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How influential is a domain name?

by chrowe
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
With all of the changes to Google's algorithms over the past several years, how important is it to have your domain name exactly match your selected keyword? Would a site still be able to rank well with only a partial keyword?

This is all assuming that there is low competition for that particular keyword in the first place.
#domain #influential
  • Profile picture of the author vishwa
    A Domain Name doesn't make any effect on your SEO Strategies.
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    • Profile picture of the author kilgore
      I think Amazon.com does pretty well in SEO even though they don't sell rain forests.
      Apple.com does pretty well even though they don't sell fruit.
      Kayak.com does pretty well even though they don't sell watercraft.
      And Twitter.com does pretty well even though they don't sell... ummmm... twits?

      Seriously though, rather than worrying about SEO, pick a name that people like. Build a site that people like, use and share. It's what the search engines want you to do anyway.
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      • Profile picture of the author IO Cape Town
        Originally Posted by kilgore View Post

        I think Amazon.com does pretty well in SEO even though they don't sell rain forests.
        Apple.com does pretty well even though they don't sell fruit.
        Kayak.com does pretty well even though they don't sell watercraft.
        And Twitter.com does pretty well even though they don't sell... ummmm... twits?

        Seriously though, rather than worrying about SEO, pick a name that people like. Build a site that people like, use and share. It's what the search engines want you to do anyway.
        I don't really agree with you.You can have a nice website with nice content but if nobody knows where to find you.. It's all for nothing. And since the best place to hide a dead body is Google page number two.. I think SEO is pretty important. Either way it's helping my business a lot! And my personal experience is that the domain name does matter! But nobody knows this for sure..
        Good Luck!
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        • Profile picture of the author paulgl
          Originally Posted by IO Cape Town View Post

          I don't really agree with you.You can have a nice website with nice content but if nobody knows where to find you.. It's all for nothing. And since the best place to hide a dead body is Google page number two.. I think SEO is pretty important. Either way it's helping my business a lot! And my personal experience is that the domain name does matter! But nobody knows this for sure..
          Good Luck!
          That's too funny.

          You are putting the cart before the horse.

          You are saying that in order for twitter to be successful, they had to choose twitter.com
          A big book seller needed to choose amazon.com
          and so on.

          Far from it. Nobody in their right mind is going to pick a domain name like,
          oh say ebay and think, yeah! That domain is going to make all the difference
          in the world! I can't help but be great with that domain name! Well, what the
          frick is an ebay? What the frick is a zillow? bing?

          If great companies start out with nothing but a domain name, they are going
          to fail. But great companies don't give a rat's tail about domain names.

          Hence, you get a kick butt travel site calling itself kayak.com instead of
          greattraveldeals.com......and kick butt real estate sites calling themselves
          trulia and zillow....if they listened to us fools, they'd run out and get
          realestate.com or any morphing. But they don't.

          I'll show my age and how long I've been around, but man I remember pets.com
          being the biggest failure at the time in dot coms. How could that be, right?
          I mean they had a great domain....pets.com, man I am rolling because I
          am thinking of what a complete, laughable, dismal failure that piece of crap was.

          Paul
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          If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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    • Profile picture of the author 1SEOcom
      Originally Posted by vishwa View Post

      A Domain Name doesn't make any effect on your SEO Strategies.
      Create a domain name based off your brand. Make sure it is brand-able, domain name will have no effect on your SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author kapaionutz
    Nobody can tell this for sure.
    except the ppl who made the Google algorithm
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    • Profile picture of the author chrowe
      Originally Posted by kapaionutz View Post

      Nobody can tell this for sure.
      except the ppl who made the Google algorithm
      Alright so basically what I'm getting from this is that I should just choose a brandable domain and focus on other SEO strategies?
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO Power
    Registering a domain name containing your exact keywords in the same order used to form the basis of a good SEO strategy, but now, it's no longer nearly as important as it was. Ever since the EMD updates, sites no longer receive much benefit (if any) from having their target keywords in their domain names SEO-wise.

    Of course, websites can rank well with partial match domain names. I've read some niche site case studies where partial match domains were used and the sites in the properly executed case studies ranked well just as any normal site would.

    Nowadays, the best types of domain names to register are branded and partial match domain names.
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  • Profile picture of the author patco
    For me, it's one of the most important things... Especially if it's a good and strong keyword and you get the EMD, with a few QUALITY articles you can reach #1-10 without so many problems!
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    • Profile picture of the author kilgore
      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

      That's too funny.

      You are putting the cart before the horse.

      You are saying that in order for twitter to be successful, they had to choose twitter.com
      A big book seller needed to choose amazon.com
      and so on.
      I think you totally missed my point, which was that domain names don't matter at all. (OK, maybe not at all, but they certainly don't have to have anything to do with what your website is about.) Obviously Amazon.com isn't successful because they named themselves after a rainforest and Kayak.com isn't successful because they named themselves after a recreational watercraft.

      Originally Posted by IO Cape Town View Post

      I don't really agree with you.You can have a nice website with nice content but if nobody knows where to find you.. It's all for nothing. And since the best place to hide a dead body is Google page number two.. I think SEO is pretty important. Either way it's helping my business a lot! And my personal experience is that the domain name does matter! But nobody knows this for sure..
      Good Luck!
      I'm not saying search engines don't matter at all, but I would content that trying to game the SEO is a waste of time. Search engines these days are looking for sites that are useful for human beings; thus if you design your websites to be useful to human beings, you'll likely have the side effect of increasing your search engine rankings anyway. Personally, I'd rather make my site better for people than machines -- they're the ones with credit cards anyway.

      Additionally, I'd contend that search engines are much less important for most people than they think they'll be. This is certainly true in my experience. I actually do rank pretty well for quite a few keywords -- even some relatively valuable and competitive ones. But even so, 88% of my September traffic came from sources other than search engines. And of the top 10 keywords that people used to find me, eight of them are variations of my site's name or are keywords with variations of my site's name (in other words something like "Amazon books"). In other words, I'm getting search engine traffic not because people are looking for generic information, but because people are asking for my site by name. There's no SEO you can do to get that -- that comes from having a great website.
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