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Is EMD The Most Important Ranking Factor?

by Carl Brown
38 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Okay, I've been working on a site for a full month after the last one got sent to google hell after buying 150 wiki backlinks. So far so good with this site.

The site is mykeywordphrase.org

The only place I use "my" is in the domain. I've never even used it in an anchor text. It makes sense, but there are no searches for that term so I never used it as a backlink.

The site is relatively competitive and I'm working slow so my progress is slow.

Now, when I type in "keyword phrase" I'm at about #150 for my homepage.

When I type in "my keyword phrase" I own all ten positions! That's pretty cool for me, but there are ZERO searches for that phrase.

This has happened before with other sites when adding "guide" as a suffix on an EMD. I've gotten around it with tons of backlinks, but doesn't this indicate the importance--even today--of an EMD?

I was thinking I should have bought keywordphrase.co -- it was the only EMD still avaliable.
#emd #factor #important #ranking
  • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
    A keywordphrase.com won't rank for "keyword phrase" without backlinks. Unless "keyword phrase" has next to no competition.

    In general I'd say that having an EMD helps a little, but only if you're building a mini site (not an authority website). Unless you own something like debtconsolidation.com - that can be a brand.
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    • Profile picture of the author TuNguyen
      Originally Posted by bnetwork View Post

      A keywordphrase.com won't rank for "keyword phrase" without backlinks. Unless "keyword phrase" has next to no competition.

      In general I'd say that having an EMD helps a little, but only if you're building a mini site (not an authority website). Unless you own something like debtconsolidation.com - that can be a brand.
      What bnetwork said.

      And I would like to add that the main benefit I've found with EMDs is that they are more likely to generate a higher click through rate due to their perceived relevancy in the search results.

      A good example of this would be:

      Ask yourself which search result are you more likely to click on if you are searching for: "How do I house train my dog?"

      1. "CatsAndDogs.com"

      or

      2. "HowDoITrainMyDog.com" ?

      Also Google highlights the keywords in search results and having your whole or most of your domain highlighted, gives your result a lot of attention.

      Personally speaking, if I was to make a mini site (and I regularly do), then I would always try to get a EMD or a variation of it if possible, for precisely the reasons explained above.
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      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
        Originally Posted by TuNguyen View Post

        What bnetwork said.

        And I would like to add that the main benefit I've found with EMDs is that they are more likely to generate a higher click through rate due to their perceived relevancy in the search results.
        The site still MUST rank. Wikipedia, amazon, zillow, etc. do not rank
        because of keywords in domains.

        But to your point about CTR, the only time I ever tell people to do an
        EMD is with adwords. It is a little trick that the domain matters for
        CTR. And, because adwords allows any and every url on a domain to
        be forwarded to any and every url connected with a domain, then
        if you have no EMD, you make one as a subdomain. Like
        keywords.domain.com and forward that to the page on your domain
        that makes the money. One of the perfectly legal redirects that
        redirects to a different url than the one displayed in the ad.

        Paul
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        • Profile picture of the author TuNguyen
          Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

          The site still MUST rank. Wikipedia, amazon, zillow, etc. do not rank
          because of keywords in domains.

          But to your point about CTR, the only time I ever tell people to do an
          EMD is with adwords. It is a little trick that the domain matters for
          CTR. And, because adwords allows any and every url on a domain to
          be forwarded to any and every url connected with a domain, then
          if you have no EMD, you make one as a subdomain. Like
          keywords.domain.com and forward that to the page on your domain
          that makes the money. One of the perfectly legal redirects that
          redirects to a different url than the one displayed in the ad.

          Paul
          Completely agree. You must actually work to rank your site first (and my post was a bit of a deviation from the original question).
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        • Profile picture of the author Nelapsi
          I can state I have no websites that have anything remotely close to EMD and have very little trouble getting to the first page in Google. I have looked into purchasing a EMD I discovered recently with a decent amount of exact match searches and very little competition though just to test the waters with EMD.

          Opinion: I have to wonder if this is one of the things Google is starting to look at for sites that are MFA. Please note I did not say ban or anything, just a red flag that causes a site to get a closer look.
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          • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
            Originally Posted by Nelapsi View Post

            Please note I did not say ban or anything, just a red flag that causes a site to get a closer look.
            Every domain name (keywords/brand, length, relevancy to your backlink profile and content, etc) is a factor. We just don't know how big of a factor.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kurt
    IMO, no. EMDs are highly over-rated. Sure, they may help with ranking for a single keyword, but the reality is, to get serious traffic you need to rank for as many keywords as possible.

    So, an EMD will help with one keyword phrase on one page, unless it's a one word EMD that will be included in many other keyword phrases.
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  • Profile picture of the author kiliki
    I agree with everything else said above. Is it also possible that the domain age is a factor holding you back from ranking in the competitive exact search for now? Maybe it's a matter of letting it sit for a few months and dribble quality content periodically and it could start to rise naturally. You've done well in the niche before so there's no doubt you know your stuff, so maybe its not something your doing holding you back, but rather Google seeing if you're for real and watching you. Backlinks are still important too and I've definitely seen social media play in as well, so you will also need to do a well rounded SEO campaign if you haven't already.
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  • Profile picture of the author JSProjects
    EMDs are HIGHLY overrated IMO.

    You can usually rank nicherelateddomain.com/exact-keywords/ just as well.
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  • Profile picture of the author MatthewWoodward
    Personally I have stepped away from using EMD domains and now use phrase match domains instead.
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  • Profile picture of the author WraithSarko
    how many competing pages are there for "keyword phrase" and how many for "my keyword phrase"?
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    • Profile picture of the author Carl Brown
      Originally Posted by WraithSarko View Post

      how many competing pages are there for "keyword phrase" and how many for "my keyword phrase"?
      Now that I've thought a little about it, I can see the reason "my keyword phrase" ranks so easily is because nobody's searching for it, while "keyword phrase" gets 9k searches and it's pretty competitive.

      I guess the answer is smarter backlinks and internal backlinks.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by WraithSarko View Post

      how many competing pages are there for "keyword phrase" and how many for "my keyword phrase"?
      Every single keyword has the same number of "competing pages"... 3. The top 3 are the only pages you are competing with. The rest are just white noise.

      The number of pages listed in the index for any search term tells you absolutely nothing about the competition.

      The search "purple elephants with big floppy boobs" returns 22,600,000 results. Do you really think there are over 22 million websites targeting that keyword?
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      • Profile picture of the author WraithSarko
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Every single keyword has the same number of "competing pages"... 3. The top 3 are the only pages you are competing with. The rest are just white noise.

        The number of pages listed in the index for any search term tells you absolutely nothing about the competition.

        The search "purple elephants with big floppy boobs" returns 22,600,000 results. Do you really think there are over 22 million websites targeting that keyword?
        i get what your saying but i tend to believe competing pages do have an impact in how easy or fast u can rank.

        nobody is optimizing for purple elephants with big floppy boobs but they are for big floppy boobs.

        if the 2 terms had the exact same amount of competing pages are you saying ranking for big floppy boobs would be just as difficult as ranking for purple elephants with big floppy boobs?

        i dont think so, hell i dont KNOW but i believe overall, less competition would lead to faster easier ranking.

        imho
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        I've spent the last 59 months building 412 MFA sites. Each site averages 8 cents per day...I said average, some make up to 17 cents per day, PASSIVE INCOME! This income allows me to live comfortably and buy ANY flavor Jolly Rancher or Skittles I desire. Don't give in to fear, it CAN be done!
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by WraithSarko View Post

          i get what your saying but i tend to believe competing pages do have an impact in how easy or fast u can rank.

          nobody is optimizing for purple elephants with big floppy boobs but they are for big floppy boobs.

          if the 2 terms had the exact same amount of competing pages are you saying ranking for big floppy boobs would be just as difficult as ranking for purple elephants with big floppy boobs?

          i dont think so, hell i dont KNOW but i believe overall, less competition would lead to faster easier ranking.

          imho
          Actually, you just made my point for me.

          "big floppy boobs" returns 2,000,000, whereas "purple elephants with big floppy boobs" had over 22,000,000 results. So "purple elephants with big floppy boobs" has far more "competing" pages, but I would say the other keyword has far stiffer (no pun intended, or was it?) competition to get into the top 5.

          What I'm trying to say is the number of results in the index has NOTHING to do with the level of SEO competition for a keyword. That is some old guru mumbo jumbo from about 10 years ago that has been rehashed again and again. Frankly it is complete BS.
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          • Profile picture of the author WraithSarko
            Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

            Actually, you just made my point for me.

            "big floppy boobs" returns 2,000,000, whereas "purple elephants with big floppy boobs" had over 22,000,000 results. So "purple elephants with big floppy boobs" has far more "competing" pages, but I would say the other keyword has far stiffer (no pun intended, or was it?) competition to get into the top 5.

            What I'm trying to say is the number of results in the index has NOTHING to do with the level of SEO competition for a keyword. That is some old guru mumbo jumbo from about 10 years ago that has been rehashed again and again. Frankly it is complete BS.
            But nobody is plugging purple elephants with big floppy boobs into any private blog networks, nobody is building 700 backlinks per day to that, but they are to big floppy boobs....because there is money it.

            None of us are trying to rank nonsense phrases, we are all doing money words. unless your keyword is "undiscovered" to the rest of the marketers then there are people competing for it, in earnest. a money keyword that has 2 mil competitors has to be harder to rank for than a keyword with 22 mil that isnt important

            u can take 22 million results for a nonsense phrase and probably find that the top 1000 results all landed there accidentally...take a word like make money and none of the top 1000 landed there accidentally, they are all pounding away trying to get to the top. there has to be a correlation to how hard it is to beat them

            i recently tried to rank for a phrase with 4 million competing pages. in that post i mentioned a "new brand" this new brand has 80,000 competing pages. i didn't optimize for the brand, i just mentioned it, i optimized for the 4 million keyword. my results were #97 for the keyword and 1.4 for the "new brand" keyword that only has 80,000 competing pages.

            to a guy like u with tools, networks, experience and cash, the competing pages may not factor. to a guy with just scrapebox and no damn private proxies, the competition on a money phrase is much harder to beat.

            imho
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            • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
              Originally Posted by WraithSarko View Post

              But nobody is plugging purple elephants with big floppy boobs into any private blog networks, nobody is building 700 backlinks per day to that, but they are to big floppy boobs....because there is money it.

              None of us are trying to rank nonsense phrases, we are all doing money words. unless your keyword is "undiscovered" to the rest of the marketers then there are people competing for it, in earnest. a money keyword that has 2 mil competitors has to be harder to rank for than a keyword with 22 mil that isnt important

              u can take 22 million results for a nonsense phrase and probably find that the top 1000 results all landed there accidentally...take a word like make money and none of the top 1000 landed there accidentally, they are all pounding away trying to get to the top. there has to be a correlation to how hard it is to beat them

              i recently tried to rank for a phrase with 4 million competing pages. in that post i mentioned a "new brand" this new brand has 80,000 competing pages. i didn't optimize for the brand, i just mentioned it, i optimized for the 4 million keyword. my results were #97 for the keyword and 1.4 for the "new brand" keyword that only has 80,000 competing pages.

              to a guy like u with tools, networks, experience and cash, the competing pages may not factor. to a guy with just scrapebox and no damn private proxies, the competition on a money phrase is much harder to beat.

              imho

              You are completely missing the point. THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO LOOK AT TO DETERMINE YOUR COMPETITION IS PAGE ONE OF GOOGLE. I don't think I can be any more clear than that.

              It makes no difference what your resources are. If you can beat the site at #10, you can be on the first page, no matter how many other "competing" pages there are.

              What I'm trying to explain is that all the sites returned in the index for a search phrase are not competing for that phrase. In fact, in most cases, probably very few are making any serious effort to rank for the keyword.

              And to be totally honest, the top 3 is where most of the traffic goes, so really you need to be able to beat them.

              Think of it this way... You have a choice of picking two races to enter. In the first one there are 20,000 amateur runners competing. In the second one, there are only 100 competitors, but they are all current or former Olympians. Now the second race has far fewer "competitors", but which one do you think you have a better chance in finishing in the top 10 for? Obviously, assuming you are not an Olympic runner yourself.

              In this case, the number of competitors tells you nothing about the quality of the competition.

              I can find all kinds of keywords that do not have a whole lot of "competing" pages, but I guarantee you will never rank for them without a ridiculous budget and high level of skill. On the other hand, I can find keywords with tons of "competing" pages, that an amateur could rank a site in the top 5 for in a month or two.

              If you are picking keywords based on the number of pages in the index, you are likely missing out on some great keywords.
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              • Profile picture of the author WraithSarko
                Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

                You are completely missing the point. THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO LOOK AT TO DETERMINE YOUR COMPETITION IS PAGE ONE OF GOOGLE. I don't think I can be any more clear than that.

                It makes no difference what your resources are. If you can beat the site at #10, you can be on the first page, no matter how many other "competing" pages there are.

                What I'm trying to explain is that all the sites returned in the index for a search phrase are not competing for that phrase. In fact, in most cases, probably very few are making any serious effort to rank for the keyword.

                And to be totally honest, the top 3 is where most of the traffic goes, so really you need to be able to beat them.

                Think of it this way... You have a choice of picking two races to enter. In the first one there are 20,000 amateur runners competing. In the second one, there are only 100 competitors, but they are all current or former Olympians. Now the second race has far fewer "competitors", but which one do you think you have a better chance in finishing in the top 10 for? Obviously, assuming you are not an Olympic runner yourself.

                In this case, the number of competitors tells you nothing about the quality of the competition.

                I can find all kinds of keywords that do not have a whole lot of "competing" pages, but I guarantee you will never rank for them without a ridiculous budget and high level of skill. On the other hand, I can find keywords with tons of "competing" pages, that an amateur could rank a site in the top 5 for in a month or two.

                If you are picking keywords based on the number of pages in the index, you are likely missing out on some great keywords.
                We are saying the exact same thing Mike.

                There is INTENT and EFFORT in the keywords we try to rank for. Competing against 100 determined is easier than competing against 200 determined

                of course i aint ranking for much of anything at the moment and i'm sure you are so I know u have proven results behind what u are saying...the thing is that we are saying the same thing
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                SuperExpensiveNUKE...SubmitterEnvyNUKE...SENukeXCRaptastic
                I've spent the last 59 months building 412 MFA sites. Each site averages 8 cents per day...I said average, some make up to 17 cents per day, PASSIVE INCOME! This income allows me to live comfortably and buy ANY flavor Jolly Rancher or Skittles I desire. Don't give in to fear, it CAN be done!
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                • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
                  Originally Posted by WraithSarko View Post

                  We are saying the exact same thing Mike.

                  There is INTENT and EFFORT in the keywords we try to rank for. Competing against 100 determined is easier than competing against 200 determined

                  of course i aint ranking for much of anything at the moment and i'm sure you are so I know u have proven results behind what u are saying...the thing is that we are saying the same thing
                  No, we are not quite saying the same thing because the number of results in the index for a search query does not tell you how many of those sites are actually trying to rank for that keyword. You have to dig in deeper than that. Many of the results are barely even relevant to the search phrase.
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                  • Profile picture of the author WraithSarko
                    Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

                    No, we are not quite saying the same thing because the number of results in the index for a search query does not tell you how many of those sites are actually trying to rank for that keyword. You have to dig in deeper than that. Many of the results are barely even relevant to the search phrase.
                    I feel you, but for keywords with some commercial intent I'd think there are a lot more serious contenders in the serps.

                    to really say it doesn't matter would be to say google's algorithm pays no attention to how many other pages there are when they decide where to place you. i havent looked at their algorithm (lately) but the last time i checked, it was in there.

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                    SuperExpensiveNUKE...SubmitterEnvyNUKE...SENukeXCRaptastic
                    I've spent the last 59 months building 412 MFA sites. Each site averages 8 cents per day...I said average, some make up to 17 cents per day, PASSIVE INCOME! This income allows me to live comfortably and buy ANY flavor Jolly Rancher or Skittles I desire. Don't give in to fear, it CAN be done!
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                    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
                      Originally Posted by WraithSarko View Post

                      I feel you, but for keywords with some commercial intent I'd think there are a lot more serious contenders in the serps.

                      to really say it doesn't matter would be to say google's algorithm pays no attention to how many other pages there are when they decide where to place you. i havent looked at their algorithm (lately) but the last time i checked, it was in there.
                      But the sheer number tells you nothing about the quality of those pages.

                      And actually I would say Google's algorithm pays no attention to how many sites are in the index for the query. You are assuming the algorithm automatically starts you at the back of the pack and makes you work your way up from there. That is not the case at all. If that were true, then it might be worthwhile to worry about how many results there are.
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                      • Profile picture of the author WraithSarko
                        i honestly think we are on the same page...in this thread I mean, not in the serps. YET
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                        SuperExpensiveNUKE...SubmitterEnvyNUKE...SENukeXCRaptastic
                        I've spent the last 59 months building 412 MFA sites. Each site averages 8 cents per day...I said average, some make up to 17 cents per day, PASSIVE INCOME! This income allows me to live comfortably and buy ANY flavor Jolly Rancher or Skittles I desire. Don't give in to fear, it CAN be done!
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      • Profile picture of the author JSProjects
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Every single keyword has the same number of "competing pages"... 3. The top 3 are the only pages you are competing with. The rest are just white noise.

        The number of pages listed in the index for any search term tells you absolutely nothing about the competition.

        The search "purple elephants with big floppy boobs" returns 22,600,000 results. Do you really think there are over 22 million websites targeting that keyword?
        Exactly. Why people care about overall competing results is beyond me.
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  • Profile picture of the author mosthost
    Your domain is no longer an EMD when you add the word "my" to it. Now it's a domain that contains the keyword phrase and extra word.
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    • Profile picture of the author Carl Brown
      I know. But "mykeywordphrase.org" becomes an EMD for that phrase and ranks easily (because no one searches that term). Others have said adding a prefix of suffix has little to do with ranking. It seems to. I guess I'll never know how important it is unless I can test both keywordphrase.com with mykeywordphrase.com and see how much more difficult it would be to rank with an added prefix or suffix. I had hoped some of those who were into testing every aspect had already tested this.
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      • Profile picture of the author mosthost
        Originally Posted by Carl Brown View Post

        I know. But "mykeywordphrase.org" becomes an EMD for that phrase and ranks easily (because no one searches that term). Others have said adding a prefix of suffix has little to do with ranking. It seems to. I guess I'll never know how important it is unless I can test bother keywordphrase.com with mykeywordphrase.com and see how much more difficult it would be to rank with an added prefix or suffix. I had hoped some of those who were into testing every aspect had already tested this.
        I agree with what you're saying. The EMD when you add my has little competition so you have no problem ranking. That's why EMDs used to be so effective. However, when the .com, .net, and .org are all taken, I'm not sure it's worth registering .co and the like to keep trying it.

        I personally think EMDs have seen their glory days fade, although you still see plenty of them ranking. Those have enough anchor text, so its hard to calculate how much impact the domain name has compared to the backlinks.
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  • Profile picture of the author TeamBringIt
    EMDs were awesome back in the days, you could rank quite well without backlinks. In today's seo world, EMD will not do the same. You have to see just how competitive that keyword/phrase is and do proper backlinking in order for it to rank well..
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    Cool thing about EMD's is that you have to care less about anchor diversity.
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  • Profile picture of the author DeskCoder
    Thanks @MikeFriedman ... I just got in trouble by my wife because I was googling "purple elephants with big floppy boobs".
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    • Profile picture of the author Carl Brown
      Originally Posted by DeskCoder View Post

      Thanks @MikeFriedman ... I just got in trouble by my wife because I was googling "purple elephants with big floppy boobs".
      I literally spit out my glass of milk when I read that

      I will create a subdomain on my favorite free site using that as my subdomain. We'll see if my "EMD" (note the quotes) outranks the competing porn sites.
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  • Profile picture of the author MaryPabelate
    Banned
    EMD works but only with .com

    You also have to research the keyword and you have to use less competitive keywords...
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    • Profile picture of the author Mantasmo
      Originally Posted by MaryPabelate View Post

      EMD works but only with .com
      Nonsense.

      Niko - while I absolutely believe that anchor text is a factor somewhere in the algorithm (it must be, read over Google patents and it becomes quite obvious), I don't think that you have to worry about it too much if your links come from high quality sources. Like, if you use 30-50 high PR, high quality links to rank - I don't think that anchor text makes any difference.
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    • Profile picture of the author Rocketboy
      Originally Posted by MaryPabelate View Post

      EMD works but only with .com

      You also have to research the keyword and you have to use less competitive keywords...
      I still rank both .net and .org domains and EMD's still works the best. Your main keyword in your domain will help you a great deal. But if your EMD domain where punished by the evil penguin, it will not rank.
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      • Profile picture of the author zannix
        EMD used to very important, it still has its weight, however, with an increasing number of domain registrations over the last several years, Google understands that it shouldn't favor (that much) those who got the EMD over those who provide better user experience.
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        • Profile picture of the author Blackbelts
          Originally Posted by zannix View Post

          EMD used to very important, it still has its weight, however, with an increasing number of domain registrations over the last several years, Google understands that it shouldn't favor (that much) those who got the EMD over those who provide better user experience.
          Absolutely agree! The days of EMD are gone now. Google now focus a lot on user experience and social factors. Things such as Facebook likes, Gplus, etc is something that we cannot ignore now. Although i do notice a handful of EMD that are still doing well, i believe that it's just a matter of time before Big G catches up. EMD or not, it does not really matter that much these days!
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  • Profile picture of the author Henri Lind
    EMD are truly overrated. They may have had a great impact in the past, but now its all about quality of the content and natural seo, being social etc
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  • Profile picture of the author bluecoyotemedia
    I think the biggest perk of EMD's are the abiity to use the url in anchor test and not get penalized.

    also using the naked URL's when you backlinking
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  • Profile picture of the author Krinal Mehta
    I bought 20 EMD's and built micro sites on each of these. Did some basic SEO and got them ranked mostly in Top 3.

    The only one's that are not ranking far till top 3 pages are the one's that have good competition, and the sites ranking on top are highly relevant and have a high authority overall in SERP's.

    Hope that helps !!
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