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A website of a client of mine deals with a belgian designer. The name of the designer should be the domain. His name is spelled like "firstname-van-de-lastname".
Lurking around in these forums i've got the impression not to have too many (key-)words in the domain.
But all possible domains containing less keywords, e.g. without the first name, are already booked by others.
What do you think: will it harm if i use the 4 word domain? And do you think i can compete with a 3 word domain like "van-de-lastname"? - As far as i can see websites with related 3 word domains are not very competitive in terms of SEO.
Remark: the site is indexed in the current update ... some pages already showing PR between 4 and 5, others white bar.
Thank you!
What do you think: will it harm if i use the 4 word domain?
My opinion is to go with firstname-blah-blah-surname, simply because it is the designer's name, which has that 'key phrase' wrapped up, essentially.
I've also seen little (well, no) evidence of multiple word domains being penalised, infact recently, there've been quite a few 'spammy' domain names with five or more keywords. This will hopefully change.
Regardless of this, it can't be considered spam by google because its a relevent name & domain, and its important for users to be able to associate the domain with the person, in this case.
Any idea how it will list / rank compared to 3 word domains?
Go ahead and use the long url if that is what you think to be best for the client. Don't worry about this being penalized - it won't. Keyword loaded domains do help in ranking, but only a little bit (this is my opinion, don't take anything as fact). They most likely are not the reason why a given site is ranking high. More important in any given site's high ranking, are the presence of the keyword phrase in the inbound link text, the page's title tag and H tags.
Keyword loaded domains got popular because some engines used to give a big boost to them. Most recently this made a huge difference in the Yahoo Directory, since rendered irrelevant by Yahoo's switch to Google as their primary results last September.
There are a lot of factors, such as keywords in the url, that are easy for anyone to try and game the system with. Google just minimizes the importance of these easy to game factors in their algo, rather than penalizing people. There are plenty of long keyword loaded urls out there in competitive categories that rank well because of other more important factors like inbound links.
I did what you recommended like keyword phrases in inbound link text, page's title tag and H tags, rich content btw - most of which i guessed to work well before joining WebmasterWorld - and after joining feeling confirmed about :)
Also, it sounds like your client is not the designer himself, so you they don't really have the right to own that name. They could end up losing the domain altogether sometime down the road.
Keyword Rich Domains [webmasterworld.com]
Watch out, it's 152 replies long! ;)
Doesn't look that nice but it was the only way I could think of doing it when we needed the brand name and service in the url.
we actually have a shorter domain for humans but this domain doesn't fit exactly the relevant keywords. The longer one we've choosen to submit to SEs, the shorter one is not submitted. I hope it works that way. Wonder what happens if i get inbound links anchoring only the short domain name ... (and fortunately i'm getting some 'unforced' incoming links :)
The designer is involved so your second hint should'nd be a problem concerning my site, thanks anyway.
page1results:
I've studied the thread you mentioned - quite long :o - but came out without a decisive conclusion therefore asked here.
As far as i understood now there's no danger to go with my 4 word domain because it's the true name of the designer.
BTW i have made good experience with 2 and 3 word domains before. They all are names or topic-relevant phrases, but no 'senseless' combination of keywords alone.
I hope it works that way. Wonder what happens if i get inbound links anchoring only the short domain name ... (and fortunately i'm getting some 'unforced' incoming links.
To be on the safe side, you should set up a 301 permanent redirect for the short domain name if that is the one you are treating like a step child.
There may be a chance of duplicate content if both domains are returning a 200 status code. I would make it a point not to promote the short domain for the main reason you state above. People will link to it if they know it is there.
We have a 301 permanent redirect for the short one.
But - because english is not my first language - what is a 'step child'? Is it a child trying hard like stepping to reach something?
And as i thought so far - even people linking to my site with a short name (containing the most important keyword out of 3) would contribute something good to my site. Wrong?
what is a 'step child'?
It's an old American expression. The general meaning being that a step child does not get as much attention as a blood related child (family).
And as i thought so far - even people linking to my site with a short name (containing the most important keyword out of 3) would contribute something good to my site.
Your assumption is correct. But, in this case, you have two domains pointing to the same site. Google has been pretty good about merging content and PR to one or the other.
I personally would not want to take the chance. I would use one or the other and make sure that links are pointing to the main domain and not the one set up for type in traffic or traditional marketing promotion (printed materials).
Since this is not my area of expertise, I'm going to ask one of the other more experienced members to provide a response to the duplicate content issues if there are any.
Some time ago, this might have caused penalities. I believe Google has changed something to compensate for this and merges the two together. Problem is, which of the two domains will Google keep in its index?
P.S. Since you have a 301 in place for the short domain, Google should index the primary domain. Now, what about the other SE's, are they as efficient as Google in doing this?
But what you explain further is very interesting for me besides a little bit OT from this 4-word-domain thread's subject maybe ...
I have another site with two domains: the submitted one is keyword1-keyword2.com because everybody knows - and uses - those keywords and phrase. The not submitted one is companyname.de which is much less common to public. But the latter is used in offline promotion. So i try to get incoming links like 'companyname-keyword1-keyword2.com' (or other sequence) which doesn't work all the time. I get links with just 'companyname.de'.
As i understood your last post that might not be good with no-Google-SEs and even with Google? - If so i've made some mistakes.
<edited to fix spelling>
