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Do you think the SE's, will start looking at these kinds of domains as spam?
But what will happen to the Google algo when the 14 areas of Brett's Quick Rank List are equally stuffed?
Well, at some point, it may become cheaper to simply hire a writer and offer good content. :-)
Seriously, though, "stuffing" is likely to result in artificial patterns that Google can detect. The challenge for Google is to (a) identify such patterns and (b) determine which patterns and how many of them constitute "stuffing" that compromises the accuracy of search results. But I imagine that Google has quite a few brilliant employees who thrive on such challenges.
And, if I go into business selling just fuzzy blue widgets on the web tomorrow, it would be logical to get the domain name fuzzy-blue-widgets.com. The buyer immediately sees that I sell just what he wants to buy. The argument against these commercial keyword-stuffed domains is that businesses would naturally prefer choosing a "brand" name. I disagree this is a good idea in many cases in e-commerce. Better to choose descriptive than brand names.
fuzzy-blue-widgets.com is not compromised if that is what you have to offer :)
I would say that the best long term strategy would be a good combination of both.
For example:
blue-fuzzy-widgets.com is descriptive, but when your competitor picks up fuzzy-blue-widgets.com, then the problems arise (your customers, and indeed other webmasters, bunch you all together). When a user tries to find you again and cant remember the URL - Google search for fuzzy blue widgets.... and you know what happens!
So, a combination of brand and description would help your users remember you and find you again, as well as setting you out from the crowd.
www.joats-widgets.com is instantly more memorable, as users are more likely to search for "joat" in future, than "widgets".
Ive went through the nightmare of finding a domain name for a heavily competitive market the other day there.
Tried the kw1-kw2.com approach - all gone.
Tried some other bits and pieces - no luck.
Even joat.com and jackofalltrades.com are gone! :(
FYI - I ended up with a 3 word name with no hyphens that actually does have the word "widgets" in it! :)
JOAT
And, if I go into business selling just fuzzy blue widgets on the web tomorrow, it would be logical to get the domain name fuzzy-blue-widgets.com. The buyer immediately sees that I sell just what he wants to buy.
That makes sense as a short-term strategy, but what if fuzzy blue widgets are passé 12 months from now? Or what if you later want to expand your business beyond fuzzy blue widgets? And what about customers who may feel (rightly or wrongly) that a company named fuzzy-blue-widgets.com sounds too much like a guy in a bathrobe who's selling fuzzy blue widgets out of his basement?
The argument against these commercial keyword-stuffed domains is that businesses would naturally prefer choosing a "brand" name. I disagree this is a good idea in many cases in e-commerce. Better to choose descriptive than brand names.
You can choose a descriptive name without resorting to long strings of hyphenated keywords. "Petsmart" is descriptive, but it has more branding potential (and sounds more legitimate) than "discount-dog-cat-bird-fish-food-and-products." Similarly, "Play It Again Sports" is fairly descriptive without suffering from the negative connotations of a name like "secondhand-hockey-baseball-basketball-football-golf-bowling-skiing-skating-and-other-used-sports-equipment-and-clothing."
That's my own experience anyway.
As for the keyword-riching of domains for general SEO, SERPS can start to look a little ugly when there are just hyphenated domains pulling the results. Secondly when that is twinned with-page-that-emphasise-keywords-and-are-put-in-keyword-rich-directories...well you get the picture.
As for whether they work I guess it's a case of looking at the results so...
<snip>
[google.com...]
[google.com...]
[google.com...]
... I thought I'd post queries from WebmasterWorld favoured engine, as we see no position #1 for those keyword rich domains everyone keeps yelling about.
If you're optimisation is in a keyword area where there is little competition a KW rich domain might help just a little to keep you where you are. But when the stops come out and the competition increases the queries above show that it's links and link-back text that is the decider.
Glyn.
[edited by: ciml at 6:44 pm (utc) on Dec. 10, 2002]
If one argues that, "My domains aren't designed for people to type in," the question immediately arises as to how people will find them. If the answer is "by searching", it seems likely that a search engine might say, "Aha! A promotional domain designed to spam my engine! Begone!" And indeed, they might have a point. Certainly, not all such domains are junk, but SEs are rightly leery of a domain not designed for repeat visits and promotion across a range of media other than search engines.
One thing we know is that SEs are willing to sacrifice a few innocent victims if taking some action is likely to improve the overall quality of results. Look at the Zeus users with carefully crafted and well tended link directories, or even worse, the poor webmasters who happened to choose "themeindex" for a file name... a few babies going down the drain in the spam bathwater is acceptable, it seems. If 90% of domains with 3+ hyphens are spammy (hypothetically, of course, I haven't done a study), the protests of a few webmasters with high quality sites won't prevent a penalty from being enacted.
As I have both, hyphenated and non hyphenated domains, I intend to use both. It will all come out in the wash if and when the search engines choose to take action of any kind.
I will also continue to name my companies (and their internet URL's) the old fashioned way. Tell the customer what it is you are selling and use the name of your company to do it!
It is advantagous to have the keyword(s) in the domain but not a patch on having 50,000 inward links :)
I do not believe that the average surfer even notices what the domain name is. If they search for blue widgets and see "blue widgets - guaranteed lowest price" in the title, they'll click on it even if it is called "Fred-Flintstones-Foot.com"
All IMO :)
If you're optimisation is in a keyword area where there is little competition a KW rich domain might help just a little to keep you where you are. But when the stops come out and the competition increases the queries above show that it's links and link-back text that is the decider.
Try this <commercial product - in Spanish>
If you do the search in the normal Google, there's no problem with the listing, but if you do it in Spanish (I suppose Google identifies you as Spanish, because there's no google.es) the English listing second page (with 110 referrals and PR4) outranks the English listing first one (with 815 referrals and PR6). You may wonder what the difference is between these two pages. Exactly! The PR4 page has <keywords> within its URL while the PR6 page has not. Even worse, the PR6 page is an informative page, while the PR4 page is a shopping one. I don't consider this fair.
Shady
I do not believe that the average surfer even notices what the domain name is. If they search for blue widgets and see "blue widgets - guaranteed lowest price" in the title, they'll click on it even if it is called "Fred-Flintstones-Foot.com"
The problem is that if there's a blue-widgets.com it would probably appear before "Fred-Flintstones-Foot.com" even if it has not "blue widgets" in its title while "Fred-Flintstones-Foot.com" does.
[edited by: ciml at 6:47 pm (utc) on Dec. 10, 2002]
[edit reason] Please let's not get specific. [/edit]
Anyway, since I was the first to reply to ulstrup concerning the issue of hyphenated domains, I guess I'll add a few more comments.
When I posted my first reply, the only thing I had a visual of were those long abusive URL's that I come across during my travels. If I were to put a number on them, 8 out of 10 were clearly being used for one thing, to manipulate the SERP's. Actually, all 10 were doing that, but 8 of them were abusing it.
How? Oh, you know, add a couple of keywords in front of the domain and create a keyword rich canonical. Then name your directories with the same premise, you know, 3, 4 and 5 hyphenated words. Then, name your files under the same premise, you know, 3, 4 and 5 hyphenated words.
I'm sure most of you get my point. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using hyphenated domains. Is there a proper way to use them? I guess it's all a matter of perspective and professionalism. And I'm not saying that anyone here is unprofessional because they use them, I've done it myself when left with no other option.
But, I believe you are pushing the envelope when you utilize a certain number of hyphens, and then combine that with a canonical, directory and file name, to end up with a domain that is 80, 90 or 100 characters long. How many people do you think are going to sit there and type in a domain that long? I've lost count on the number of times I've been on the phone with a client having them type in a URL only to get a page not found. They missed something, somewhere, and just couldn't seem to get it right. So, I cut and pasted the URL and sent it to them via email, and that is what I do now in all cases relevant to lengthy URLs.
I know, I know, many people have no choice but to use the hyphenated domains because of availability. Or, they are following the advice posted at many sites out there in regards to purchasing domains. I used to recommend to my clients that they get both the hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions. I only do that now in cases where we need to protect the non-hyphenated version.
Many questions come to mind after reading this thread. If I were a phd and responsible for maintaining relevancy in the serps, I'm going to flag those domains that use 4, 5 or 6 hyphens in a filter. If I find that a majority of my top 20 positions are populated with these types of domains, then I'm going to have my staff review the content of those sites. I'd be willing to bet that at least 50% of them are gateway domains.
What really brings these to attention is when you do a search in a particular industry and you end up with the first page of serps filled with hyphenated domains. Then you find out that 6 of them are owned by the same group and they all lead to the same destination. This happens when the domains use the primary keyword and then secondary keywords. When the primary keyword is used in all of the domains, you take the risk of having multiple listings back to back, something that G and others do not take kindly to. Nor does the competition unless of course they are in the same boat as you and the two of you are dominating the top 10 positions.
I look at it this way, if I cannot set up your business card and have an email and web address side by side, then something might be wrong. If I have to put the email and web address on separate lines and then use 7pt condensed type to make it fit, something might be wrong. Note that I said might be wrong. Many have taken the hyphens to extremes. When you add the canonicals, the directory names and file names all being abused, I feel you may have crossed the threshold.
P.S. If an SE wanted to add a filter to their algo to flag this type of abuse, it would probably be the easiest of all the filters to apply. Just look for repetition in the URL and that's it. If you've got the keyword phrase in there three or more times, you may have crossed the line.
[edited by: pageoneresults at 6:56 pm (utc) on Dec. 10, 2002]
Soon, keywords in the domain name will become irrelevant.
That might be possible but I don't think it is probable. Typically those with the keywords in the domain are relevant. I think what will become irrelevant is anything before and after the domain if there is excessive repetition.
I look at it this way, if I cannot set up your business card and have an email and web address side by side, then something might be wrong.
Good point, p1r - the point is that the vast majority of these heavily hyphenated domains will never end up on a business card, because they are promotional in nature. Some may be true spam, others may actually have a smattering of substance, but very few are sites with lots of original content, any kind of community, or features that would tend to bring visitors back.
The point has been made that Google isn't a human edited directory, and Google shouldn't be trying to index only those sites it deems to be of high quality. True enough, perhaps, but their job IS to deliver search results that satisfy their searchers and keep them coming back - if they can boost sites of apparently higher quality at the expense of lower quality sites, they will certainly attempt to do just that.
"www.fuzzy-widgets.com we put the dash in fuzzy widgets."
This thread is mildly interesting to me, if for no reason then because my employer has a "-" in their URL. This was because their first choice was gone six years ago, it definitely wasn't for SEO or marketing purposes. So if "-" dashes were to be penalized that would effect me in some small way.
Personally I think shorter URL's are obviously superior, though you also want something easy to spell.
There are real companies with a dash in there are URL for instance as a result of a merger such as a company some friends work for: PMC Sierra
They also use underscores in email addresses so to write my friend it's firstName_lasName@pmc-sierra.com This is tough to remember and I often get it wrong.
Oh well back to your regular scheduled bitching and moaning.
Muskie
I am assuming that fuzzy blue widgets are an item that won't become passé here. And, such a domain name would suck if the idea was to expand into other areas. I'm thinking here mostly of using these hyphenated domain names for commodity items. Say, cell phone batteries. Obviously these sorts of hyphenated domain names aren't good if the goal is to build brand identification, or to become a seller of diverse goods. Strategy here depends on your business goals.
That's surely all it's about... making the domain read well. Now, Google may not give an advantage to those sites that use them (although I would suggest they should)... but they CERTAINLY should not apply any penalty.
Again it would be Google trying to impose their will on the web as a whole and its natural evolution simply because of some inadequacy of their algorithm... there's enough Google paranoia out here to begin with.
I suspect some of those hostile to hyphens simply want to take out competitiors who use them... never mind the public being able to read them better. Not a pretty sight and not a pretty motive, but all too common and somewhat sad.
PR-1 for using hyphens?
Let's define that a little more. How about PR-1 for using hyphens and then repeating the keyword phrase in a canonical or 1st level directory. For example...
blue-widgets.fuzzy-blue-widgets.com/blue-widgets/fuzzy-blue-widgets.htm
We're getting two different perspectives in this thread. One side is talking about abuse of hyphens and naming structure, the other is just referring to using hyphens. Again, there is nothing wrong with hyphenated domains. When you begin to abuse them, then there may be some issues to contend with.
I for one would not want any listings that looked like the above. It's clearly a red flag and serves little purpose in the overall scheme of things. We all know that URL's have relevancy in the serps. What most of may not know, including myself, is how far you can go before you've crossed over into the gray area.
Since I rarely see these types of domain structures in the top positions, it's not something to really harp on. If you plan your directory and file naming structure appropriately, the hyphenated domains have as much power as the non-hyphenated. It's just another part of the equation that needs to have balance.
P.S. What if part of the SE's algos include keyword density in the URL?
Simple answer: in this case, I'd say a good SE also gives credit for just 1 fuzzy, blue and widgets. This is not a penalty, but just giving no benefit for the doing the above.
I have nothing against hyphens in urls as long as they are used in a meaningful way, blue-widgets.com makes sense, blue-widgets-widget-widgets-blue-widget.com does not make sense and is in most cases doorway domains.
I have come across site pages that were completely irrelevant to what I was typing in, but where being used to trick surfers into clicking them in the serach engine results.
Whether or not a domain name is used in a Search Engines algorithm is probably not that big of an issue because it is only one part of the whole algorithm and if the domain name says one thing and the actual content says another then the algorithm should rate it accordingly.
Of course there is no guarantees as there will always be people trying to trick surfers. The only way to guarantee this would be to manually verify every single site and every single page submitted. But even that can't guarantee anything as a webmaster can change content and pages at any time without any notification.
There are many webmasters who love to say any hyphenated site is spam and that's just total well, you know.
I have several sites that I have the hyphenated and non-hyphenated version of the domain. I bought the hyphenated specifically for search engine promotion and I have the non-hyphenated for word of mouth promotion. Does that make me a spammer? I don't think so.
One of those sites is in my profile. If you look at the keyword combination (part of the company name, BTW) and then look at that site, you'll see that it delivers EXTREMELY relevant and legitimate content to any searcher searching for that phrase.
What's the big deal with focusing on the domain names anyway? ANYTHING you do to manipulate results - obvioulsly, that's exactly what SEO is - could be considered spammy by somebody.
Common sense dictates that a 12 word string of repeated keywords is probably spam, but what really decides it is, is the end content relevant to the search?
Call me a spammer but it allowed me to make sure I would be found on each one of the keywords I liked, not those of the editors. And that made me lots of money.
unfortunately, not quite correct. google has said they object to anything that is intended to (unfairly) manipulate SERPs. knowing that search engines give a lot of weight to keywords in domain names, web developers / SEOs / site owners often register multi-keyword domains with the intention of manipulating SERPs. and let's face it, it works very well.
setting up a simple "holding page" with a link through to your own site (ie, a doorway) works brilliantly in google. it only takes a few minutes per page. top 3 placing is easy with just a line or 2 of content.
i believe (like europeforvisitors) that the google PHDs will reduce or remove the weighting given to domains rather than give any penalties. thing is, we never know what the search engines are going to do until they do it.
I used a 5 keyword hypenated domain:
keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4-keyword5.com
This phrase is a perfect description of what the site is about (not spammy). The site is a content site with lots of valuable content, and only a few affiliate links. I am now top ten for every keyword combination in this phrase:
In other words if you type in:
keyword1 keyword2 or
keyword2 keyword3 or
keyword3 keyword4 etc
into google I come out either number 1 or number 5 or 6 for every combination.
I think there is a simple reason for this:
I got a good dmoz listing (because the site has good content), and the dmoz link uses the name of my site:
(keyword1-keyword2-keyword3-keyword4-keyword5) as the link to my site. So I scored highly for these keywords. Then all the dmoz look-alikes started using my site, so now I have lots of back-links from top PR sites. Plus also have a Yahoo listing. Did not get any other links.
So ... in summary: Hyphenated domains work, are useful if they accurately describe the site, and they help you to get top google rankings.
My own personal take on all this is that I think it would be a mistake to penalize sites in anyway for keywords in domain names (due to shortage of domain names, hyphens in many popular names, etc...). That said, I'm new to this but was actually quite surprised to learn through this board that Google and other engines actually consider the domain name in their algorithim. It seems to me that as more and more of these hyphen names come online, I suspect its only a matter of time before the domain name is not even factored into the page.
Before I became a "webmaster" with my own site and was just a general surfer (god, that was only 8 months ago), I never appreciated long domain names. The reason - they looked cheap. When you hit sites that have stuff like make-million-dollars-today-xxx-xxx.com they have an image of less permeance than if you hit a one word domain name, such as webmasterworld.com. Plus, for return traffic, these multiple keyword domains are a pain. Who wants to type into the address bar a huge keyword domain name? Much easier to type in 10 or so easy to remember characters that make sense.
Finally, there's the thing of email, which was brought up earlier. When I started my site, I wanted a business name that people would remember and would put on a business card. My email address is just as easy to remember as my domain name and is part of it. Who wants to put in their contact list a domain name like bob@xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx.com?
Anyway, just my thoughts on this very interesting thread.
Jim
The site is a large mental health site <snip>. Currently our site has over 2500 pages of solid content and we are the fastest growing and one of the most active mental health sites around.
The thought of being penalized because our URL format may be considered spam is a bit troubling.
I should point out that the actual psychological disorder names are the big keywords for us, but we do get a good amount of traffic from "mental health" searches.
[edited by: Woz at 4:35 am (utc) on Dec. 11, 2002]
[edit reason] no specifics please. [/edit]
Content and inbound links are the two main factors that people really cant "cheat" on, so as long as you have those, you have nothing to worry about.
JOAT
Content and inbound links are the two main factors that people really cant "cheat" on
ROFL!
Excuse me while I wipe the spray of food off my monitor and get back to my content and link spamming. ;)
