Exact match domain names

[RikkiD22]

Hello, Someone approached a client of mine to sell a exact match domain name for a very competitive and high converting keyword. Would this be of any use and what are the best tactics to employ if it is purchased? I was of the opinion that the 'power' of exact match domain names are dying fast but would be interested to hear what people with experience in this think and what they have done with them (i.e. set-up a website on that domain or re-directed it)? Thanks, Rikki

[RikkiD22]

Thanks for your help all. Decided not to buy the domain and keep going with things as they are!

[EGOL]

I find it infuriating that spammers are still able to get their hands on exact match domain names

I've bought a few of these domains and had to pay a freeking fortune to get them.  The fact is, however, I decided that I wanted them in 2005, 2008, 2011 and the people who I bought them from had owned them for a long time collecting ad revenue from the type-in traffic.  Their price was waaay waaay more then the appraisal but if you want the domain and know how to use it you can make a freeking fortune back.

Should google give them a ranking advantage?  I think the answer is yes, a small advantage and anyone who wants that advantage can obtain it simply by paying the price to get them.  If you are willing to pay or was smart enough to register the domain early then that advantage is your reward.

[AdenBrands]

I find it infuriating that spammers are still able to get their hands on exact match domain names and leave the actual brand sites who exist within the niche looking for business rather than click throughs suffer in the SERPs! Will Google eventually phase this out?

[AlanMosley]

They still have value, you can usually get them to rank quite easly, but if they are spamming like THB suggests i would not bother.

But are they cheap? if so, you may be able to resell them. I have a few that i am sitting on till i get the right offer.

[THB]

My thoughts exactly (and other great points by other comments here).

There are many factors that go into this issue, and of course, I'd love to have say, houses.com or realestate.com for a website that was offering real estate for sale.  But that doesn't mean that I should create some long-winded, keyword-stuffed domain name (real-estate-and-homes-houses-for-sale.com) as that will not do anything for my cause.

I'm sure, as everybody has pointed out, that there is still some consideration into the domain match for the genre in question; however, domain name are basically impossible to come by nowadays for any popular/common item you are planning on building a website around.  I'm sure the search engines have also thought about that.

But in all honesty, look at a lot of the major players in any niche, and majority of them have a unique, highly-branded name that doesn't have anything to do with the industry.  Not to say you shouldn't do it, but with a legitimate link-building campaign and top-notch SEO tactics deployed throughout the site, you can rank for anything under any domain name.

[EGOL]

I own several exact match domains.  I can say with confidence that they used to be very powerful in ranking a website.  However, google has turned down that benefit significantly as recently as this year.  I do think that they still give some value - but only for exact match queries.

I like them for reasons beyond that....

1. in my opinion they have extra good conversion rates because people who land on them think... "Oh... this is widgets.com... they must know their stuff about widgets."

2. this implied credibility - even if undeserved - makes them a better target for likes, links, tweets, mentions and they can easily become the "go to place" for their product or topic if you are willing to put work into them

3. finally, they give me mental energy.... If I owned baloney.com I would become the world's expert on baloney and build a fantastic site... if you own a domain like that you owe it to the domain to do a good job.

So, I would be willing to pay a good amount of dough for an exact match domain ... but only if I am the right person to control it.  I would not want knitting.com or even wine.com because I don't know anything about these subjects.

[JamesNorquay]

Exact match domains can be good, but I do agree they are becoming less powerful compared too say 2 years ago.

You can still get the following with a EDM:

• Good for branding

• Great for type in traffic selling Auto Insurance, 2-3% of people direct type in domains example autoinsurance.com

• EDM SEO ability still evident yet it is dropping.

[leadsprofi]

I think, exact domain name, is not bad, if you down white-hat strategy to rank it higher, it's nice, but if you use spam tactics its bad for exact and non-exact match domain name.

for example if you search "shoes" on google.com you will see the domain "shoes.com" on 1st or 2nd position on 1st serp. this is not bad if you down the right seo for a domain.

for the keyword "seo" is the same too.

from my side, take it, down the whitehat tactics seo, and finish that's all.

[jeffreytrull1]

I think you're right that Google has discounted the value of exact match domains now as it's not as easy to increase rankings solely on the merit of the domain alone. However, I don't agree that exact match domains aren't helpful at all anymore. I see cases all the time where exact match domains are very higher in search rankings in Google. Value of having the exact match domain may be "dying," but I wouldn't say it's dead yet. If this is a new domain with no domain authority, it does you no help to simply redirect from that domain to yours regardless of how good the keywords in the new domain are. At minimum you would need to build up the new domain to get any value out of it (unless you you want to buy the domain just to ensure competitors don't get a hold of it).

[marker-311528]

I’m new to SEO but wouldn’t it still help? If you are trying to rank for the keyword "pickles" and your url is pickles.com, every link back to your site will contain the word "pickles" because its in your url. Where as if your site was called peanutbutter.com and you weren’t able to change the tag it would say peanut butter. Wouldn’t Google say pickles is way more relevant to pickles than peanut butter is, wouldn’t they give the pickle url more consideration? Again new to SEO and I might be missing something here.

[RikkiD22]

Thanks THB. You re-confirm what I was thinking really but it's just when they are offered I think they make you think about it a bit more. Would be interested to hear any other views on this?

[THB]

You are correct in that "exact match domain names" are dying out, and that is due entirely in part to spammers (don't they just ruin everything??). It's all about branding now, which means you can basically have any domain name you want and rank for anything you want. Mind you, you're not going to see cars.com trying to rank for telephones anytime soon, but you know what I mean. While it might be tempting, it is not necessary to have your niche keyword in your domain name anymore. Last I heard, Bing was the only search engine actually taking these things into consideration, and that was over a year ago, so I'm not sure whether they still do.