[Live Case Study] Taking Google #1 Using $3000 Worth of .net, .org, .us Exact Match Domain Names

[Domainate]

Originally Posted by jstover77

First I will build out a master site. I will target an abundance of terms, but will have 2-5 main keyword that I will target. Next I will will buy 3-5 exact match domains, and duplicate the site multiple times. I will make sure that they are hosted on different IP addys. I will then go in and completely change or spin the content, and html of the site, so that in Google's eyes it is completely a different site. I then do some social bookmarking or Backpage.com ads to get the site indexed fast, throw up some search engine friendly submission directories, and that usually does the trick. If that doesn't work, well then I just start with some article syndication, or press releases. If that doesn't work then I give a bit more love on the off page opt.

I've been considering delving heavily into development with a strategy similar to that. As it is, I have over 2,000 domains already and in many niches already have the 3-5 exact match domains more or less. It's tough since I make plenty on selling the domains as it is and haven't had much success with development in the past, but it seems like exact match domains only get better and better preferential treatment in search algorithms over time.

Looking forward to the results of this experiment.

[BruceN]

Originally Posted by jstover77

I agree. This is a big dah to some of us. Many different factors that go into this though. If it is a highly competitive term and you are just throwing up a garbage landing page many times you won't see any results. But if you build out a website with lots of content, and all your on page is highly targeted to that particular term, you should rank well. Long tialed non competitive keywords...this will work almost every time if you know what you are doing.

This is what I do and it almost always works for me.

First I will build out a master site. I will target an abundance of terms, but will have 2-5 main keyword that I will target. Next I will will buy 3-5 exact match domains, and duplicate the site multiple times. I will make sure that they are hosted on different IP addys. I will then go in and completely change or spin the content, and html of the site, so that in Google's eyes it is completely a different site. I then do some social bookmarking or Backpage.com ads to get the site indexed fast, throw up some search engine friendly submission directories, and that usually does the trick. If that doesn't work, well then I just start with some article syndication, or press releases. If that doesn't work then I give a bit more love on the off page opt.

I also put a link on all of my satellite sites back to master site so in essence you are creating a linkwheel of sort, thus increasing the authority of my master site.

Little bit more to it, but this is the jist of it.

I think this will last a bit longer, but it's only a matter of time before Google squashes it. They have to know this is a sort of loophole in their algo.

Is there an easy/affordable way to host on multiple IP addresses? Do you use multiple accounts with different hosts (in different countries) or a multi IP hosting account like seohosting.com?

[Daniel Brock]

Originally Posted by lisaann

Daniel,

You're going to get ranked easier and faster for whatever the exact keyphrase is for your EMD, but if you want to get top rankings for other related and very similar phrases, it won't be any easier than if you bought a non-EMD.

I like to get lots of traffic, so building a site around one keyphrase isn't really worth it in my opinion, but since it sounds like you know how to research well, you might end up with a decent volume of traffic to your EMD's and I am sure enough to make whatever your goal is.

$3,000 is a lot to spend on just the domain names. In my opinion, you would have been way better off spending that money on content and some link building without the EMD's, but that's just how I do things.

I'm about 6 months ahead of you with a network of about 20 sites (all non-EMDs) that are bringing in over $4,000 a month now, but it would have been interesting to go toe to toe with you!

All the best...

Lisa

Hi Lisa,

Yeah, I realize I will only rank for the term my EMD is about. That is why a lot of these terms have 40K+/m local exact match traffic.

Including global, some of them have 100k exact match.

All of the terms are very buyer oriented - many of which I have a genuine interest in.

$3000 was perhaps a big investment, but I honestly believe that one or two of these sites have the potential of making me that back each month once they are ranked highly.

Also gives me an reason to commit myself to them...knowing that I dropped upwards of $750 each for two of them.

Thanks!
Dan

[christomax]

looks cool! can't wait to see how it turns out!

[52.ct]

Originally Posted by pokerdawg

Daniel,

I've been doing domains for years... I actually started one of the first ICANN accredited registrars... but that's a whole other story...

What I can tell you, in my opinion, is that this is a great strategy, both for SEO and "Type In Traffic" which no one has mentioned in this thread (unless I skimmed over it... if I did, I apologize)

The ".com" version of a domain has value based on its brandability AND the type in traffic expected.

What is "type in traffic"?

A lot of people still don't know how to use the web, user their browsers, etc. I've dealt with CEO's who literally type in www.yahoo.com in the URL bar, hit ENTER, do a Yahoo search for their company and then click the link. It never dawns on them to just go to their site.

on the flip side you have people who "search" by typing in www.IamLOOKINGforTHIS.com

So people do go to the URL bar and type in www.GolfClubs.com if they're looking for Golf Clubs.

Not trying to hijack your topic But keep track of type in traffic (no referrer) vs search ranks and search traffic. The results may surprise you

I read a thread (I don't know if it was here or another forum) with someone who experimented with (gasp) a ".info" domain and he ranked those #1 as well with simple blogs.

FWIW

pokerdawg=>

I looked into type in traffic a few weeks ago. Is there a good formula to calculate type in traffic based keyword search volume?

For example, exact match keyword gets 100k/searches/month according to google's keyword tool. IIRC, you can expect 2% or in this case 2k visits from type in traffic.

I also read that type in traffic can vary across markets.

[Spot the Ball]

Originally Posted by Nametrader.com

He bought 15 domains for $3k, so it's $200 per domain on average, which is NOT a lot per domain (I've lost could of the # of domains I've sold for $1,000+ apiece and have sold a handful at that level in the past month alone). Domains are on the rebound right now after the market cooled off, and that coupled with the internet marketing world finally understanding what exact match domains can do, you won't be finding worthwhile ones for $30 so easily in the near future.

Besides, it's a matter of what keywords are being targeted...a combo of the # of searches on it, CPC/value of the search traffic, ability to convert on the traffic, the SEO competition on the term, etc. The actual value of his $200/domain lot of 15 could be much more per dollar spent than your $30 ones.

Now you put it like that, it adds a whole new slant.

I guess I didnt weigh up the re-sell value and the fact that domain trading in itself can be another avenue for profit on the internet.

[Rolliesworld]

Originally Posted by BruceN

Is there an easy/affordable way to host on multiple IP addresses? Do you use multiple accounts with different hosts (in different countries) or a multi IP hosting account like seohosting.com?

I would also like to know this. I am in Australia and would like to target different audience markets...i.e. Australia, USA, UK, Germany etc.
Apart from latency issues (speed of access from the user's point of view), I am still unclear and undecided whether I should host my websites in each respective country for SEO purposes? Opinions seem to be plenty on whether or not geographical host location has a direct influence on whether or not your site turns up on Google's local SERPs, or whether it would be the same if you used ccTLD's and pointed at the location in Google Webmaster Tools (and hosting anywhere in the world)?
And with .com's it would be a different story altogether, as there is no indication for target country.
So yes, I have also been wondering IP's / dedicated IP's and where to host...I would prefer to host in the US but I may have to host in three locations..??

[Fraggler]

I have found (by accident) that IP location makes a huge difference to appearing in local Google results. I use Host Nine and for one of my accounts I accidently selected a UK IP for that account. I was getting nothing but UK traffic while targeting US users. This turned out very well for me and use it to my advantage all the time now. I have swapped existing accounts over to UK servers too for nearly immediate increases in traffic after further investigation into the origin of the searches.

[Rolliesworld]

Originally Posted by Fraggler

I have found (by accident) that IP location makes a huge difference to appearing in local Google results. I use Host Nine and for one of my accounts I accidently selected a UK IP for that account. I was getting nothing but UK traffic while targeting US users. This turned out very well for me and use it to my advantage all the time now. I have swapped existing accounts over to UK servers too for nearly immediate increases in traffic after further investigation into the origin of the searches.

That is very interesting. So I take it your sites are .com domains?
When you were targeting US traffic, and now getting mainly UK traffic as a result of being hosted in the UK - are you not missing out on the US target audience? Have you given other 'indications' to Google as to your target market other than being hosted in the UK? (i.e. content; british english vs. american english; Google Webmaster Tools setting - target destination; etc)? I just wondered also what would happen if you had your site/s as .co.uk's but hosted in the US...? I have heard others saying that it is not the same result with the target country SERPs...i.e. someone here in this forum once said that they had a .com.au hosted in the US and as soon as they transferred that over to Australia, they appeared on the local (Australian) SERPs within days...which did not happen while hosted in the US.

[Clyde]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

SEOmoz | Google vs. Bing: Correlation Analysis of Ranking Elements

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

FWIW, SEOmoz has already done a test comparing .com, .net, and .org.


.org came out on top of the 3 by a large margin.

This is from the article:

Our interpretation and conclusions:

• If you're aiming for exact match, a .com extension is the way to go. Others aren't nearly as well correlated.
• Bing does seem to appreciate non-dot-com exact matches more than Google, though not tremendously (especially in the case of .org)

[Fraggler]

Originally Posted by Rolliesworld

That is very interesting. So I take it your sites are .com domains?
When you were targeting US traffic, and now getting mainly UK traffic as a result of being hosted in the UK - are you not missing out on the US target audience? Have you given other 'indications' to Google as to your target market other than being hosted in the UK? (i.e. content; british english vs. american english; Google Webmaster Tools setting - target destination; etc)? I just wondered also what would happen if you had your site/s as .co.uk's but hosted in the US...? I have heard others saying that it is not the same result with the target country SERPs...i.e. someone here in this forum once said that they had a .com.au hosted in the US and as soon as they transferred that over to Australia, they appeared on the local (Australian) SERPs within days...which did not happen while hosted in the US.

All content was written using US English (but there is probably some I missed from habit) and was heavily based on Amazon.com products - targeting US consumers. I have put no effort into finding UK based links - purely random. It may have made it harder to rank on Google.com from the UK server but when I saw the traffic coming in I never swapped it back. I just changed my approach to UK products.

The site in question was a .com but I have repeated it with .org and .net.

I didn't touch the GEO Settings in GWT because I don't want to lose the potential of ranking well in Google.com. For the sites that I moved over my rankings there never dropped in Google.com, I just wasn''t getting traffic because the keywords were searched elsewhere (UK). I wasn't ranking in Google.co.uk unti I moved the site.

I also have a .com.au that is hosted in the USA and it ranks fine on Google.com.au. It is for an offline business so it has links with other Australian sites. I'd say a move to an Aussie server would make a difference though.

[zachary0611]

There is a guy who claims (offervault webinar) that onsite seo counts for about 60 percent ranking and backlinks are 40 percent He claims that he has recorded data of over 100,000 websites and weighs what high ranking websites do his information looks good too because he is number 1 for a highly competitive insurance term with no backlinks he is outranking allstate, progressive, geico, and other big compaines

The free info on google seo he gave away was this:
.org counts more than net and com
exact domain match websites rank higher
wordpress is bad for seo
youtube videos on sites rank higher
sites with keyword news feeds rank higher
his sites dont even have privacy policies contact page and etc.

go to offervault if you want to see the webinar

[Jacob Martus]

Originally Posted by zachary0611

There is a guy who claims (offervault webinar) that onsite seo counts for about 60 percent ranking and backlinks are 40 percent He claims that he has recorded data of over 100,000 websites and weighs what high ranking websites do his information looks good too because he is number 1 for a highly competitive insurance term with no backlinks he is outranking allstate, progressive, geico, and other big compaines

The free info on google seo he gave away was this:
.org counts more than net and com
exact domain match websites rank higher
wordpress is bad for seo
youtube videos on sites rank higher
sites with keyword news feeds rank higher
his sites dont even have privacy policies contact page and etc.

go to offervault if you want to see the webinar

Sounds like that guy is a liar to me. Anyone with any kind of real world SEO experience will tell you otherwise on many of those points. .org counts more??? WTF. Wordpress is bad for SEO? Again, WTF. On page SEO matters more than backlinks? A final WTF.

[Rolliesworld]

Originally Posted by zachary0611

.org counts more than net and com
exact domain match websites rank higher
wordpress is bad for seo
youtube videos on sites rank higher
sites with keyword news feeds rank higher
his sites dont even have privacy policies contact page and etc.

go to offervault if you want to see the webinar

What is the title of this webinar? And what's the presenter's name?
It would help to include this info, there were multiple webinars with similar topics.

Wordpress 'bad for SEO'? That surely must have been taken out of context in some way as WP is known to be good for SEO. Maybe he was referring to low quality, badly maintained themes? Similar to websites that were created with some cheap WYSIWYG editors where the source code looks awful...? That's the only thing I can think of.

'youtube videos on sites rank higher' - Videos on sites cannot rank, it is the sites that rank due to various methodologies, one of which might be to have videos on the site. So what is it they are saying...that using Youtube videos embedded on your site is better than using any other video sharing site for the purpose of helping your site rank higher?
My guess is that they meant that using videos in general helps as the stick rate of your visitors (time they spend on your site) may increase, which is one of many factors.

[evollusion]

I've started something similar a month or 2 ago with a single site and I'm seeing some immediate success with it, however I'm working it in reverse order to the way the OP is working.

I found a good EMD .net that was getting about 1.2 million searches a day with about 4.5 million broad based matches. I started by creating a static (simple HTML/CSS) website around the target market (5 articles and 3 product reviews) that I wanted to target. I submitted it to G and for the first week it jumped from around the bottom of page 8 to "much further down" I would go 50 pages deep and couldn't find it sometimes. I have since been told that this is because the domain has to propagate between all of G's different data centers.

The first week that I got the site up and running it was strictly content generation for the site itself. I continued writing on site content and updating my sitemap for that week and on the 10th day I added a storefront for amazon products. Due to unforeseen circumstances I had to stop at this point and work on some other issues. Last week I started hitting the content side again and writing some articles and building very few backlinks. I think I only have 3 or 4 from both article sites and link directories so far. Over the past week and a half I have moved from position 85 or so up to position 31.

I'm working with the logic that I'm going to add more content to the website itself and slowly build some backlinks. As the site gets bigger I am going to start adding more and more backlinks to it. I'm working under the assumption that as a site ages so does G's expectation of the size and number of backlinks. Right now I'm attempting to do 1 article directory article, one forum post out on an authority board/forum, and one targetted link directory submission a day. Next week I'll move to two, the week after that to 3 and so on until either I drop from exhaustion/brain aneurysm or hit above position 5 on page 1 in big G. After that I'm assuming that if I can keep adding content backlinks (steadily and not increasing the number every week) that as my domain ages I'll get up to position 2 or 3. Right up there with amazon, nextag, and some manufacturers websites.

The only reason that I think that this can be accomplished is because of the fact that the guy in position 3 is doing a wordpress site that's not even really that good, nor does it have a great amount of or quality content.

As of right now here are my rankings as put out by Market Samurai
G - broad position 31 - shop page ranked 85
Y - broad position 69
B - broad position 7

G - phrase position 9 (shop is 26)
Y - phrase position 45
B - prhase positoin 6

I've never seen results like this before on any of my websites previously and I'm sure it has something to do with the caffeine upgrade.

[mrdomains]

For me it´s not just about serp placement. I also have a number of EMD´s and while I´m not seeing a humungous difference in serp, I do tend to see better stats than expected based on where I rank.

So, apart from serp results, the exact matching of the listed domain to what people are searching for is attracting a higher percentage of visits.

Just looking at myself, if I do a search, I do tend to check out the EMD´s first, specially if I am doing a product related search.

So here is a question not related just to serp ranking: are you experiencing any benefit from the EMD in matching peoples search and triggering visits to your site?

.com and .net are working better for my product sites and the .org´s are doing better on broader terms and concepts.

[Lothar Evers]

Originally Posted by BruceN

Is there an easy/affordable way to host on multiple IP addresses? Do you use multiple accounts with different hosts (in different countries) or a multi IP hosting account like seohosting.com?

I was quite astonished to see how many different IP Classes I had build over three years on my Dreamhost hosting. One month ago I got a reseller account by another hosting company. They offer to choose from 5 different lokations with several servers (three in the US, one in the UK and one in Asia) for every domain that I want to host. Some web 2.0 properties and free hosting and I get quite an IP mix.
Of course it is important to split up Google analytics and webmaster tools too.
If you need more details, just send me a pm.

[Black Hat Cat]

Originally Posted by mgtarheels

Do a search for "golf", I dare you.

Or car insurance. Or health insurance. Or credit report. Or credit card. Or bad credit. Or debt consolidation. Or home business. Or internet marketing. Etc, etc, etc.

[mybeech]

dan, do we have an update on how you are progressing?
thanks my

[jijaybajay]

can't wait to see the results

[Daniel Brock]

Originally Posted by mybeech

dan, do we have an update on how you are progressing?
thanks my

I'm back!

Thought I would do one last update before my ACL surgery tomorrow because I'll be drugged up and most likely won't be able to work for at least a week.

I have some pretty surprising results!

So far, my TLDs are ranking way better than the .us domains. In fact, so far none of my .us names are ranking in the top 10 page results on Google.

Here are my stats so far:

page 1 rankings = 2 websites, both TLDs

page 2 rankings = 3 websites, all TLD

page 4 rankings = 2 websites, both TLD

page 7 rankings = 1 website, a TLD

page 10 rankings = 1 website, a TLD.

For competition spread, some of my medium competition sites are actually ranking better than some of the ones with lower competition, which is really strange. Seeing how the same exact promotional efforts were done, I don't have a definitive answer as to why.

As for the .us domains, none are placing anywhere yet. While I have no conclusive results yet, I suspect that .us domains don't get any sort of ranking bonuses.

I'll know for sure in a month or so after some more work and time pass.

So far all I have done was submitted articles to each of the sites along with applicable images. For back linking, all I have done so far is some minor social bookmarking and some RSS work.

While I'm away recovering from my operation, I have instructed my VA to continue adding articles to the site.

No affiliate links have been placed yet. I might hold off on that for a month or so until I have a really solid base of content laid out first.

So far so good!

Feel free to ask me any questions, but be warned it might take me some time to respond until after things start to heal up.

[nettech]

Good luck with th op mate!

Zaheer

[JamesF]

Nice, thanks for keeping us posted.. and good luck. $3000 is a fairly big investment!

[designerjack]

Love this whole thread...A lot of great info...

Thanks Daniel you are always doing stuff to help out!!!!

[Sparhawke]

I do not have anything particularly interesting to say here, I just wanted to bookmark this thread

[tmauto]

From my tests, us domains are really difficult to rank. Side by side with others they need so much more effort than others.

[Domainate]

Originally Posted by Daniel Brock

I'm back!

Thought I would do one last update before my ACL surgery tomorrow because I'll be drugged up and most likely won't be able to work for at least a week.

I have some pretty surprising results!

So far, my TLDs are ranking way better than the .us domains. In fact, so far none of my .us names are ranking in the top 10 page results on Google.

Here are my stats so far:

page 1 rankings = 2 websites, both TLDs

page 2 rankings = 3 websites, all TLD

page 4 rankings = 2 websites, both TLD

page 7 rankings = 1 website, a TLD

page 10 rankings = 1 website, a TLD.

For competition spread, some of my medium competition sites are actually ranking better than some of the ones with lower competition, which is really strange. Seeing how the same exact promotional efforts were done, I don't have a definitive answer as to why.

As for the .us domains, none are placing anywhere yet. While I have no conclusive results yet, I suspect that .us domains don't get any sort of ranking bonuses.

I'll know for sure in a month or so after some more work and time pass.

So far all I have done was submitted articles to each of the sites along with applicable images. For back linking, all I have done so far is some minor social bookmarking and some RSS work.

While I'm away recovering from my operation, I have instructed my VA to continue adding articles to the site.

No affiliate links have been placed yet. I might hold off on that for a month or so until I have a really solid base of content laid out first.

So far so good!

Feel free to ask me any questions, but be warned it might take me some time to respond until after things start to heal up.

Great to hear about the progression of it. How high of search/mo were the terms of the page 1 rankings out of curiosity?

[Aussie-Jim]

First post here and great thread! I'm impressed that you're sharing this with the community - I have obviously come to the right place.

A question - how is it progressing? I see the OP was in June and we're now in August.

Cheers!
AJ

[VantageWealth]

Thanks a lot for the time and effort in sharing this

[deuxlai]

Hi Daniel,
May I ask how many keywords are you targeting for each websites? Is it only the EMD keyword or also a few related keywords?

[Cash37]

What happened?

[Cash37]

Any new updates?

[Warren Tibbotts]

Originally Posted by VantageWealth

Thanks a lot for the time and effort in sharing this

I'd be keen to hear the progress.
I guess no news can mean - this exceed my expectations and I would prefer to not tell everyone just how go of this is,
Or it could mean it was pretty much a waste of $3000.

[MarcusEJC]

albertleader22 - are you spamming the forum? Your posts read like they were created using a bad article spinner!

[Adam Roy]

You spent 3k on domain names to do an experiment...

Why not buy a bunch of NOT exact match domains instead...would be a much cheaper test would it not?

Even if your test proves successful, you already said yourself that everybody says 'exact match domains are the best to have', wouldn't you just be proving that statement correct?

I don't understand the point of this experiment?