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Does ANYONE know?

by jackbp
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
OK you've got a hot keyword. Let's call the hot keyword "Honeybee Hive".

You go to Go Daddy or Name Cheap or whatever name registrar you want and find out that honeybeehive.com is already taken. So you decide to add a "Stop Word" to the end and you get honeybeehiveTODAY.com

Does anyone know authoritatively what the penalty for adding a "stop word" either prior to or after a desired keyword phrase is?

I'm not looking for conjecture here....I'm looking for actual testing or experience or any other methodology that would verify a differential in ranking between honeybeehive.com (or any other 1st tier names IE "Net..."org") and a keyword phrase with a stop word attached like honeybeehivetoday.com.

Thanks in advance
  • Profile picture of the author mediasurgeons
    Hey Jack,

    I've used exact match domains and stop words and can honestly say it makes sod all difference if you know what you're doing.

    Although I've never really tested it I have noticed that the stop word makes a bit of difference. "Today" for example seems to take longer to rank whilst something like "hub" or "tips" seems to go along at the same pace. Coincidence? Probably.

    The other option you have is adding a letter at the front or the end of the domain i.e honeybeehivex.com. These are crawled as exact match domains anyway so makes no odds (this is my experience, I'm sure someone will come along claiming they read differently elsewhere).

    Exact match domains are effective when the niche is really weak (like a few backlinks to each site) but if you're playing with big boy keywords then it doesn't matter what the domain is really.

    Not sure this has been explained that clearly but feel free to PM me with any other questions you have.
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  • Profile picture of the author kposs
    I've done testing with local keyword phrases. I was trying to rank 10 different domains names for the same keyword.

    The exact keyword ranked fastest and highest. All of my other domains, regardless of the additional word, took longer to rank, but many of them did eventually rank on page 1 and 2.

    If you do not get an exact domain, then you're not going to get the ranking advantage for the exact domain, even if you add stop words (and I don't think you get the advantage with dashes although I did not test that specifically).

    For my other domains, I also noticed that aged domains ranked faster than new domains. So when I am not able to get an exact domain, I will often search the GoDaddy auctions for an aged domain and use that for the new site.
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    • Profile picture of the author jackbp
      Thanks to jacobjoseph and kposs....you've both given me an additional insight to the SEO game that everyone seems intent upon playing.

      kposs has the same results I've had with regard to "Domain Age". A purchased domain name with the exact or close keyword appears to do much better....especially if it already has some traffic attached.

      ....and jacobjoseph.....tips, tricks, manual, info, etc "DO" seem to do better than just any stop word. This leads me to believe there is some weighting in regard to more commonly used stop words than stop word that may make a whole lot of sense but have not been used as much. Hmmmm....this might be a small part of the ultimate solution...lol.

      Thanks for your time and input............

      Jack
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