Google & Keyword Domains

Short term strategy?

[Simsi]

Hi all

What are your feelings on the future of "keyword" domains remaining "SERPS friendly" as opposed to "brandable" domain names? It seems totally logical to me, that as Google's algo gets better at determining SERPS via on-page factors and "user search" profiling, that the constitution of a domain name will become less and less relevant over time.

Thus spending the time building up a domain "brand" thats easily memorable will long term have major benefits in SERPS terms (the other benefits to branding are wel documented anyway).

IE: long term, "widge.com" will be better than "buywidgetsonline.com".

Am i right in your opinion?

Cheers

Simsi

[annej]

The domain name is just one very small item in a very multifactored algo. As I look at search results it looks to me that one can do extremely well without having the key words or word in the domain name.

I agree a short memorable name makes more sense. Also a less specific domain name leaves you open to expand in different directions.

This isn't to say you don't put the key word anywhere in the URL. Subdirectories should be named according to their overall topic and the .html should have the main keyword of the page.

domain: wigelatte
with directory: wigelatte/coffee/
full URL: wigelatte/coffee/almondsupreme

or almond_supreme or almond-supreme
the jury seems to be out on what is best.

[soapystar]

i thought the jury gave its verdict a long time ago.,..was there a re-trial?

[annej]

Exactly what did the jury decide and are we sure the Google algo hasn't changed since?

I just want to know if what I said was way off base.

[soapystar]

- not _

[aris1970]

I think that it all depends on the specific market of your site and the overal marketing budget and strategy of your site.

Generally, I do prefer domains with the main keyword in them, as I usually do not intend to spend millions on building a brand through offline and online practices.

[soapystar]

let me ask you this..if you were a search engine today...

would you factor in that multiple hyphen doamins statistically are more likely to be lower quality and higher spam ratio than one word domains?

forget whats fair to all..think about about what is best generally....

would you give more weight, less weight or the same weight to a domain called
keyword-keywords-morekeywords.com than to shortnsnappy.com?

if your overall goal is clean serps!