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using "e" at the start of a domain name

by thedog
20 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Market Samurai decided to work today, joy.

Anyway, I was using the find domain name feature, and it's stuck an "e" at the beginning of the domain, for a 94% density.

Is this a good, or bad idea?

What's the downside here? I'm thinking, if I want to sell the site, and the domain name looks a bit crap?

Or are there SEO related problems with this?
#domain #start
  • Profile picture of the author WillR
    I'm not entirely sure as I haven't tested this myself however I have seen a lot more people doing this lately. If yourkeyword.com is taken they will usually just add an x at the the end of the domain so it's yourkeywordx.com. I do a fair bit of local and niche SEO and I have seen more and more of these domains creeping up in the top results so I do think it works.

    When it comes to selling the site the person is not going to care what the domain says. All they are going to care about is where the website is actually ranking. You can have a keyword match domain that looks nice and is not ranking anywhere or you could have one of these domains that ranks on the top page of Google for the keyword. Which would you rather?
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    • Profile picture of the author thedog
      Originally Posted by WillR View Post

      I'm not entirely sure as I haven't tested this myself however I have seen a lot more people doing this lately. If yourkeyword.com is taken they will usually just add an x at the the end of the domain so it's yourkeywordx.com. I do a fair bit of local and niche SEO and I have seen more and more of these domains creeping up in the top results so I do think it works.

      When it comes to selling the site the person is not going to care what the domain says. All they are going to care about is where the website is actually ranking. You can have a keyword match domain that looks nice and is not ranking anywhere or you could have one of these domains that ranks on the top page of Google for the keyword. Which would you rather?
      Cheers, I don't care what the domain looks like, as long as it ranks.

      Usually I'd put a - in there, but that's gone. An x at the end, interesting.
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      • Profile picture of the author TBInternetMarketing
        I'd rather put an 'x' or an 'e' at the end of the domain. Any letter will do. The main thing is it will be almost as good as an EMD, and the stop letter will be right at the end rather than the front.
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    • Profile picture of the author StoneWilson
      Originally Posted by WillR View Post

      If yourkeyword.com is taken they will usually just add an x at the the end of the domain so it's yourkeywordx.com.
      Seems like today's hottest topic is about EMD(Exact Match Domain). Though it's actually not a new topic, but more and more websites with keyword contained showed up in the first page, it's actually a little weired.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dr Blue
    actually now are very popular letters like "e" or "i" ( i from internet) like on my profile name
    look at iPage.com a very good hosting company - Long version InternetPage
    Short one- iPage
    sounds great and is easy to remember.. in my opinion this letters can help a lot , but you must be careful with wich keyword you use.

    Cheers !
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    • Profile picture of the author thedog
      if you put an s at the end of a domain, can this alter your keyword strength, if it makes the keyword plural?

      ie,

      bestcar.com to bestcars.com

      You're targeting "best car" has this now been changed to "best cars"

      Or will it still rank for "best car"
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      • Profile picture of the author oclane
        Originally Posted by thedog View Post

        if you put an s at the end of a domain, can this alter your keyword strength, if it makes the keyword plural? ie, bestcar.com to bestcars.com --- You're targeting "best car" has this now been changed to "best cars" Or will it still rank for "best car"
        Search Engines are already smart at handling English in rankings. You will still have the same strength for the best car despite using bestcars.com as your domain if majority of your backlinks use "best car" than the plural form. Interestingly though, optimizing a plural keyword is like link building for a single keyword and ranking for two of them, the singular and the plural.
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      • Profile picture of the author businesswarrior121
        Originally Posted by thedog View Post

        if you put an s at the end of a domain, can this alter your keyword strength, if it makes the keyword plural?

        ie,

        bestcar.com to bestcars.com

        You're targeting "best car" has this now been changed to "best cars"

        Or will it still rank for "best car"
        when i google by best cars then About 66,900,000 search results,
        when i google by best car then about 96,300,00 search results,
        when i google by bestcar then About 443,000 about results and

        when i google by bestcars then About 341,000 search results

        i think putting s at the end of your keywords may change your keyword strength. i think you should go with "best car" keywordin this case.
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  • Profile picture of the author HorseStall
    It certainly worked for "ecommerce" ;-) Its kinda like sticking an "i" infront of something for Apples ;-)
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  • Profile picture of the author markowe
    Yeah, I would back up the comment that a lot of these are figuring on page one lately. Maybe the EMD has had it's day a little, or maybe good SEO makes up for an EMD in the long run. What DOES seem to be a little tougher is getting pesky EMDs OFF page one. They just seem to stick like flies. But if I saw no or few EMDs on page one but they are still taken, these days I would go for a partial EMD, couldn't care less really.
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  • Profile picture of the author calfred
    If I were you, I'd just stick to EMD domains.

    Non-EMDs are a waste of time, in my humble opinion cause it takes so much more time to backlink to get them ranked.

    If it's a non-EMD, you might as well get a better sounding (and shorter) domain name that people can remember well and create a big site.

    Source: Experience


    Calfred
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    • Profile picture of the author Jeremy Banks
      Originally Posted by calfred View Post

      If I were you, I'd just stick to EMD domains.

      Non-EMDs are a waste of time, in my humble opinion cause it takes so much more time to backlink to get them ranked.

      If it's a non-EMD, you might as well get a better sounding (and shorter) domain name that people can remember well and create a big site.

      Source: Experience


      Calfred
      Two of my top 5 earning sites are not EMD sites, one of them made me $45 today alone on adsense. That one uses three keywords that I used to rank for three highly searched for terms

      Sort of like bluewoolsweater.com can rank well for blue sweater, wool sweater, blue wool sweater

      Yes it takes a bit longer, but not a total waste

      Also one of my top 5 sites just has a modifier on the end, say the keyword was used cars, my site would be usedcarsblog.com
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      • Profile picture of the author roady
        Originally Posted by Jeremy Banks View Post

        Two of my top 5 earning sites are not EMD sites, one of them made me $45 today alone on adsense. That one uses three keywords that I used to rank for three highly searched for terms

        Sort of like bluewoolsweater.com can rank well for blue sweater, wool sweater, blue wool sweater

        Yes it takes a bit longer, but not a total waste
        I am testing it out lately. added a prefix to my main keyword to see how well it ranks. Thanks for the inference. I was ranking #97 for that once, now at 30. Guess it's all about patience now.

        But yeah.. what i've noticed is.. adding a suffix to your main kw kinda gets ignored but as long as the main kw is at the beginning, that's the best.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by calfred View Post

      If I were you, I'd just stick to EMD domains.

      Non-EMDs are a waste of time, in my humble opinion cause it takes so much more time to backlink to get them ranked.
      I guess that warriorforum.com thing just did not work out.
      Ditto for wikipedia, amazon, zillow, zoosk, ebay, kayak, uh...yeah.

      Problem with the e and i, is that most of the good ones are taken.
      I got one quite by accident at a good time. e and i at the front
      of domains are golden.

      If you can get one, grab it.

      Not sure where people are learning stuff, but better for the rest of us!

      Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author SPC
    Does it really take that much longer to rank if you are not using a keyword in the domain? I am using a domain that has no keywords but it does tell google and my visitors what the site is about. Pretty much there is no search traffic around the domain. Should I still go for it?
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    • Profile picture of the author Charlie A
      I think it's a good idea and have been doing something like that lately. I've been putting a "u" at the end of the domain as in "mydomainu", and have had good success ranking these. I think an x or another letter would work too. It seems as though the search engines disregard the prefix or suffix. As far as selling the domain I don't think it would be any problem as long as the site is ranking well.
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  • Profile picture of the author freeman84
    EMD is more chance of getting ranked and will be ranked higher is it not? but then adding a letter or 2 on the domain seem harmless to me... as long as google picks up the main keyword?
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  • Profile picture of the author JSProjects
    I'd say that dashes are probably a better alternative to putting a letter at the beginning or end of the domain.

    Ex: my-domain-name.com vs. emydomainname.com

    I've seen plenty of dashed domains rank on page one while doing my research.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Q
    Banned
    I usually haven't tried it before. It's quite better that if the domains are not available for the targeted keyword, better put any single letter at the end. This is what I'm doing for my client when it comes to keyword research and suggesting domain names to be bought for his niche sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author vivaarturo
    I prefer having a letter or word at the end of the domain, but an e in font is fine.
    you can change the preferences before or after a word in market samurai by clicking on edit button

    cheers
    Arturo
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