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Why exact-match domains matter

by MarathonMan
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've seen several users around the community disparaging the usefulness of exact-match and keyword-rich domains in SEO, so I thought it might be useful to share my own experience with the issue.

I recently bought an exact-match .ORG for a valuable, purchase-oriented keyword string getting several thousand exact match searches per month. As I always do with domains for future development, instead of leaving the domain parked I took five minutes to upload a simple one-page boilerplate with 2-3 sentences about the content I was developing for the site.

That was about two weeks ago. Having worked through my backlog I decided to pick up this project again, and before beginning development I did a quick search to check my competition again. I did a little double-take when I saw an exact-match domain near the top of the SERPs - had someone found my niche and acted before me?

Turns out it was MY DOMAIN. The combination of an exact-match domain and a spoonful of original content that took me about five minutes to produce was able to score my site a page-one rank on Google for a valuable keyword, above dozens of pages and posts targeting the same keywords, before my main content even launched.

The lessons you can probably take from this is that:

a) Exact keyword domains are POWERFUL, to the point where even the domain is enough to defeat a dedicated page or section of an established site

b) If you come up with an idea, buy the domain (exact match if possible) immediately, and don't leave it parked.

Make a unique "under development" template, write a short keyword-rich paragraph about what you're developing for the domain, and there's a good chance that by the time you actually launch the main site Google will already know what you're site is about (and maybe even already given you a decent slot in the SERPs).

Hopefully these tactics help a few warriors out there - anyone have similar experiences with exact match domains?
#domains #exactmatch #matter
  • Profile picture of the author Mr Lim
    Thanks for sharing the information mate.

    What I read was, google scrape domain first and then content.
    So this is what exact domain is powerful.

    I've tested once for being not register the exact keyword domain but adding some character word in the middle of the domain.

    So instead of example dot com, I register examsple dot com.
    What I learn is that, google did not really notice what is my site about even though I had rich of "example" content on my webpages.
    I then notice the sites takes longer than usual to be ranked.

    Google is smart, but only smart on it's own term.
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    • Profile picture of the author NastyBlast
      I believe your conclusions are accurate but only incidentally.


      you apparently know what you're doing when it comes to Seo so I would say that any domain that you launch regardless of having keywords in its domain name will have a good chance of succeeding.

      However having keywords in the domain is no longer as important as it was. Additionally when it comes to a domain dedicated to a keyword term such as you have set up that will also typically outweigh a sub page or landing page on a domain that is not dedicated to the search term.

      So although your conclusions are correct for the sake of your test, it is also joined with your knowledge of Seo. So your conclusions are biased based on you knowing what you're doing and easily being able to prove your point.

      your strategy is valid however only if people are deploying your strategy as a whole in that they are deploying additional domains that are dedicated to the keyword targets. Depending on the peoples ability to manage multiple domains this may or may not be practical for everyone. When it comes down to content management it can be an absolute nightmare for some people and overall ineffective.

      If it is a entity that has a content management Limited to one domain then for them it is better to go with a series of landing pages rather than a series of domains targeted at keywords.

      It may take them longer but overall their efficiency will be much higher than trying to maintain a bunch of subdomains or additional domains targeted at different keywords.

      Additionally one single site can rank for many terms and be much more of the so-called domain authority when it comes to covering multiple terms.

      But a lot of people are in a hurry and want to race to the top without putting in the time that it takes to build an efficient main structure website and so people have to looking to the future of what they will be able to manage and decide on that strategy in the beginning
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  • Profile picture of the author MarathonMan
    NastyBlast, the reason I concluded that the DOMAIN itself is the source of the ranking is that the only content currently on the site is a short paragraph I wrote.

    Granted, this paragraph does contain optimized text and keywords, but so do the competitors. Because this domain is new and there are no other factors playing into the ranking (no links, no domain age, etc) the only logical conclusion is that the majority of the rank weight is carried by the domain.
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