Long domains considered spammy google

[bastik]

When targeting a long-tail keyword of four or five words, I have more difficulties in ranking for a phrase-variation, than if using a more general word.
Is that only, because I am targeting a specific keyword, or is Google considering longer domains as spammy?

Thanks in advance!

[salegurus]

Without more specifics about your domain name or keywords i can only give info on my results:
1) Having exact match domain name matching your main keyword helps a lot, there are people who will disagree, they are entitled to their opinions.
Of course you can rank any keyword but you will have to put in a lot more SEO work.
2) I stick to 1-3 word domain names rather than "How to stop dog digging" don't know if G penalizes domain names with 3+ words but then how many of those do you see on page one?

Not exactly sure what you mean by "ranking for a phrase-variation" but generally it's easier to rank for long tail keywords as the competition is lower.

[Giani]

I have used 3-5 words domain and able to rank on Google. So I don't think these are spammy.

.

[John Hocking]

Here is a good article about the lenngth of domain names.
Domain Name Length - Long Domain Names vs. Short Ones in the Search Engines

In general it is best to get one that has a keyword that describes your site and is as short as possible.

Godady enforces a 63 character limit on domain names.

[bastik]

Thank you for the helpful answers. I am going to set up a german-site and the domain name I am planning to use will be a 21 character domain.
I hope that this is okay with Google.

[Ldimilo]

Bastik,

One of the things you should definitely think about is the branding angle for your website. While SEO's will clamor on about how quickly and easily it is to rank a website with a keyword specific domain, you may actually pigeon hole yourself and have to depend almost exclusively on search rankings.

...which in this marketer's opinion, is not a good thing.

[supreme]

Originally Posted by bastik

When targeting a long-tail keyword of four or five words, I have more difficulties in ranking for a phrase-variation, than if using a more general word.

Thanks in advance!

Keyword variation depends on the variation of your linking text from external links.. e.g. If you get back links for a long-tail keyword like "Keyword Research Tool" you might rank high for that keyphrase but not similary rank for a shorter relative e.g "keyword research" you might need to get backlinks with linking text on your second target keyword.

Always have a list
Primary keyword 1, 2,3
Secondary Keyword 1,2,3,4,5

then do competition analysis for each
later one you can determine the level of work involved to rank for each keyword

hope that helps

[JamesGw]

I think you see fewer long domains because there is less competition for those keywords. Websites with long domains also have weak branding most of the time.

[paulgl]

I guess icanhascheezburger.com just did not get the memo from
any of you experts.

Where do people keep getting this stuff?

You want as short a url as makes a type in cool. Like zoosk or kayak.

Like a one word domain can't be spammy. Right.

But for SEO? The whole point is search engine, not type in.
It just does not matter. How does a so-called search engine
decide what is a spammy domain? And how cares? Like a
search engine thinks, gee, too many words.

I think you people need to look up the definition of spam
to begin with.

Paul

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Ldimilo

Bastik,

One of the things you should definitely think about is the branding angle for your website. While SEO's will clamor on about how quickly and easily it is to rank a website with a keyword specific domain, you may actually pigeon hole yourself and have to depend almost exclusively on search rankings.

...which in this marketer's opinion, is not a good thing.

That's not seo's saying that, it's the folks that think EMDs are the holy grail & that it's superior to actually doing real seo work on your domain/pages.

They think it's how you seo an entire site.

Rank the page not the site!

[strategic seo services]

Originally Posted by bastik

When targeting a long-tail keyword of four or five words, I have more difficulties in ranking for a phrase-variation, than if using a more general word.
Is that only, because I am targeting a specific keyword, or is Google considering longer domains as spammy?

Thanks in advance!

One of my domains is 6 words long, and it has 5 dashes. It's only a couple of years old & it's ranking on page 1 of Google for 10 different highly competitive keywords. So no, I don't think that Google considers longer domains spammy.

[bastik]

Originally Posted by supreme

Keyword variation depends on the variation of your linking text from external links.. e.g. If you get back links for a long-tail keyword like "Keyword Research Tool" you might rank high for that keyphrase but not similary rank for a shorter relative e.g "keyword research" you might need to get backlinks with linking text on your second target keyword.

Always have a list
Primary keyword 1, 2,3
Secondary Keyword 1,2,3,4,5

then do competition analysis for each
later one you can determine the level of work involved to rank for each keyword

hope that helps

Thanks a lot, this was exactly the answer, I have been looking for.