Hyphenated keyword rich domains - is a hyphenated .co.uk better than a non-hyphenatedlesser TLD such as .org?
-
Hey there, Would anyone be kind enough to share their experience of using keyword rich hyphenated domains. Are they as effective at tanking as non hyphenated domains?
i.e would it be better to get a lesser non-hyphenated TLD such as .org for example rather than a hyphenated co.uk?
-
Carlos, thanks for taking the time, appreciated.
-
Here's some old posts that might help you further...
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-name http://www.seomoz.org/blog/rules-of-domain-name-selection http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-much-weight-does-google-give-to-exact-match-domains
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited You can see in the last post by Rand (2010) compared to the first link (2005) how things may have changed.
I am not sure what other views are on it now in 2012 - but again - I would always look at it as if I was creating a business first and not just a website. Go for the brandable non-hyphenated non spammy option.
-
Based on our experience I would I would stay away from keyword stuff over hyphenated domains. We have had better results going with brandable types names and just concentrating on content and other elements of SEO. If you are talking about a website with a UK audience I would stick to .co.uk unless of course it is some kind of org or charity etc.
If you do want to get keywords in the domain - then go for it - just don't go over the top to make it so spammy that you get penalized for it and you also don't need the hyphens. The keywords can get parsed in the domain without the separators.
Keywords in domains might have weight this year.... (again) - but next year after the herds have milked it to death (again) - they may not be given much weight... and on and on. I am sure I saw some study on SEOMoz some years back on this though (in terms of keyword rich domains versus no-keyword rich domains).
I think if it were me I would always lean on the side of creating a brand first - a business.... one that wasn't reliant on the swings and rollercoaster ride of the Search Engine algo's.
Do that, think about what the content is going to be - and your audience and your traffic will work itself out in spades no matter what your domain is.
Carlos
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How will ranking keywords add on my website
Its been a lot of time since I have launched my website but I am not getting any ranking keywords can you please help me about the following factor or provide some solutions my website is about selling third-party antivirus and technical service: norton.com/setup
On-Page Optimization | | Mehakayna0 -
Should a keyword be optimized on One page only?
I have a niche website that focusses on selling pizza delivery bags, the search keywords that are used by users are about 7 and their are another 15 long tail keywords. The question is do i optimize every keyword per one page only? i have a blog on the website www.prodelpizzabags.com/blog/ if i write a blog post that would "compete" internally with another keyword, what should i do, what are the best practices I would be thankful for any insights regarding keyword/page optimization
On-Page Optimization | | akramsabra0 -
Should you use Plural version of a keyword or singular
H If kw research shows that singular version of a keyword has higher search volume than plural version should you still use plural version in main on-page areas to try and catch both instances or focus on the singular ? cheers dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Subdomain vs. Root Domain design
I know that there are penalties if you have a navigation item in your categories that links to another site (root domain) that yields the same design as the original link. Is there any negative SEO implications with having a subdomain with the same design as the root domain i.e. root.com vs. store.root.com And the navigation functionality within will have links to both store.root.com as well as root.com directories? Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | customerparadigm.com0 -
What is a better mobile domain from an SEO perspective an m.example.com or using your regular domain with user agent detection?
Just wondering what domain is more beneficial for a mobile site and why.
On-Page Optimization | | CabbageTree0 -
Are hyphens not a good thing in page titles?
I am pretty sure hyphens are looked at as spaces no matter what programming language you are using for text purposes. The On-page Report Card is not counting them as spaces in the page title, therefore, we're not getting the grade for having the keyword in the page title because it's divided by hyphens. Is this a fix that needs to be implemented into the SEOmoz app or should I not have hyphens in the title or does it really not matter? Up for discussion! Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | cyberlicious0 -
Keywords with accents
Hi, We are running a website in Spain to teach touch typing to children (www.mecanografia.com). Our main keyword is mecanografia (touch typing in Spanish) which is official written with an accent on the i. Our SEOMOZ on page optimization report was initially an F because we set the keyword mecanografia without an accent and on the page we use the grammatically correct version with an accent on the i. Once we added the keyword with accent to SEOMOZ our rapport was upgraded to an A. Our question is: how does Google treat accents. Is it necessary to optimize for words with and without accent or does one version suffice. Users search about 50% of the time without using the accent. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | Mecanografia0 -
Cross Domain Duplicate Content
Hi My client has a series of websies, one main website and several mini websites, articles are created and published daily and weekly, one will go on a the main website and the others on one, two, or three of the mini sites. To combat duplication, i only ever allow one article to be indexed (apply noindex to articles that i don't wanted indexed by google, so, if 3 sites have same article, 2 sites will have noindex tag added to head). I am not completely sure if this is ok, and whether there are any negative affects, apart from the articles tagged as noindex not being indexed. Are there any obvious issues? I am aware of the canonical link rel tag, and know that this can be used on the same domain, but can it be used cross domain, in place of the noindex tag? If so, is it exactly the same in structure as the 'same domain' canonical link rel tag? Thanks Matt
On-Page Optimization | | mattys0