Which domain naming strategy will make Google page 1 more achievable?

[leclaims]

Based on your own experience, what is the better strategy?

Promoting a "authority site" sub page that contains the keyword in the file name but not the actual domain name, or creating and promoting a mini site with the keyword directly in the domain name?

So...

www .generaldomainname. com/keyword.htm

Or...

www .keyword1. com

[mmaeb]

depends on what your overall stratergy is?
if its a themed site then that will work as long at its within the desired theme and I'm talking keyword themes here
.keyword.com will beat a sub domain every day of the week in my experience

[Wesley Atkins]

Hard to give an accurate answer, but here is my 2 cents.

It solely depends on how much authority the authority site has..

For example...

Lets say the authority site has a PR5 for instance and has been in Google for say 5 years with a good history and gets spidered and cached regularly, then creating a long tail page with covers your keyword would be the better option..

...Just a handful of backlinks to this internal page on the example above could ensure a top ranking in Google in 24 hours.

However, starting a new domain from scratch can take weeks / months to rank highly..

[N4PGW]

I can't tell you from direct experience, but I can tell you what I have learned from teachers of IM. Those who preach "DomainNameKeyword.com" say they have confirmed this approach by testing and lots of experience.

Of those with whom I have had direct communications with after having acquired their courses, and whose courses teach "GeneralDomainName.com", three out of five later said to forget that approach and use "DomainNameKeyword.com" because it gives far better results.

The forth one who holds to his teaching, teaches a little different approach. It is to use subdomains as part of your title. For example, TheBestLawyer.InDallasTx.com.

Likewise, the fifth, who really didn't answer the questions I asked, uses a similar approach to the forth. He thinks he is fooling Google by using imitation .com addresses. i.e. BestLawyerInTexas.com-info.com Personally, I think the only ones he is fooling, other than himself, are a few people who see the results in the search and probably don't care what extension the domain is anyway.

My conclusion is that the easiest sites to rank page one for a given keyword, are sites mostly dedicated to that keyword and contain the keyword in the domain name. That is not to say others can't rank, or out rank the keyworddomainname.com if it is better SEO.

I have a general domain name that I am re-purposing. My tactic is to choose one keyword and focus on it for about 3 months, then add a second for a similar period, and so on. It is more sentimental value than anything else.

FWIW
Buck

[SirHarrrison]

Originally Posted by leclaims

Based on your own experience, what is the better strategy?

Promoting a "authority site" sub page that contains the keyword in the file name but not the actual domain name, or creating and promoting a mini site with the keyword directly in the domain name?

So...

www .generaldomainname. com/keyword.htm

Or...

www .keyword1. com

You definitely want to target your main keyword in your domain. I have mine setup like...www.keywordway.com I had to add way because somebody else already stole the domain i wanted.

[MadameBusiness]

I love that - "stole the domain I wanted"
I would go with keyword in the domain every time.

[kathiemt]

If it's a brand new site, then keyword in the domain every time. If an existing site, then keyword subpage to the main domain.

[dv8domainsDotCom]

definitely second the keywordinthename.com ; as close to precise keyword as you can; I'm preferential towards hyphens (keyword-inthename.com) or mixtures of adjectives when not available.
This gives you flexibility also to explore micro-niches of that keyword "theme" as sub-pages (ie; keyword.com/keyword-review.html, keyword.com/buy-keyword.html) and maintain same domain (and ALSO register the niche-specific alternatives if they might turn to be profitable. Unique content on each). The specific domain typically will outrank the domain/pagename.html combo, and in some cases if you're lucky maybe they'll share P1?

[leclaims]

Thanks for the input folks, much appreciated. So far it seems that the more popular strategy is using the keyword in the domain name itself.

I've actually got both strategies implemented at the moment for a specific keyword. Just wasn't sure which one I should focus on so I though I would get some opinions. I suppose I'll keep promoting both of them and see which one performs better. Might have some interesting findings that I can report to everyone.

[tpw]

Definitely depends on your goals...

Keep in mind that if you go with www.keyword.com, then it will be hard to escape your niche, without getting a new website...

This is the reason I always prefer to go with www.AuthorityName.com/keyword.php

It has been my experience that I can out-SEO any webmaster who gets the Keyword in the domain name...

In the absence of serious competition, the keyword in the domain name may be enough...

But against serious competition in the niche, the keyword in the domain name will not help you overcome your competition easily or quickly...

[mmaeb]

providing you put the same amount of effort into backlinking both then keyword.com should rise, there will be little difference in the outcome if you are doing the same for both, have a think about it, how could there be?

I want to clarify mine and tpw posts, at first glance they may appear to oppose eachother-however after a quick chat I think we both agree that if you can match the backlinks on similar properties for both sites then keyword.com should just nab the lead,

As he rightly points out the name itself will not give the domain authority for the keyword alone - in this case you have both domains (what your testing and why I dont know) but if it was an authority site who had somename.com/keyword then you are going to have to do the leg work and match it for links (not just 10k each, it requires the same amount of pr links and so forth) as well as onsite seo, yes it would be hard and could take years but it is do-able