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The Exact-Match Domain Rush is over

by markowe
24 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I say this slightly tongue-in-cheek, but I recently wanted to get back into creating some microniche sites and having spent hours trawling through 'cabinet door hinges', 'patio lighting fixtures' and 'pink chandeliers' I came to the conclusion that the EMD-rush is basically finished. I am not saying there is not the odd domain still out there that got away - found a few co.uk candidates, a few low-search-volume .orgs, but that's about it, in terms of exact-match microniche domains on the premium TLDs.

It's insane really, ANY keyword you care to choose from the GAKT that has any commercial value at all comes up 'Taken' for .org, .com and .net and surprisingly a lot of the sites are not parked but actually developed. And not as many are Xfactor/Clickbump types as I thought would be - I was doing other stuff when that fever was at its peak, but a lot of these date from before.

So, questions:

1) Am I a whingeing noob (actually, not that much of a noob) and there are actually LOADS of decent microniche EMDs out there, I haven't 'thought out of the box' enough?
2) The GAKT is showing lower search volumes than it should be?
3) Some other possibility?

Or, is the EMD rush over and it's time to start attacking all those 'glassfloortiles.com' sites with proper SEO and decent content, albeit it with a .biz domain or something, now that the vacuum is filled. Which may be what Google has been waiting for all along?
#domain #exactmatch #rush
  • Profile picture of the author Will P
    I would have to agree that many EMD's are taken but on the other hand there are also thousands being released for sale every month. As far as making the job easier goes I personally use and recommend Micro niche Finder. Makes the whole research job a piece of cake IMO.
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    • Profile picture of the author RealEcon
      3 things:

      1.You can buy EMDs cheap that are already developed (in bulk) from people that are just unloading their hoard over on Flippa.

      2. Buy aged domain with possible page rank 1 or 2 that has keyword in it. These are about as cheap as EMDs and you can slam them with backlinks and they dont (google dance) like a new EMD does.

      3. By double EMD domains. gardentoolsgardentools.com or gardentools-gardentools.com. Theres nothing like keyword stuffing domain names;-)
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      • Profile picture of the author JackPowers
        Originally Posted by RealEcon View Post

        3 things:

        1.You can buy EMDs cheap that are already developed (in bulk) from people that are just unloading their hoard over on Flippa.

        2. Buy aged domain with possible page rank 1 or 2 that has keyword in it. These are about as cheap as EMDs and you can slam them with backlinks and they dont (google dance) like a new EMD does.

        3. By double EMD domains. gardentoolsgardentools.com or gardentools-gardentools.com. Theres nothing like keyword stuffing domain names;-)
        Good post.

        The main advantage I see with EMDs are that they bypass the whole 3 month waiting period and jump right in.

        Keyword rich domains, not nessecarily EMDs also work very well, but they still face that pesky 'Google new site' penalty.
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  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    Thanks for the ideas. Certainly not as easy pickings as a few years ago. This also seems like a good opportunity to experiment with less 'valued' TLDs like .info, .biz - should be easy to compete with many of the EMD .coms out there, and a chance to disprove the '.com is king' myth!
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    • Profile picture of the author RealEcon
      You know what Ive been finding is that there are some monster huge niches that are virtually being ignored, because people have been focusing on these "micro niche" keywords. I would almost say that for some of these "barbecue aprons", "brown leather gloves" type keywords there is more competition than the higher traffic keywords. People just got so focused on EMDs with a certain amount of traffic each month, that they didnt even consider the bigger words that they could more easily rank for with aged domains that cost the same amount as EMDs.
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      • Profile picture of the author halfpoint
        There are still plenty of EMD's around and there will continue to be.

        The other day I got an EMD from GoDaddy Auctions for $20 that has 1500 searches a month and $1.50 avg. CPC.

        The domain was already ranking on the first page for the search term, too.

        There are heaps of them around.
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    Just buy a domain with the keyword phrase - they are almost as good. So, go for pinkchandeliersguide.com instead of pinkchandeliers.com. Hmmm... now you've got me thinking that a pink chandelier would look mighty nice in my bedroom.
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    • Profile picture of the author Bingo123
      Originally Posted by cashcow View Post

      Just buy a domain with the keyword phrase - they are almost as good. So, go for pinkchandeliersguide.com instead of pinkchandeliers.com. Hmmm... now you've got me thinking that a pink chandelier would look mighty nice in my bedroom.
      I'd have to agree with this. I do this often. I think all you need is to have the phrase in the url, so it could be something like thebestchandeliersguide.com. When you think of it like that, there are still loads of possibilities out there.
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      • Profile picture of the author markowe
        Originally Posted by Bingo123 View Post

        I'd have to agree with this. I do this often. I think all you need is to have the phrase in the url, so it could be something like thebestchandeliersguide.com. When you think of it like that, there are still loads of possibilities out there.
        Well, the idea of the Xfactor/Clickbump-type approach (and a fair few others) was to go ONLY for exact match domains - no fillers, stopwords etc. At least at the time, this gave you a VERY good chance of shooting onto page one very quickly, and it worked for a while.

        A year or two down the line I am not so sure - I wouldn't be surprised if the Google algo has deemphasised this ranking factor, though having said that I have tried a few stopword-type domains lately and seen them fare very poorly. *shrug* Will report back if I come to any conclusions.
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        • Profile picture of the author Cosmo Demopoulos
          Originally Posted by markowe View Post

          Well, the idea of the Xfactor/Clickbump-type approach (and a fair few others) was to go ONLY for exact match domains . . . .
          Actually, Xfactor NEVER said this in his first or second book. He said to have the keywords in the domain, not EMD only.
          I think EMDs are not as important as they were a mere 8 months ago either.

          They used to rank much easier, but just the keywords in the domain do pretty well after a couple of months usually. And I've got some useless EMDs too

          Amazon does pretty good even though there is no "book" in their name And Google, should they have gone for "searchengine.com" or similar
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  • Profile picture of the author brettb
    People are like sheep, and all the sheep are in the same old niches. There are countless niches with hardly any EMDs in the search results.

    I do think the EMD goldrush is over though, and that we should be focussing on building 100+ page sites that will stand the test of time.
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    • Profile picture of the author markowe
      Originally Posted by brettb View Post

      People are like sheep, and all the sheep are in the same old niches. There are countless niches with hardly any EMDs in the search results.

      I do think the EMD goldrush is over though, and that we should be focussing on building 100+ page sites that will stand the test of time.
      Yes, I think that's really what I was trying to say - all those single-product-based one-page Xfactor/Clickbump-type sites that you can rank page one for really quickly, those types of domain are hard to find. But I think those can also be very quickly displaced with a higher standard of site. So in that sense that little land rush is over, but with a bit of lateral thinking - thinking needs, services etc., I am sure there is plenty of room for still. You are just probably not going to hit page one overnight with them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Biggy Fat
    I'm going to go the opposite of what you guys are saying - there are STILL EMDs out there. You just have to do relentless keyword research. Hell, I'm gonna test dashes in the domain when I can get the money to risk.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Hmmmm. Creating a lot of good content and getting some authority. Just
      like the big boys. What a concept. People who are sheep and complain about google only
      have themselves to blame.

      Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author markowe
        Originally Posted by Biggy Fat View Post

        I'm going to go the opposite of what you guys are saying - there are STILL EMDs out there. You just have to do relentless keyword research. Hell, I'm gonna test dashes in the domain when I can get the money to risk.
        You daredevil you Actually, I would really like to settle the issue of non-.com/.net/.org domains once and for all, but dashes in domain names would come a close second. But I did one (dashed .com) recently that seemed to have potential but has utterly bombed, like, not even in the top-100. No provable connection between that and the dashes of course, but would want to try to eliminate that as a factor (probably just my SEO stinks).

        Anyway, just picked up an EMD .org and .net for the same KWP, 2400 global, and a 2900 global (1900 UK) .net with $0.50-$1.50 CPC. Not saying they aren't out there, just darned hard to find. .com especially of course.

        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        Hmmmm. Creating a lot of good content and getting some authority. Just
        like the big boys. What a concept. People who are sheep and complain about google only
        have themselves to blame.

        Paul
        Well, sure, I agree that is the way the Internet must go in the long term, but there WAS low-hanging fruit out there to be had for a while (and still is if you look hard enough). Wouldn't you like to have got on the bandwagon early and be cashing in on your DoorHingeOil.com and 200 other sites to this day?
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        • Profile picture of the author Doug Pretorius
          Originally Posted by markowe View Post

          Well, sure, I agree that is the way the Internet must go in the long term, but there WAS low-hanging fruit out there to be had for a while (and still is if you look hard enough). Wouldn't you like to have got on the bandwagon early and be cashing in on your DoorHingeOil.com and 200 other sites to this day?
          Nah. I'd rather just add to my big site and send people to EverythingButTheKitchenSink.com/DoorHingeOil and save on the totally unnecessary domain fees and management headache.

          And I have to agree with RealEcon. I've been glancing around at possibilities for my next project and I've already come up with 3 huge markets (1,000,000+ monthly searches) that have all kinds of easy inroads available.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rough Outline
    It might seem like that then you're doing keyword research but you're just not looking in the right places.
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    • Profile picture of the author inter123
      EMDs are out there but how long are you prepared to spend looking? Its going to take ages in which time you could have done something possibly more productive.

      Originally Posted by Rough Outline View Post

      It might seem like that then you're doing keyword research but you're just not looking in the right places.
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      • Profile picture of the author Condorr
        For everyone looking for EMD's, check out my WSO. I'm offering EMD's for $8 each. Is your time worth more than $8 that it'll take to buy one versus searching endlessly?

        Infact, there are still a couple review copies left which means you can pick up an EMD for $4.
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  • Profile picture of the author JackPowers
    Hey guys,

    How many different languages are there in Europe alone? ;-)
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    • Profile picture of the author markowe
      Originally Posted by JackPowers View Post

      Hey guys,

      How many different languages are there in Europe alone? ;-)
      Sure, and there are markets there to consider. But don't think there aren't hungry Internet Marketers there too who haven't snapped up the EMDs left right and centre! Though I can say I have found it a LITTLE easier to find co.uk domains, or EMDs for British-only expressions. And I don't have to learn German either
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      • Profile picture of the author JackPowers
        Originally Posted by markowe View Post

        Sure, and there are markets there to consider. But don't think there aren't hungry Internet Marketers there too who haven't snapped up the EMDs left right and centre! Though I can say I have found it a LITTLE easier to find co.uk domains, or EMDs for British-only expressions. And I don't have to learn German either
        .com is swimming with the sharks, that much is for sure.
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  • Profile picture of the author BaloneyTony
    Personally I think the EMD theory is overblown. It matters, but it's not the end all and be all. Anyway, like others have said here, so many EMDs have been registered in the past few years that lots of them are starting to be released or sold by the owners, so they're not impossible to get, just a little more pricey.
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  • Profile picture of the author terryd
    There are stacks of EMD's that are still out there available to be picked up for under $10.

    Spent about an hour looking for some last night and came across 20 that had one of the main extentions (com,net,org) free and seven of those 20 had between 1000-5000, the rest were between 5000-10000 searches a month.

    I've already got a stack of EMD sites but what I'm doing now is slowly building them up, I keep reading that once you add anywhere from 30-50 pages of content things really start happening so that's what I'm doing now but I'll gladly keep on snapping EMDs up in the mean time.
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