Do keywords in the domain name matter to Google?

[deist]

What's the latest on this? I am using a domain name for a site that is identical to the keyword I would love for it to come up under, but you don't get it as a result in google unless you type it as keyword.org ...
Is the relevance of the domain name itself not a factor at all in google results or is it a factor but just a very minute one?

[takagi]

It is only if other sides link to you with the domain name as link text. In that case, the link text contains a keyword.

[manilla]

I think the domain name is hugely important for G. Many of deeplinked pages have only been indexed because of the name I have used.

E.g. [widgets.co.uk...]

is very useful if you want someone to find this deeplink by searching on searchthisname.

Sometimes these pages are built in flash and only contain a title which also supports the domain.

[keeper]

I agree that its important for a domain name to contain a keyword for the reasons mentioned, but I also have a *theory* that if a user sees their search term in a domain name or file name it has a positive effect on click thru rates.

eg: "your-search-term.html" is better thatn "my-product.html"

I'm currently trying to get some solid figures to support that :)

[manilla]

<but I also have a *theory* that if a user sees their search term in a domain name or file name it has a positive effect on click thru rates. >

I think it's intuitive too.

[Skylo]

>>I think the domain name is hugely important for G.

Maybe 3 years ago! I do not think google has factored thid in one tiny bit any more. It just doesn't make sense cause then for specific keywords that are important to an industry like mine a company, especially big rich ones, could buy a keyword domain for thousands and dominate the serps. Anywho, go check this out from the man himself: Go look at point B
"Keyword domains are out - branding and name recognition are in"
[webmasterworld.com...]

Hope that helps guys
Happy surfing

[manilla]

Skylo - thanks for the link - superb 26 rules, well worth the read.

Another discussion is also going on here - [webmasterworld.com...] which also may be of interest.

But going back to my post - any name can be used for the html page in a deeplink of a given domain - you don't need big bucks. Given that you say G has discounted the actual domain for the reasons you give, do you think there is zero value associated to the name you give to the html deeplinked pages from a domain?

I'd like a view on this also please - Do you think that the two domains www.widgets.co.uk and www.widgets.net, similar in every other, way would get the same PR? I assume that they do get the same PR - is this true?

Brett also says in his post to avoid flash, but I have some very good ranking flash sites. As there is no content, I believed the value of the title, keywords, description play an even more important role to an SE than they would if it were able to pick up content. I don't believe we are penalised for using flash, but the SE knows it cannot rely on any content, so discounts this element of the algo, and focusses on what it can see. Is this true?

<edited by manilla to provide link>

[Skylo]

"you don't need big bucks." -
I know manilla that you were refering to deep pages but I was talking about say a homepage. A big company selling widgets could buy for thousands the name widgets.com, widgets.co.uk etc. And they could then dominate for the keyword widget. Hope that clears up my point.

"do you think there is zero value associated to the name you give to the html deeplinked pages from a domain?" -
Yeah yousee there could be relevance and there probably is! See there is the "G" algo that factors in 100 points of relevance and probably thousands more. No one can tell. I just personally feel that if there is space for that theory in their algo then it is very small.

"Do you think that the two domains www.widgets.co.uk and www.widgets.net, similar in every other, way would get the same PR?" -
We do have that for our homepage. We have it for .com, .co.uk, .co.za, .co.au and .co.ca and they all have different PR except for .com and .co.uk

"Brett also says in his post to avoid flash" - Remember that he wrote this a year and a half ago. SE's have been some of the quickest evolving technology if you consider "G" joined the party 5 years ago and look where they are now and where we are now. Anyway it is exactly what you say. No content no spider crawling = no ranking. Well if you have a flash site that needs to rank well then just use flash as an intro then a nice page with keyword rich content maybe explaining what you do blah blah. You get the point. But as SE's evolve more I am sure we will see the natural intergration of flash into serps.

Cool hoped that helped you guys. I love this place and the discussions. What a good way to start a thursday:-)
Happy Surfing
Skye

[frostlorraine]

Mike Grehan says in his book on SEO that Google _does_ use keywords in the URL as a ranking criterion, but that this is a lesser-importance criterion than some of the others (inbound links, etc.).

I trust Grehan, since he has done much first-hand research into this (including many interviews with the designers of the Google search algorithm, as I recall).

By the way, Brett's point about branding being "in" and keyword domain names being "out" has nothing to do with ranking and is only to say that it is better to own a recognizable brand name (since it helps with customer retention) than to own a generic name with lots of keywords. Acquiring traffic is important. But, isn't retaining customers important too, and perhaps even more so?

Verdict: Keywords in the URL do indeed matter.

-Lorraine