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Exact match domains doing nothing for me

by matt5409
26 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi all

I've read and seen YouTube videos of marketers whom have registered exact match domains in medium-competitive industries and achieved page 1 within hours. To a lesser extent, these domains have ranked well over a period of weeks and continue to drive targeted traffic that genuinely converts.

My problem is - it's not working for me. The problem is so bad in fact, that Google doesn't even want to index my sites, after a week! I have two exact match domains in pretty low competing areas, both with 3 pages of unique copy, properly formatted with images. Totalling about 2500 words per site. I've also published around 20 articles for each site (not all unique however but that shouldn't matter).

I know that exact match domains work - I've seen it happen with others. So what's going on here? Is the recent algo change responsible for this? All responses appreciated.
#domains #exact #match
  • Profile picture of the author traianturcu
    Hi Matt,

    I own about 15 exact match domains. They're all indexed, but I had to build some links in order to get them to first page.

    The one which works best for me is http://chickenhousesforsale.co.uk. It ranks second in Google.co.uk, just after the website for which I am an affiliate. This site makes me about 100 pounds a month.

    Another website is http://4footbeds.co.uk which only ranks 5th.

    Some other sites like http://gasfiresforsale.co.uk or http://blackleatherbeds.co.uk are the bottom of first page.

    I'm not sure why your sites haven't been indexed, but I can tell you exactly what I do:

    1. Install Wordpress.
    2. Install a SEO theme and several plugins, including All in One SEO.
    3. Make sure that the title of the blog is the same as the keyword.
    4. Block commenting.
    5. Post 4-5 500 words unique articles with a keyword density of 4%
    6. Configure ALL in One SEO so that the description, keywords, titles for individual pages are all SE optimized.
    7. Create a sitemap of the site.
    8. Access your Google Webmaster Tools account and send the sitemap.
    9. Install Google Analytics on the site.
    10. In last versions of Wordpress make sure the blog allows search engines to access it and index it (Disable "Search Engines Blocked" in top left)

    This is usually enough to get my website indexed in at most 48 hours and find it somewhere on the third page.

    By commenting on a few blogs, creating some forum profiles I usually start to go up to first page in a week at most.

    From this step on, i still don't know what works and what doesn't to rank higher..

    I hope this helps
    Traian
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  • Profile picture of the author paulie888
    I think the missing element may be backlinks. Have you checked out your competition on the first page of Google, to see the number and quality of backlinks that the top 5 sites possess?

    Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author Caragui
    Exact name domains are only part of the euqation for good SEO. It helps but there are other factors to consider as well. Try to build more backlinks to help google find your site faster and give it some authority. Just my 2 cents.
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  • Profile picture of the author matt5409
    @traianturcu thanks for your advice! I am happy to say that I actually do almost exactly what you do barring the all in one SEO plugin, which I may have to look into. thank you very much for sharing your links also

    @paulie possibly - however most of the competing sites are quite low on content. I haven't checked their backlinks but I will continue to build on my own. Thanks!
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    • Profile picture of the author paulie888
      Originally Posted by matt5409 View Post

      @paulie possibly - however most of the competing sites are quite low on content. I haven't checked their backlinks but I will continue to build on my own. Thanks!
      I've found from experience that you don't really need to have tons of content to rank on Google. All other things being equal, it is the quality and number of backlinks that will decide the top rankings for a particular keyword.

      Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author wilsonm
        Is the domain a new one or aged one? Sometimes the latter have had a bad history and are not on friendly terms with Google.
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonmorgan
    Like the other guys said, get a few backlinks and see what that does for you.

    You should be keeping a list of sites and blogs to use just for this sort of thing. That go-to list of SEO backlink magic.

    pingFM and other all-in-one social bookmarking sites are also helpful to get the ball rolling.

    You could also toss a fiverr at the problem for an easy backlinks hit.

    For WP, the google xml sitemap plugin always gets SE bots crawling right away.
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  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    This is really a topic for the SEO forum but anyway, I believe Google tweaked their algo at some point and it is now not likely you will go straight in at page one for your keywords on the strength of the EMD alone. That worked a year or two ago until everyone went mad with it. But they do still give you a huge boost, it just takes a LITTLE more work. Give it some content, some backlinks and wait a month, you may get a pleasant surprise! However, some sites just bomb, inexplicably. Don't give up on it, EMD's still give huge juice.
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  • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
    I used to have success with exact match domain names, but not so much anymore...
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  • Profile picture of the author srtyker
    Just one note about All in One SEO - There is in fact a much improved plugin which has far more features i.e. Platinum SEO pack. It has all the features of All in One SEO and many more.

    Hope this helps.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Free Google Places Pack/10 Box Finder Software - Free Download
    A quick way to check whether a group of keywords returns places results on the first page!
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  • Profile picture of the author matt5409
    thanks for all the replies. i'm just going to continue to build links, will report back in a couple of months with an update.
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  • Profile picture of the author traianturcu
    Originally Posted by matt5409 View Post

    thanks for all the replies. i'm just going to continue to build links, will report back in a couple of months with an update.
    I look forward to your update! I'm really curious about what works and what doesn't when it comes to link building.. I hope you'll be successful in getting your sites among the top results
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    • Profile picture of the author matt5409
      Originally Posted by traianturcu View Post

      I look forward to your update! I'm really curious about what works and what doesn't when it comes to link building.. I hope you'll be successful in getting your sites among the top results
      this intrigues me too - i've had some sites that rank well and others than will not rank for certain terms, no matter what i do. for example, i have an electric guitar packages website and have been trying for over a month to get it to rank for "beginner guitar". the site is a blog with 10 posts on the homepage, each with the term in there somewhere, i also have around 25 unique links pointing to the page using this keyword - but it's still nowhere in the top 100 sites!! and yet it's on page 2 of bing for the same term. it's not even a popular search term!
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      • Profile picture of the author traianturcu
        Originally Posted by matt5409 View Post

        this intrigues me too - i've had some sites that rank well and others than will not rank for certain terms, no matter what i do. for example, i have an electric guitar packages website and have been trying for over a month to get it to rank for "beginner guitar". the site is a blog with 10 posts on the homepage, each with the term in there somewhere, i also have around 25 unique links pointing to the page using this keyword - but it's still nowhere in the top 100 sites!! and yet it's on page 2 of bing for the same term. it's not even a popular search term!
        That happens to me too! I guess there might be some kind of flags Google raises.. I feel like a small tweak could change things and suddenly the site would be indexed, but I can't figure out what Google doesn't like...
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        • Profile picture of the author matt5409
          Originally Posted by traianturcu View Post

          That happens to me too! I guess there might be some kind of flags Google raises.. I feel like a small tweak could change things and suddenly the site would be indexed, but I can't figure out what Google doesn't like...
          sometimes i dont think even google can decide what it likes and does not like! i've learnt you can't simply repeat a process that worked and expect it to work again because of the sheer number of variables involved, and quite often the results are inexplicable. for example i rank for terms i have not focused on in any way, yet struggle to rank for the terms i actually want to rank for, lol.
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      • Profile picture of the author DireStraits
        Originally Posted by matt5409 View Post

        this intrigues me too - i've had some sites that rank well and others than will not rank for certain terms, no matter what i do. for example, i have an electric guitar packages website and have been trying for over a month to get it to rank for "beginner guitar". the site is a blog with 10 posts on the homepage, each with the term in there somewhere, i also have around 25 unique links pointing to the page using this keyword - but it's still nowhere in the top 100 sites!! and yet it's on page 2 of bing for the same term. it's not even a popular search term!
        Well, if there aren't a huge number of links to your competitors' pages which rank for this term, it's probably more to do with the strength (e.g. the PR and relevance) than the volume of them.

        PageRank is obviously one of Google's proprietary calculations of link-strength, and although Bing employs something similar in their algorithm, their final assessment of a page (and the strength of its inbound/outbound links) is often quite very different to Google's.
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      • Profile picture of the author Key Largo
        Originally Posted by matt5409 View Post

        this intrigues me too - i've had some sites that rank well and others than will not rank for certain terms, no matter what i do. for example, i have an electric guitar packages website and have been trying for over a month to get it to rank for "beginner guitar". the site is a blog with 10 posts on the homepage, each with the term in there somewhere, i also have around 25 unique links pointing to the page using this keyword - but it's still nowhere in the top 100 sites!! and yet it's on page 2 of bing for the same term. it's not even a popular search term!

        It may not be a popular search term, but it has a huge amount of competition.

        If you Google - intitle:"beginner guitar" - you'll see there are 96,000 competitors. In fact Google - intitle:"beginner guitar" inanchor:"beginner guitar" - and there are still 94,600.

        Not surprising you're not ranking well.

        Google can be a strange beast, though, sometimes there appears to be no rhyme or reason. However, if your site is only a week old it is far too soon to expect any definite results and even once indexed it will dance. I've had a barebones site rank well, with limited content, because of the domain quite quickly.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    Does your exact match domain have a twin owned by some one else except with a different domain extension? Such as the .com is taken but you ended up buying a .org, .net, or a .info?

    The reason I ask is that if this is the case your going to encounter problems ranking your site for some time if at all because of this.

    If not, most of the advice from the previous post's is pretty sound and I'd follow it.
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    • Profile picture of the author wtatlas
      Maybe you just have to give it a bit more time. You seem to be doing all the right things and if you keep adding content and backlinks then you are doing all you can.
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    • Profile picture of the author matt5409
      Originally Posted by Rus Sells View Post

      Does your exact match domain have a twin owned by some one else except with a different domain extension? Such as the .com is taken but you ended up buying a .org, .net, or a .info?

      The reason I ask is that if this is the case your going to encounter problems ranking your site for some time if at all because of this.

      If not, most of the advice from the previous post's is pretty sound and I'd follow it.
      all the domains are .co.uk which is second only to .com esp since i'm targeting the UK market - every .com i ever search for is taken, lol.
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        You fell into a trap. A trap that is really pushed by some people.

        What's funny, is when it does not work out, they say, well, there is
        more to it. You need more backlinks, better backlinks, content, etc.

        Yeah. Just like every other website. There is no fantastic beat all
        boost from an EMD.

        And another problem stated here. What happens to the other EMD, like
        yours, that run the gamut if tld extensions? Who gets #1?

        This is why, over and over, I tell people stop the insanity. That's why
        internet forums call themselves forum.digitalpoint.com, warriorforum.com,
        etc. Why when a new real estate site a couple of years back goes for
        zillow.com. Why the new kid on the block for traffic deals goes with
        kayak.com. Why the next big dating site goes for zoosk.com. Why think
        small? Go big, like the big boys. Do what it takes to make a website a
        real, honest, authoritative website. That's why icanhascheezburger.com
        rocks for funny cat photos. You can take any domain and rank it, depending
        on how powerful your established competition is.

        There is nothing magical for an EMD. In fact, it might be quite the contrary.
        People who get them think they are easy. And don't do what it takes. Then
        start threads as to why it's not working.

        Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author perfect
        More back links with relevant achor texts will do a lot of good.
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