most links, so PR works well for those. Also, if you think about it all e-commerce sites can be seen as tending to be equally relevant? If I type in a search "widget sales", and ten widget sellers pop up, all with keyword stuffed domain names, who is to say that isn't a relevant result? They sell what I wanna buy. An irrelevant SERP would be if "widget sales" popped up a bunch of travel agents selling a service, not the physical good widgets.
