keyword rich domains don't help w/ranking?

by 7 replies
9
I was told by the owner of a web dev co. the other day that keyword rich domains no longer help w/ranking since the panda update.

Can anyone confirm this?

Thanks.
#offline marketing #domains #keyword #ranking #rich #w or ranking
  • I disagree, but it depends on how you use them. If you overdo it with the optimization on the rest of the site, the emd just aggravates to the Google spam-o-meter.

    If you're smart with them, they still help.

    You always have to watch for over optimization, but with EMD moreso.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Exact Match Domain names are more closely watched for over optimization. But if your website has the following things, it should be safe;

      At least 30-50 pages of content.
      at least 60% of the incoming links are nofollow.
      At least half the incoming links point to other pages besides the home page
      The title tags aren't over optimized
      Your keywords density is under 2%. 1% is better.
      You have a few links going out.
      Your internal links point to pages other than the home page at least 50%
      You have a few links from videos sites, Facebook, etc.

      You'll be pretty safe.

      Don't repeat keywords in the Domain name. Don't use dashes ( -) between words in the domain.
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • I can confirm the opposite.

    Just launched a site in the plumbing industry... city + keyword as the domain name.

    Has nothing on it, it's just the skeleton.

    It's #10 in Yahoo for 2 keywords, #18 and #20.
    It's #12,13,18,20,27 in Bing (12 is the main keyword, the others are closely related)
    It's #25 for the main keyword in Google and #57 for the plural form of the keyword.


    On January 8, 2013 I launched another site
    domain name is
    best+keyword+city.com
    I'm not interested in the best version.
    I got busy with other things, didn't do anything with it, just put
    content on the home page, created categories.

    On January 10th, 2 days later, it premiered in Google at
    58 (the keyword I'm after)
    36 (the plural of the keyword I'm after).

    Yesterday, I checked positions again
    I'm at 23 (from 58) and 22 (from 36).
    In addition, I'm 84,47,45,35,83 for some other keywords.

    My point, I launched pre-Panda EDM's, equal keyword difficulty,
    and the opening positions were similar and I had a bunch or related keywords
    pop up within a short time in about similar positions.

    So, my experience, it's working nicely.




    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Same here.

      Keyword domains are extremely powerful. I have some domains with no links and very little SEO (since I ended up never working on them) and they still rank #1 after whatever the latest Google updates are.

      No 50 pages.
      No links or a handful.
      No nothing.

      Still #1.

      Obviously it wouldn't be enough in very competitive markets but for your average local SEO? It's one of the biggest factor in the algorithm that I've found.
      • [1] reply
  • EMD work but you have to handle them with care, they aren't as efficient as they were. Here is a good article with some tips: You can check out this Article by SEOMoz I hope it helps: The Exact Match Domain Playbook: A Guide and Best Practices for EMDs | SEOmoz
  • R u kidding? I'm started using free websites to rank also. Take 2 days to rank in top 3 place.
Join the discussion

Next Topics on Trending Feed