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Question on domain names

by Azhan
15 replies
Hello fellow warriors. I hope you guys are doing great! So i have a question on domain names. From what I've learnt, buying a domain name with the exact keyword is important for building niche sites. Let's say i want to build a site on subwoofer. It is recommended that i buy the domain name with the exact keyword such as subwoofer.com.

I was taught that buying your domain name with the exact keyword can help you get better ranking in google. How true is that? Because when i was searching for domain names with the exact keyword, most of them are taken.

Care to share your thoughts?
#domain #names #question
  • Profile picture of the author Robert Michael
    try to space them out if it's already taken. that can provide the same effect you are looking for.

    for example, try sub-woofer.com
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  • Profile picture of the author Dustin Goode
    Originally Posted by Azhan View Post

    Hello fellow warriors. I hope you guys are doing great! So i have a question on domain names. From what I've learnt, buying a domain name with the exact keyword is important for building niche sites. Let's say i want to build a site on subwoofer. It is recommended that i buy the domain name with the exact keyword such as subwoofer.com.

    I was taught that buying your domain name with the exact keyword can help you get better ranking in google. How true is that? Because when i was searching for domain names with the exact keyword, most of them are taken.

    Care to share your thoughts?
    Having an exact match domain definitely doesn't hurt your rankings

    You could try something like subwooferpro.com, subwoofershop, or something like that.
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    -Dustin

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  • Profile picture of the author garyv
    Exact keywords can give you a little bit of a boost, but it's not much anymore. I have a feeling they only use it when 2 sites have similar SEO score. The exact keyword site would edge out the other.
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  • Profile picture of the author AceOfShirts
    I would say it is a pretty common belief that exact keyword domains are the best, but they are really hard to find these days.

    Along with the hyphen you might want to try adding a "buying" keyword that people might be searching for when they are ready to buy. Like buysubwoofer.com best subwoofer.com subwooferreview.com cheapestsubwoofer.com
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  • Profile picture of the author webapex
    Yea I have heard at least 2 speakers who are in touch with Google staff who say they are moving to reduce the influence of exact domains, there are plenty of top ranked sites with abstract names, which is a case of branding rather than seo seeking.

    Using keyword research tools might turn up a longer tail keyword domain with sufficient searches, I ate hyphens, at least keep it down ti one, although generally said to just be alternative word separators, at one 'guru' heard that Google verifies their junk site filtering by seeing how many multi-hyphen-sites are included.
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  • Profile picture of the author EugeneA
    Heres a way to look at it: Google is looking for the exact match for a certain keyword. Your job is to be that perfect match.

    So having the exact keyword does help you.
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  • Profile picture of the author marcuslim
    Ya, definitely does help. So may be worth investing in a non .com domain if you can get a dead-on domain name match for .net or .info. Alternatively you can always add suffixes to the domain name though it will be less effective but still isn't bad.
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    Marcus Lim
    Silver Bullet Publishing

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  • Profile picture of the author alcymart
    As long as your keyword is in the domain, you can buy a domain such as example.

    buy-a-subwoofer-for-christmas-and-beyond.com

    Of course you lose some precious density the longer you go, so shorter the domain and keyword is part of it, your ok

    Bernard St-Pierre
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  • Profile picture of the author bwiemers
    As a general rule I always make sure the domain contains the primary keyword I am targeting. Just about always the exact keyword will be taken, so I've opted to go for more descriptive domains that tells the visitor what I'm about. I call it long tail domain names

    For example if I am targeting beople who buy sub woofers I would go for wheretobuysubwoofers.com or where-to-buy-sub-woofers.com.

    Yes, the keyword desnity on the domain may be down a bit, but I believe that if people see this and they want to buy a sub woofer then I will get the clicks over someone who has a less descriptive domain name.

    I'm not so much a big fan of the hyphen, but I will use them if that is available and the other is not.
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  • Profile picture of the author garyv
    you can google sub woofer, or even where to buy sub-woofers and you'll find maybe only 1 or 2 domains w/ the keyword in it. And that's going 5 pages deep. It doesn't really matter much. You'll find more that actually rank w/ the keyword in a sub-folder.
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  • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
    Banned
    I like exact match domains. They do help in the serps. Many popular keywords will already be taken though so you need to go with the next best thing. I always check for .com, .net, .org and .info for availability. If they are all taken for the exact match, I then add a suffix on the end of the keyword.

    Another trick is to add the word the to the beginning. Google ignores that word, so if you bought thekeyword.com, Google sees it as keyword.com.

    There are a lot of suffixes you can use. I go for the shortest suffix that makes sense.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Romaine
    1. Theres nothing wrong with having a domain name that doesnt include your keywords, but it does definitely help

    2. Google will rank a category equally to that of an EMD eg www.yourdomain.com/keyword-here/. This is of course with correct backlinking methods.

    3. Theres absolutely nothing wrong with hyphens. I have a site that is PR5, ranked first out of 185 million results and it contains 4 hyphens in the domain itself.

    4. As already suggested, an alternative is using stop words in the domain, such as, the, and, site etc. Preferences amongst marketers is to put the stop word at the end of the domain.

    5. Consider using LSI variants. Use the tilda search operator to find related words eg. ~keyword. Then simply look for keywords that are shown in bold.

    6. Consider buying a domain. I do this often simply by doing a whois lookup and offering the owner some $$. Doesnt always work, but 75% of the time it does.

    7. Domains with SEO attributes are a great find. Either by purchasing or at auction.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mark Crawford
      For the short answer, Yes. Exact match domains do help but they aren't the end all be all for ranking.

      I guess you have to ask yourself what direction you want to go? Do you just want to put up "sniper" sites that focus primarily on one niche or even one keyword? Or do you want to put up truly amazing content ( not saying sniper sites can't have amazing content they just normally don't ) and amaze the searcher or user of your site so they tell all their friends about you.

      Usually sites that have the exact match keyword aren't going to get that viral traffic of word of mouth. It is the sites like dwolla.com and ebay.com that get that kind of traffic. Dwolla is about accepting money online and of course ebay is about auctions but you would never know that from their domain name.

      If you are in it for the long haul I suggest building a brand around your passion and make it the best it can be. See what your competitors are doing and do something bigger and better.

      As for finding exact match domain names. I use the google adwords keyword tool then put them in a spreadsheet remove the spaces then put them in a bulk domain name checker. hhmmm maybe I should make a video about that.
      I also have a spreadsheet that was made for me that helps with suffixes and prefixes.
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  • Profile picture of the author ricker95
    getting a domain name with the keyword is a great option for SEO, however, also think about what your goal is for the project.

    Are you trying to have a site that looks reputable and is catchy as well?

    I usually try getting domains with the keyword for projects that I'm just using for adsense, clickbank affiliate things.

    However, getting a domain name thats short, simple, and easy to remember goes a long way as well.

    I recommend for SEO purposes, at least have one word of the keyword in the domain. For example, if your keyword is how to train cats then you could try finding a domain with "Cat" in it. This one keyword, although not an exact match, does help better than picking something like "123forme.com" or something like that.

    Of course, if your keyword is very long, maybe try a shorter domain. Long domain names are annoying...
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  • Profile picture of the author Monitium
    Domain names really matter more than most think, so yes have the keyword in the domain name. This is very important with Bing and Yahoo for sure and never hurts with Google. Google does not put as much weight on it as Bing and Yahoo but I think many people forget about other search engines but you should not because other serps do bring traffic.

    Hope that helps
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