The power of an EXACT keyword in domain name

Thanks, a dead-on domain name is definitely a very important factor in ranking high for the exact keyword phrase you are targeting.

Great point. I have a fantasy sports blog, h2hfantasysports.com which ranks 1 or 2 for all h2h (short for head-to-head) fanatasy sports variations (h2h, h2h fantasy, h2h fantasy sports, h2h fantasy football, etc.) I achieved that ranking in less than 6 months after strategically placing the keyword phrase h2h fantasy sports in my blog title.

This is why it is so important to purchase these exact match domains.

BTW, you are #5 for me.

You can always add an i,e,my,ez,the in that order for second greatest effect:

for example:

iexactmatch.com

or

myexactmatch.com

Nice point you've got there and you really provided solid proof. Yes. Exact keyword domain plays a vital role when it comes to search engine rankings.

Thanks for the testing results, very interesting. But I get different results for one of my own hyphenated domain names. I was able to beat out the exact match domain site even though I had used hyphens. I was able to get better links. I never needed to get more links than the other sites on page one of Google.

Are the top site's links anchored to the keyword phrase "natural home remedies" as well? Are your links keyword-anchored for that same phrase? How is the quality of the inbound links? Diluted with tons of other links? All those things can influence a ranking.

I no longer have that hyphenated domain - even though I was ranking the traffic was low and my keyword was not "buying" enough to create enough conversions to make it worth keeping. But I did learn about link quality through that experience.

yes, and those 7 links are coming off highly relevant themed sites. so that beats your 1000+ worthless backlinks.

Great tip for those that haven't dabbled in SEO and ranking easily with keywordrichdomains.com I have one I put up recently for a client, that within 48 hours I was ranking in a #1 position...with ZERO backlinks at the time, and it was even outranking a very established .edu site. :thumbsup

If your site has keyword is domain name it is easy for getting good ranking in search engine.

Use Google Adwords Keyword Tool to do the first round of research then once you have some keywords that look decent to you, use Market Samaria to finish the job thoroughly.

I've also had a few exact match keyword domain sites ranked on the first page of google within a few days, with barely any content and no backlinks whatsoever, so this is something that really works. I'd suggest trying to pick up a TLD besides a .com if it isn't available, as TLD does not matter in ranking a site, but having an exact match domain does!

Paul

Getting the exact domain is good, but I have a feeling that the other website is ranking above you due to other reasons such as:

- The age value of the domain name.
- The quality of the backlinks
- Their on-site seo work and internal linking system

But, you can still beat the number one website, by building lots of more relevant backlinks from various sources.

I just experienced the power of this as well. Picked up an EMD last Thursday, set up the site over the weekend. No backlinks, except for a couple places I socially bookmarked. It's already #12 on Google with over 3 million sites listed. I almost fell on the floor - the site is less than a week old!

How much traffic do you get in the number 2 position?

I don't know if I'm wrong, but do you believe that the only reason your website is the second one is because of your hyphenated domain name?

My websites are not hyphenated, but almost all my Squidoo lenses are. I read that the hyphen in a lens helps its ranking. They said that the hyphen makes the domain more visible for the search engines, something like that.

I think that it doesn't really matter if you'll use hyphen or not.

The site before yours may be there for other reasons, even though it has no traffic.

I didn't like your website's visual aspect. Your pictures don't appear in many places. (My criticism has the intention to help you improve it if you can.)

My first lens without hyphens has always a good ranking and many visitors, but I have also hyphenated lenses that are ranking very well and get traffic. Everything depends on too many things.

I beg to disagree with the purported rule "never use hyphens".

I agree that exact it best, and I can't find an example now, but I've done many searches in the past and seen lots of "-"'s in the domain often ranking in the top 5 results.

I have seen many domains with hyphens between them in the top 5 as well. How about different extension other then .com.org.net anybody has any luck with exact match

In the past hyphens were the preferred choice, but thanks to spammers it doesn't carry the value it once did. That said, exact match domains do tend to rank well in less competitive markets - using hyphens or not. However, you'll need than an exact match domain to keep in a competitive market. It'll will require a strong linking campaign and some creativity.

Hi,

Just to share my own experiences..

I never fail to rank at the top three (if not #1) with exact keyword domain for all my sites (which i've sold all of them for good profits).

The main points here are, target for high (or reasonably high) searches for exact keyword with low (or reasonably low) exact competition and .com or .net or .org domains are available.

How high of search numbers and how low of competition numbers are subjective and depends on how much earning your effort you wanna put to get it to the top rank.

Personally i choose more than 2000 (searches) and less than 50000 (competition) of exact keywords for all my sites.

On top of that i'm always looking for keywords with good CPC numbers (if i plan for Adsense) or good price of stuff (if i plan for Amazon).

However these figures are not fixed and flexible from time to time.

Having said that, i never forget the basic rules of SEO i.e: onpage, offpage, backlinks, etc.

It's true that nowadays we will not able to find those type of domains (keywords) easily because everybody is doing the same thing and the numbers of them keep increasing.

With some experience and appropriate tool (or outsource), this is not impossible.

Cheers..

Exactly, exact match domains are the way to go, even if its not available you can easily rank with .net, .org.. sometimes its pretty easy to outrank the .com too

Hey mott,
If you really aim to have the exact keywords in the domain name, then you would want to chose a domain name that has the keywords and is easy to remember. All of the examples above mentioned would be good, and for your last question, yes as it has included all three keywods in the domain (actually, it could possibly rank for "dog tips" too).

However, having only the keywords in the domain will not be enough to rank. If you can chose a brandable domain would be good, if you can't then a good combination of your keywords in domain + additional word, that would be easy to remember is a good choice.

You missed out on mentioning an extremely important and relevant detail:

He created his domain in 2005. You created yours in 2009.

That is a HUGE factor and is probably why he is sitting in position #1.

I agree that having the exact match domain without hyphens is preferable, BUT, the fact that you show one instance of getting beat out by an exact match with less linking, etc, is hardly statistically relevant.

In the end what I believe it will all boil down to is (in randon order):

1) Is the keyword in the domain name?
2) Does the site have quality content?
3) How old is the site?
4) The SEO on the site.
5) The quality AND quantity of backlinks

I am sure there are other factors too. I personally think hyphens make the domain name much more 'readable'.

There are going to be those who disagree - which is fine. This is just my opinion.

Scott