'THE' in a domain name

12 years ago

I don't believe that starting the name with "the" has any negative effect with either SEO or click through rate, I have worked on sites with and without it and have managed to rank both of them with the same amount of effort, based on keyword competition of course.

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marketinguk

12 years ago

It has absolutely no bearing whatsoever in terms of rankings. In theory you could have a domain with 100 words in it and it could rank high in the search engines. Buy with confidence if you have found a domain that you like the look of for developing it. However, of course i wouldn't recommend you to buy a domain with 100 words in it as it won't look good and people won't click as much in all likelihood. However, the examples you have given shouldn't make a difference in terms of either issues, that looks fine.
Joel

Originally Posted by Wiesiu

I'd love for someone with experience to tell me whether starting a domain name with the word 'THE' will have any impact on.. anything - Google ranking, likelihood of people clicking on it, etc?

E.g. thegreatestmanalive.com vs. greatestmanalive.com

Thanks!

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UMS

12 years ago

Has no real impact unless you were creating a domain for a book/movie title that has the word "the" in it.

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BarryOnline

12 years ago

As above.

It's absolutely fine to have 'the' in your domain name.

I have sites ranking #1 for fairly competitive keywords with a domain name that starts wih 'the'.

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usmantech

12 years ago

I also believe it doesnt have any effect on SEO. It only lengthens the domain name by three letters and that is all about it.

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sbucciarel

Banned 12 years ago

As far as Google is concerned, it is one of the words that they ignore, so thedomainname is the same as domainname to Google. I use because it's far better than superduperdomainname or thisisthegreatestdomainname.

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elexmedia

12 years ago

Yes, it has no impact with SEO nor with CTR.

But... Sean Parker in the Social Network movie said:
"Drop the "The." Just "Facebook." It's cleaner..."

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TheArticlePros

12 years ago

Let me do the un-popular thing here and tell you that everyone else is wrong on this one. Unless the word "the" is one of your keywords, it lowers your exact match score in the algorithm. Google's programming reads the domain from left-to-right, meaning that it's looking for matching words starting at the left side of the domain name. The last time I checked the GKWT (last night), I don't remember seeing any keywords at all that started with the word "the."

Hopefully you'll listen to everyone else, though, and buy up as many domains that start with "the" as possible and I'll get the real ones that rank better.

-- j

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theultimate1

12 years ago

Originally Posted by JaRyCu

Hopefully you'll listen to everyone else, though, and buy up as many domains that start with "the" as possible and I'll get the real ones that rank better.

-- j

Maybe he's adding the "the" at the front because the domain names without the "the" aren't available!?!

While what you say about Google reading domain names from left-to-right holds merit, that one factor won't kill it. About.com (I know it's an age-old immortal authority site blessed by the Gods) ranks for bazillions of keywords that are not part of the domain name. The point I'm trying to make is that one factor won't kill his website's ranking potential. It might deter it a teeny weeny bit; and that is situational on what he plans to do with the site... thin site or massive, content-fed authority site.

'Nuff Said, I guess

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TheArticlePros 12 years ago

Originally Posted by JaRyCu

it lowers your exact match score in the algorithm

Originally Posted by theultimate1

While what you say about Google reading domain names from left-to-right holds merit, that one factor won't kill it.

I quoted the part of my post that you missed. I said it lowers the score. I agree with you that it won't kill it. My point is this: Why make an easy task harder by adding in unnecessary things?

About.com (I know it's an age-old immortal authority site blessed by the Gods) ranks for bazillions of keywords that are not part of the domain name.

About.com has an advantage over the OP: It's an authority site. Once you have a properly-built authority site that's over 30 pages in length, it becomes exponentially easier to rank for keywords that aren't optimal.

Case in point: I own theandroidappshq.com, which violates 2 of my rules: It has "the" in front and "hq" at the end. I wanted to rank for "Android apps." I bought the domain my 2nd day in IM, after deciding that I didn't need to read and learn. (I originally bought it in Dec 2010.) I proceeded to write a new post every 2-3 days about various apps and news in the Android world, and then I'd submit those to 15 different Web 2.0 properties, including Reddit, StumbleUpon, and a few other sites.

At first, nothing happened, but traffic grew as my post count grew. Then I discovered a hack who sells WSOs (my first experience with the WF actually) and I put an auto-blogger plugin into the site. I also ran an RSS feed puller, and a YouTube poster. Then I just let it run. I checked it a month later and it had 1000 posts and was getting a thousand hits per day. It was ranking for all kinds of keywords, including a lot of non Android-related ones.

Unfortunately, I didn't know how to monetize a site, so I didn't make any money on it. Then I learned how auto-blogging was bad, so I ended up erasing the WP installation and starting over again with the site. Now it has 1-2 posts and I haven't done anything with it in months.

My point is, if you are building an authority site or plan to use a traffic plan that doesn't involve SEO, put whatever you want into the domain name. If you're going strictly for SEO, though, only put the words that matter: your keywords.

'Nuff Said, I guess

Yup.

-- j
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theseoproz 12 years ago

Is "the" not a stop word that is ignored?
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BarryOnline

12 years ago

Keywords in the domain hold very little weight now.

Google has been well aware of the unfair weight given to exact keyword match domains and has closed this old loophole. In fact, Matt Cutts (the head of Google’s web spam team) talked about this very point over a year ago. Back then they were looking closely at "turning the dial down" on the unfair ranking awarded to keyword rich domains.

Google may read from left to right but that does not mean they put more weight on the first word, at least not in a domain name.

The Google algorithm is constantly being tweaked, updated and improved. It does not need to look at the keyword in a domain name any more to find out the relevancy to a search query or use that as a signal to increase the ranking of a site.

Keyword rich domains are appearing less and less in the search results because Google puts more weight on branding signals and other ranking factors. There is now such a thing as an over optimization penalty so going over board with exact keywords is a signal to Google of ranking manipulation.

My last 4 sites had NO keyword in the domain and hit page one very quickly because I know what Google is looking for where and best to focus my SEO. A Keyword rich domain name is no longer important.

How important is it to have keywords in a domain...

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fin

12 years ago

I agree that exact match domains don't hold any weight, because I search a lot and don't see much ranking so high.

I'm sure Google knows by now they are spam sites out for the sole purpose of making money while providing little value.

I still think a branded name is much better.

Saying that, my favorite site is The Blonde Abroad

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theultimate1

12 years ago

Bringing another aspect to this, probably the word "THE" could say... Hey there reader, I am THEKeywordExpert.com, I'm an authority in Keyword and all things related to it.

For this to happen however, there are other factors... starting with superb content on the site. Next comes presentation of that content. Think UxD and Web Analytics.

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Gsdlady

12 years ago

I think having the word "The" in your domain name depends on the website and the content. Will your content be optimized for the word "The"? Just having it in your domain name would not make a difference unless it is associated with your website content.

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prismkuet

12 years ago

Better not to use that to give a clean look of the name. But if you do, it does not have any direct effect as far I know. But what JaRyCu told, also give a point to think for me also. May I ask, what the extra benefit you are expecting using the in the name?

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Wiesiu

12 years ago

Thanks Guys,
The thing is that I've found a great, popular keyword in an area that I have personal interest and knowledge in but the .com, .net and .org domains are all being squatted on without any websites. And there's only 1 authority site on Google's first page of results.So it's a matter of either putting 'THE' at the front or something like an 'X' or 'REVIEW' at the end of the domain name. To me 'THE' seems a lot cleaner and the domain name remains a logical phrase.

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TheArticlePros

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Wiesiu

Thanks Guys,
The thing is that I've found a great, popular keyword in an area that I have personal interest and knowledge in but the .com, .net and .org domains are all being squatted on without any websites. And there's only 1 authority site on Google's first page of results.So it's a matter of either putting 'THE' at the front or something like an 'X' or 'REVIEW' at the end of the domain name. To me 'THE' seems a lot cleaner and the domain name remains a logical phrase.

Never put an "x" on the end and never add another word. Again, if you're trying to max out your "SEO points," add a single letter to the end of the domain and that will do the least amount of harm.

How do I know? I have a mentor with 200+ niche sites, all ranking in the Top 3, who used to work for a certain search engine and still knows people there.

-- j

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JerrickYeoh

12 years ago

Try not to use "the" if possible unless the domain keywords without "the" been taken .
Then you have no choice, to be honest that go with "the" rather than put (-) in the domain name .
Exact match keywords usually might take priority , and how you overtake the his SERP ranking is depend on the quality of your content.
Optimize too hard might just face Google Penguin penalize
"The" might be help you to target another niche. I think it not big deal with the "the" in the domain.

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'THE' in a domain name

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