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Exact Match Domains Dead?

by BigMoneyRockstar
11 replies
  • SEO
    • |
How about the news from Dori Friend that exact match domains are dead...

According to Dori, "Oh and for the most part "Exact Match Domains" are history. There are some exceptions of course, but unless they are a .com and have age and size, they have been pushed back into the nowheresville just for being an exact match domain."

Google's Matt Cutts was reported to say that they will be taking a look at "Exact Match Domain" names and that he thinks right now having an exact match domain is giving a site too much power in the ranks and that this will be revealed in the coming months.

Wow, this could spell disaster for those of us building those easy sniper sites.

What say you George Brown, Chris Guthrie and Dr. Veit U.B. Schenk?
#dead #domains #exact #match
  • Profile picture of the author Michael Shook
    You need good content on your sites. There used to be a little boost just for having an EMD, I have not seen that for a while.

    Many EMD's limit what kind of topic you can have content about on your site, just be being an EMD. Not all of them for sure, but in many cases this is true.

    Content, links that are decent and content (did I say that already) have always driven rankings. And now even more so.

    It is really time now to quit worrying about this comp for this EMD vs that comp for another EMD. Just pick something and get your site up and fill it with good content.
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    • Profile picture of the author magicmarcus
      i think it all depends on the keyword you are after.

      i still have some exact match domains that rank and all i did was install wordpress... no content or anything.

      remember if there's only 9 people competing for a term... your guaranteed a top ten ranking... and there are lots of low competition words available.

      i find exact match to be almost guaranteed on exact phrase counts less than 10K or even 30K.

      search engines cant really ban exact domain... they can just change the weight they carry.
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  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    You should really post this in the SEO/Adsense forum. There have been plenty of threads on this subject, but my feeling is that this is a done deal - EMDs no longer give you the advantage they once did. That was a genuine, bona-fide loophole in the algorithm and I believe it's closed now. However, I don't see that existing EMDs have lost rankings. Not my competitors, anyway :/
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  • Profile picture of the author Slickest
    This would be alarming news - but - do you ever think that google is just messing with us by putting out misinformation? We all scramble to keep up with the next 'new' thing, and find that the old school - good relevent content - sites just rumble along as usual.
    Maybe we should just build GRC sites instead of quick and dirty.
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  • Profile picture of the author matt5409
    thing is - exact match domains are absolutely no different to any other domain. they just HAPPEN to be the same as a key phrase.

    i have found it marginally easier to rank for exact key phrases when my domain matches but without a load of content and link building i would still have no hope.

    If google does put less importance on EMD then the people who use them just to score easy rankings will just have to adapt and not rely on them so much.
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  • Profile picture of the author jackpot9
    The other very important advantage of having exact match domain names is that generally click through rates for them are higher.

    Let's say you've an exact match domain ranking on #2 for that keyword. It may be likely that the amount of traffic you receive is either only sightly lower, comparable or (if you're so darn good with the site description) even higher than your competitor in #1 position.

    No conclusive evidence, but that's just what i've found with some of my own websites.

    Something to ponder on?
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  • Profile picture of the author dtang4
    This isn't true.

    I just launched a domain less than 1 month ago with 2 keywords in it (separated by a dash). I've been trying to rank the an older site for the first keyword for months with a lot of SEO effort. So far, it's only made it to page 2. For the domain I launched last month, with barely any SEO, it's already on page 3. This is a keyword with 10MM global monthly searches and 140MM search results.
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    • Profile picture of the author Chris Sorrell
      Typical load of BS from google's misinformation team. There's loads of exact domain name keywords matches that I've been looking at in the last couple of days that are ranking high with hardly any links and that's been the case for a long time now. I don't believe a word they come out with. An exact domain name keyword match with original, optimized content and good backlinks will always rank well after a while. Four hundred algorithm changes a year or not, that's never gonna change.
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      • Profile picture of the author markowe
        Originally Posted by dtang4 View Post

        This isn't true.

        I just launched a domain less than 1 month ago with 2 keywords in it (separated by a dash). I've been trying to rank the an older site for the first keyword for months with a lot of SEO effort. So far, it's only made it to page 2. For the domain I launched last month, with barely any SEO, it's already on page 3. This is a keyword with 10MM global monthly searches and 140MM search results.
        That's pretty good I guess, but it's a far cry from the old phenomenon where your site would shoot straight to page one just on the strength of the EMD. I am sure it still has plenty of juice, just maybe not like before.

        Originally Posted by sorrellaff View Post

        Typical load of BS from google's misinformation team. There's loads of exact domain name keywords matches that I've been looking at in the last couple of days that are ranking high with hardly any links and that's been the case for a long time now. I don't believe a word they come out with. An exact domain name keyword match with original, optimized content and good backlinks will always rank well after a while. Four hundred algorithm changes a year or not, that's never gonna change.
        I'm not really going by what Google say, I am going by my recent experience, that these EMDs are not shooting to the top like they used to. The ones you see around have some age to them, we are talking about NEW EMDs here.

        I definitely hope you are right about this, because I have had some frustration lately with getting these to rank and hope it's just a time factor thing...
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  • Profile picture of the author echin
    To rank well and for the sake of your long term business you always never rely on one thing to rank well. You should have good content, seo, maketing strategies, paid advertising and etc for business to survive long term. This is nothing new having mutiple pillars will make your business stronger,
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