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To me a domain name's value is dependent on two factors. How easy it is to remember and how easy it is to spell. I don't care about .org, .com, .net. Quite simply, I've optimized sites for all those domain extensions and all of them can market a product. I prefer short domain names and barring that, domains that retain common spelling. Keywords in the domain have never been a consideration for me.
The domain name takes on value only after it is branded and after it develops traffic. Yes, I want a short domain name but I'm not concerned if Hardison-Southwich.com is handed to me. For example, if Hardison-Southwich sells high performance automotive engines I am quite sure that I can develop traffic for the site, with that lengthy domain name and without keywords being used in the domain.
After all, a rose by any other name...
DG
[edited by: Marcia at 4:30 pm (utc) on June 28, 2002]
As with the spidering engines, the words in the title are likely
to be what's boosting those sites in the Yahoo! results, not the
domain name.
DG
Its the same with LS i got a english title for my swedish page not that good, often they take your url to title. If you can get the url with a keyword in it i would go for it
/Ove
Lycos used to highlight your search terms in the title, description and URL string shown in the SERP's. I found that terms in continuous string domains and file names were not highlighted. I did find that terms in hyphenated domains and file names were highlighted. And, those sites had a tendency to rank higher.
Choosing the right domain for branding purposes is of extreme importance. But, if you can get a domain that contains one or more of your targeted keyword phrases at the same time establishing brand, you get the best of both worlds.
Today, I think its similar to the keywords tag. Not much weight given, but, when part of an overall optimization, it could mean a #1 spot over a #3 spot. Its also going to have an impact on your directory listings since company names are usually used for titles. If your company name contains the main theme search term, and your domain does too, that pretty much guarantees a respectable listing.
No matter what anyone tells me, I still think purchasing domains for a company domain portfolio is important. And, finding ones that are friendly, and, at the same time keyword rich will add a little boost if used properly.
As a side note, anything beyond a certain character limit may look spammy so be very careful in how you choose them. Remember when everyone was doing the 67 character kick? Man, talk about spammy domains!
This is true but it is usually much easier to get the keywords in the title if they are also in your domain name. The editors like to see that the URL and title are somewhat similar. This isn't always the case but it does make it much easier if the title and URL match.
Especially since you are at the mercy of Yahoo for your description.
For example if your main product is "Extra Small Blue Widgets" and you submit your site to Yahoo, the Yahoo editor may write up a description for you as follows: "Retailer and Wholesaler of Widgets" If customers are searching for "Extra Small Blue Widgets", they won't find you in Yahoo if you have the domain name WIDGETS4U.COM. But if you chose Extra-Small-Blue-Widgets.com, then your site would show up if they search for "Blue Widgets", "Small Widgets", "Extra Widgets", "Extra Small Widgets", "Small Blue Widgets", .....
Granted, you could ask Yahoo for a re-write of your description, but I haven't had very good luck with this. Sometimes it gets changed, sometimes not.
The words in my title don't seem to be helping me. Maybe it's because I have a Yahoo Store. I don't really know for sure, but keyword rich domains have worked for me.
Are you talking about your web pages Title, or the description Yahoo gives you ?
When I search for the words in my page title, I don't even show up in Yahoo. I get forwarded to Yahoogle results. The only searches I show up on are words in my Domain and words in the description Yahoo wrote for me.
Again, maybe this is a Yahoo Store thing. Anyone else ???
Having the keyword in the LINK is highly important, but I don't think it translates well from cleaning-service.com in the link because the keywords here would then be "cleaning" and "service.com" and not the desired keywords of "cleaning" and "service."
So IMO, I would say that the keyword in the title is of limited value. Perhaps it would hit ONE keyword of a keyword phrase, but rarely the whole phrase itself. In the end, it's personal preference. I prefer branding and its concomitant marketing benefits over a homely keyword-phrase.com anytime.
How many awkward sites have you seen with names like "a-keyword-phrasenet.com" and how often do you visit them compared to how many "zippyname.com" or "companyname.com" sites you visit?
In my case, it's the latter because if they concentrate on good branding/marketing they're usually concentrating on good content.
I think that having reach keyword domains is good for satellite domains.
I use BOTH methods. For all my sites i create two seperate web pages. One with a "zippyname.com" and one with a "keyword-phrase.com"
Of course I make sure they are different enough as not to attract a duplicate content spam label.
I only promote the "zippyname.com" around the web. The other domain is simply there for the Yahoo benefits listed in my last post.
My "keyword-phrase.com" site brings in about 3 times more traffic from Yahoo than does my "zippyname.com" site.
Granted, if i had to choose one only, I would take the zippyname.com
To illustrate, go to your favorite search engine, like Google for example, and type in random numbers. Most numbers won't have any matches for keywords in the domain name... so try a lot of different numbers, until you find some examples, like "702" or "112". After a while of experimenting with lots of random numbers, you'll see the effect.
I have a suspicion that for Google, its just keyword density within the URL thats important.
So, a short URL thats just a domain name without subdirectory or filename specified, would give the highest keyword density. A long URL would have a lower keyword density. (This is just my personal belief... with no definite proof to offer.) Do the test yourself and draw your own conclusion. I'd be interested if other interpretations are possible from this type of analysis.
702 is not a good example because for result number 1, the url is in the title; Result number 2 is because the keyword is in the inbound links (check the google cache). Positions 3-7 are there because the keyword is in the title. Position 8 is there because the keyword 702 is in the body text. So in the case of keyword 702, the keyword in the url makes no difference. I qualify this with a caveat, see below.
Roughly the same result for your cited keyword "112." The results are there because the keyword, 112, shows up in the title. Except for result number 8, with a title of "??" and totally lacking the keyword in the description, but has the keyword "112" in the url. However, when you check the Google cache, it returns that: "These terms only appear in links pointing to this page: 112."
So the value is in the keyword being in the links POINTING TO your site, but not strictly for it being in the url. Google isn't ranking the url itself for keyword relevancy, but rather the keyword rich inbound links.
The lesson being, it's important to have keyword rich inbound links. However, this is true for THIS MONTHS Google algo, who knows what Google will emphasize next month. Last month, it seemed like results were skewed toward title tags.
For those domains containing keywords, how much of
an affect is the non-keyword part when the domain
isn't hyphenated?
For instance, what about a domain like "keywordxxxx.com"
where xxxx are whatever letters. Do the extra
letters (i.e. xxxx) obscure the keyword to the
search engines, or would you get "credit" for the
keyword being in the domain?
Likewise, lets say you have a domain in the format
"keywordkeyword.com". Will the keywords in the
domain help you, or will the SE not be able to
recognize the presence of two keywords in the domain
name?
Thanks,
Louis
