Choosing Domain Name
-
I am trying to choose between two domains:-
Lets call them
While 1 is shorter than 2, people don't search for 'Example Deals' but they do search for 'Example Discounts' is quite large numbers, therefore 2 containts all the keywords.
How much does including the keywords which you are targetting in the domain affect ranking these day?
-
In my view it still has a large influence (although Google has stated this is diminishing).
Short term strategy - go for the second domain.
Long term strategy - go for the first. You'll create a better/more memorable 'brand name' and eventually Google's algorithm changes will reduce the importance of keywords in the domain name. You'll be able to get good SEO results, it will just take a little longer.
-
I asked here about the domain name.->they advice me to take the option 2, like "buy online cigarettes" but I choose this what was sounding better. sorry for my bad english.
-
I agree with Samuel. I also see this kind of results. But the negative is that you cant make branding for your website, Depends what you want to do with her. If is just affiliate take the second option.If is something more serious then take the first and work harder. Example me I am building a site about cigarettes. I manage the project from beginning until end. Web design,seo etc... I asked here about the domain name. maybe the keyword "buy online cigarettes" is much more targeted to my clients wish, and I guess is converting much more like just cigarettes, but in the end I purchase a domain with the name just cigarettes,Even if I have to work harder to rank it for that term. I guess sounds better just "cigarettes", like "buy online cigarettes". Me personally I choose the names what sounds better like the names which are more easy to rank in Google. This is my opinion, now is up to you ...
-
I spent 6 months getting top 10 rankings for a site without the keywords in the domain. I've just recently built a site with the exact match keyword in the domain and am stunned to see the site in the top 10 after 2 months and minimal link building in a highly competitive industry. I personally believe that the domain name has played a part in this. My advice is wherever possible include your main keywords in the domain.
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
-
Search results performance affected by similarly named Adult business?!
Hey This is an unusual one I guess and one we've scratched our heads on for ages without reaching any definitive answer, so would be very grateful to the Moz community for some thought and guidance! Client website: https://www.themassagerooms.com This is a professionally run, therapeutic health business offering on-demand ("mobile", ie visiting customers at their homes) massage service. Importantly, please note again (you'll see why in a minute) the exact URL and the fact that this business, our client, is a registered therapeutic health and wellness business (ie it is genuine, real, massage services). The business has been around for about 10 years and used to rank very highly for many dream keywords for their industry. However, several years ago they got approached by a domain reseller offer to sell them "massagerooms.com" (ie the same name but without the "The" at the beginning) for a few thousand pounds. They rejected the offer. Interesting Aside: This happened a short while before the Facebook movie was launched ... if they'd seen that movie perhaps they would have accepted! (Facebook was originally called The Facebook but then one of the key investors advised them to drop the "The"! Anyway, unfortunately for them, that offered domain name (massagerooms.com) was then sold to an online adult video services company. Soon after, themassagerooms.com rankings started to suffer. Today, TheMassageRooms.com have a technically very clean site (great scores on Google LightSpeed etc), with regularly updated relevant health and wellness content. They are doing ok in terms of rankings but no where near as well as many of their competitors who on the face of it seem to have significantly worse on and off-page scores as well as many spammy links. Also, TheMassageRooms.com have a much better Moz DA then those competitors that are ranking better. The big question is whether the existence of an adult services website, MassageRooms.com with such a similar name is causing them issues in search results? Especially since many people (regular customers and even their own staff), do search for TheMassageRooms (ie the therapeutic health and wellness company) by only typing "massage rooms". So, there is a clear argument for saying "The Massage Rooms" = "Massage Rooms" in many respects, even through the two URLs which match these exact terms lead to very different businesses. Of course, one solution, might be to change the URL and 301 redirect everything. But would that actually make a difference if the actual issue is that Google's algorithm is somehow connected "MassageRooms.com" (adult site) with "TheMassageRooms.com" (our client's health and wellness site). Also it seems a bit drastic to ask them to change a 10 year established brand name etc.
Algorithm Updates | | AmerTMR0 -
SEO threats of moving from [.com.au] domain to [.com] domain for a 15yr old SAAS company.
Hey Guys. I work for a 15 yr old SAAS company which originally started with a country-specific [.com.au] domain and later got a [.com] domain as the business grew. The AU website has a DA:56 while the [.com] has as DA: 25. Now we are looking to have everything migrated to the [.com] domain. But, my concern is that we might lose the SEO value of the AU domain. I was wondering if anyone has any experience in this or recommend a case study on this topic. Thanks! Allan
Algorithm Updates | | allanhenryjohn0 -
SEO Myth-Busters -- Isn't there a "duplicate content" penalty by another name here?
Where is that guy with the mustache in the funny hat and the geek when you truly need them? So SEL (SearchEngineLand) said recently that there's no such thing as "duplicate content" penalties. http://searchengineland.com/myth-duplicate-content-penalty-259657 by the way, I'd love to get Rand or Eric or others Mozzers aka TAGFEE'ers to weigh in here on this if possible. The reason for this question is to double check a possible 'duplicate content" type penalty (possibly by another name?) that might accrue in the following situation. 1 - Assume a domain has a 30 Domain Authority (per OSE) 2 - The site on the current domain has about 100 pages - all hand coded. Things do very well in SEO because we designed it to do so.... The site is about 6 years in the current incarnation, with a very simple e-commerce cart (again basically hand coded). I will not name the site for obvious reasons. 3 - Business is good. We're upgrading to a new CMS. (hooray!) In doing so we are implementing categories and faceted search (with plans to try to keep the site to under 100 new "pages" using a combination of rel canonical and noindex. I will also not name the CMS for obvious reasons. In simple terms, as the site is built out and launched in the next 60 - 90 days, and assume we have 500 products and 100 categories, that yields at least 50,000 pages - and with other aspects of the faceted search, it could create easily 10X that many pages. 4 - in ScreamingFrog tests of the DEV site, it is quite evident that there are many tens of thousands of unique urls that are basically the textbook illustration of a duplicate content nightmare. ScreamingFrog has also been known to crash while spidering, and we've discovered thousands of URLS of live sites using the same CMS. There is no question that spiders are somehow triggering some sort of infinite page generation - and we can see that both on our DEV site as well as out in the wild (in Google's Supplemental Index). 5 - Since there is no "duplicate content penalty" and there never was - are there other risks here that are caused by infinite page generation?? Like burning up a theoretical "crawl budget" or having the bots miss pages or other negative consequences? 6 - Is it also possible that bumping a site that ranks well for 100 pages up to 10,000 pages or more might very well have a linkuice penalty as a result of all this (honest but inadvertent) duplicate content? In otherwords, is inbound linkjuice and ranking power essentially divided by the number of pages on a site? Sure, it may be some what mediated by internal page linkjuice, but what's are the actual big-dog issues here? So has SEL's "duplicate content myth" truly been myth-busted in this particular situation? ??? Thanks a million! 200.gif#12
Algorithm Updates | | seo_plus0 -
Is Moz Domain Authority still relvant when it comes to Google ranking?
My understanding of Moz DA is that it is predominantly based on external links. Since Penguin I am noticing more and more websites ranking high in Google with a "low" number of links and certainly a low DA but quality and relevancy of content and also of offering. I understand that there was always more to ranking than DA but is it anymore even relevant to how a site will rank in Google?
Algorithm Updates | | halloranc0 -
Crosslinking & Managing Multiple Domains in Same Webmaster Tool's Account
I am wondering if there are any consequences if you manage multiple websites in the same Webmaster Tool's account and cross link between them? My guess is that this would be a very easy thing for Google to detect and build into their algorithms. Hence affect the link juice from those domains that are owned by the same person. I am looking for verification on this. Thanks, Joe
Algorithm Updates | | csamsojo0 -
301'ing away from an exact match domain.
Hi Moz Community! My website gets just over 50% of its traffic from ranking in the top 3 in over 10 countries for my exact match keyword domain. 80% + from keywords related to the exact match domain. We are now looking at doing a to 301 re-direct to a new domain to start a fresh branding to the site to increase scope and expand. This would involve removing the keyword from the homepage and domain entirely . However. Considering all competitors ranking for our main keyword, have the keyword in their domain as either a subdomain to or in their root domain and in their homepage content, would this make ranking without the keyword in domain & content hard? I have found a very similar example that has done so, so I guess the answer to that question is no its not. about 65-70% of our anchor text on our backlinks is for our domain keyword. Can anyone advise how best to go about maintaining rankings after 301ing or how best to go about 301ing to make sure that we can maintain the rankings for our main keyword! Any advise at all would be greatly appreciated, Thanks.
Algorithm Updates | | howiex10 -
Undertanding Google's PMD (Partial Matching Domain) policy...
Hi, If your business name contains keywords, is that an issue? Some companies, have keyword based brand names... So what is Google's policy regarding EMD or PMD? What happens when the company name has a keyword in it? If anyone could help clarify, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Ben
Algorithm Updates | | bjs20100 -
Choosing domain name - ccTLD vs Vanity URL
I have to choose between a country specific domain name that is long and difficult to remember, vs or a .me domain which is short and contains the exact keywords I'm optimising for. The challenge is that I'm only targeting local search traffic for the service I am advertising. Does a country specific domain name have any benefits in terms of weighting when I'm only interested in traffic from that country?
Algorithm Updates | | flashie0