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... the argument that domain names are often unrelated to products is a good one and Google may take the same view.
What about the belief that most keyword1keyword2keyword3 domains are purchased mainly by affiliate marketers and spammers and that most legitimate companies tend to purchase ourcompanyname.com's? I would have thought that with Google's fight against spam this would be an easy decision to make as domain names don't give an accuracte description of the site 50% of the time.
(That percentage of 50% was plucked at random out of the air and was only given as a rough guide, I thought I'd better state that before steveb jumped on it ... )
Most of the web is non-commercial stuff. If the site is an info one called widget-safety.org, odds are it isn't spam. Info sites tend to use descriptive domain names, as branding makes little sense for them.
Most of the web is non-commercial stuff. If the site is an info one called widget-safety.org, odds are it isn't spam. Info sites tend to use descriptive domain names, as branding makes little sense for them.
But information sites aren't the spam problem. I'm saying that using domain names as part of the ranking algorithm gives commercial spammers leverage. Removing domain name weight from the algorithm won't hurt non-commercial sites, just spammy commercial ones that rely on it to give them the little edge over their competitors.
Um, duh. You say that like its relevant. The world isn't black and white. Good search engines weigh many factors, and... wait for it... some are more important than others.
Now of course it is obvious that a good search engine will care about words in the URL, and Google Guy has even mentioned that specifically concerning Google, so there really is no issue here.
"You do realise how ridiculous that sounds don't you?"
You should fold now. You seem to have wandered into the wrong forum. We aren't talking about your ppc universe here. We are talking about a search engine that seeks out relevant content for a users query. It has nothing to do with businesses and everything to do with relevant, quality, useful information. In a search for widgets, widgets.com has the one factor of the keyword in its URL in its favor. Google puts some value greater than zero on it, for sensible reasons. It does not guarantee that widgets.com is actually relevant, or that is has other algo components in its favor, but it does say that widgets.com could well be relevant once other factors are considered. ststre.com/gster/ offers no such suggestion.
Look, if you're wife just left you or something go take it out on someone else. If she died yesterday then seek counselling or else you're going to end up permanently bitter with the world.
Finally, a comment that is really perceptive. I have been getting heartily sick of the know-it-all, commercially oriented, blatherings of people who run business sites in these forums, over the last few weeks in particular. People who run business sites should restrict their "professional" comments to business sites; unless they can perform the difficult leap of putting themselves into the shoes of those millions of surfers who use the net for finding information every day.
For example, there was a person who runs a nameofacountry real estate site ponftificating on a bona fide "how to" information site with an worldwide audience! The poor devil was very upset that the site had a domain name with "too many" hyphens and "too many" search terms in it!
Lets get real. Remember that surfers often read, or try to read, the domain names in the serps. Lets look at a fictional example. Which of the following would you choose as a domain name if you were going to launch a genuine information site to an worldwide audience about how to do something or other?
1. www. zappy .com
2. www. internationalsomethingorotherguide. info
3. www. international-something-or-other-guide. info
I would of course go for option three or at worse, option 2. I made this point myself in another thread a few days ago. I work as a self employed maintenance consultant and I use Search Engines on a daily basis for research and to find information on companies. If I get an inquiry from someone like doej@widget-manufacturing.com I know immediately what kind of company I am dealing with and I praise their marketing people for having the foresight to use this user friendly domain name. If I get an inquiry from doej@coocoodoodlydoo.com I haven't got a clue what this company is all about.
As you say, this business is becoming too commercially oriented. The world is full of other "real" businesses who may even be around in three or four years time! They know their place in the grander scheme of things and are not interested in branding at this level. Let's take their requirements into consideration.
Google do have the problem of building better algorithms but I am not sure that this is the way to go about it and we still do not know if they do. Someone said that companies should use their company name. What if their company name is Widget Manufacturing Jibrovia? Are they not entitled to use this as their domain name? I would certainly think so and I believe that Google is clever enough to recognise this.
Look back at your quote from my post - read it carefully and dispassionately.
This is what I see - someone using language that could be expected when expressing an opposing viewpoint. That's fine, except the quote implies that I already share your opinion. In other words, you appear to be arguing with someone (me) who seems to agree with you on that particular point.
Relax.......I don't see anything in SteveB's post that is personal. I've had some heated discussions but I literally can't remember who with - because I don't take it personally.
Kaled.
Removing domain name weight from the algorithm won't hurt non-commercial sites, just spammy commercial ones that rely on it to give them the little edge over their competitors.
I'm not sure that I follow your logic here. If a good, non-commercial, information based site is getting found largely on the basis of its domain name and perhaps page titles then removing domain name weight would most certainly hurt it.
I am not proposing a solution here because it's not my forte but there must be better ways to suss a spammy site than by its domain name.
If a company goes with a branded domain name, that does not mean that it isn't a keyword rich domain name. It seems to me that a lot of people that are looking for a ford vehicle will have the word "ford" in their search. I'll give you one guess what their domain name is. And they are very on target for someone that searches on "ford".
Of course the domain name can be used for spamming purposes. But so can all the other indicators of a site's content.
Keywords in domain are something Google uses, and since this is a Google forum that is what counts. This can be abused, but it is one way to get a signal of relevancy about a page. Another is page title. Page titles are, imo, the best single thing to consider in terms of relevancy, even if at the same time they are the very easiest to thng to abuse. Google ranks informational/topical content, and that has literally nothing to do with "businesses", unless a business coincidentally is the topic. Google has to look at a lot of things to try and determine relavancy of page to the query. Sometimes they do good, sometimes they suck. But they should use all the available information they can to come to a reasoned decision. Other search models that care about businesses over content may not care about URL words or page titles or whatever, but that is not how Google-type search engines work.
This is an algorithm that is capable of making decisions we are discussing and it is capable of more than "yes" or "no" decisions. No doubt there will be occasions when parsing a domain name leads to an ambiguous conclusion. In this case it would probably be disregarded, i.e. no points.
Then why do they not use the keyword meta tag?
The keyword meta tag can give a 'signal' about what the site 'could be about' even though it 'could be abused' yet Google state that they do not use it to rank even though if you looked at the 'research' the right way it would show that high ranking sites had the terms in their keyword meta tag.
(By the way Kaled, I'm sorry if you thought I was arguing with you, it was steveb being an a**e and it affected my regular calm, professional mood. I appreciate your comments and respect your opinion as you give it in a respectable manner.)
There are, however, lots of adwords concerning 'webmaster'
Plain and simple. Full stop.
Almost everything that Google uses can be abused. The fact that they don't use some other thing that can be abused has nothing to do with anything.
Please be quiet. The fact that they don't use the keyword meta tag but it is 'perceived' that they use the domain name has everything to do with it for obvious reasons.
When you have rankable items such as Title, Body Content, Meta Description, Internal Linking, Inbound Links, etc. etc. why would you use a feature that can so easily be wrong of it's own accord? DMOZ.org says nothing about it being a directory. Google.com says nothing about being a search engine but you can bet your left testicle that the body content, linking and so on give that away.
When a feature such as a domain 'may or may not' give you information about the site, then why use it? You might as well use the whois information to see if the registered company/organisation has keywords in its address?
I think I know why you're so angry recently though steveb. Is this because Overture is removing gambling sites from their listings and you're going to lose out big time?
The domain name and pathname shows up in the address bar and in the SERPs.
The Title shows up in the SERPs and on the top owf your brower. it is the default used for your bookmarks.
Anchor text shows up on the linker's site.
Alt text shows up. H1 and P show up.
Comments don't show up and are not counted.
But most important, whatever google decides to count is counted, and whatever they decide not to count is not counted. And just because you or I decide that they should do something differently doesn't mean squat.
<added> Oh yeah, MikeBeverly, please try not to be so petty and personal when you respond to something that is so well thought out. It is not very becoming. </added>
