Domain name advice please
-
Hi i am trying to work out what is the best when it comes to domain names. What i mean is, should you go short or should you try and fit in what you need.
So as follows.
say i need a domain name that i wanted to buy which i have done research and found that these two words together are good keywords. please note that this is an example
the two keywords are manchester airport
and the next two keywords are cheap flights
should i get a domain name that say manchesterairportcheapflights or should i have a shorter domain name like manchester cheap flights
or another example
say i wanted a domain name that fitted the following two keywords in
manchester hotels
budget accomodation
should i just get a domain name that says manchester hotels or should it get the following manchesterhotelsbudgetaccomodation
I am looking at buying a number of domain names and i am trying to find out if shorter is better or if a longer domain name is better
-
I agree with Ryan, even if the domain name will be the "perfect" SEO it does'nt mean it will have a high CTR. If you take a look at this from a users perspective:
1. You dont see the words directly, just a bunch of letters
2. People will not remember the domain name
3. It looks spammy.If you use only two words, which looks better, I think you would have some good results.
-
Thanks for that, that is great advice.
-
I would never advise using more then 2 terms in a URL for a primary domain. When you think of the most successful domains, they are all one or two terms. The exceptions are when an acronym is used representing the full terms such as with att.com.
The idea behind purchasing keyword domains exists because people are always looking to take the easy way out, and they are attracted to shiny objects (i.e. rankings). Quality SEO is about building one strong site and supporting it with great content and solid SEO.
In order to be successful with the domain names you mentioned, you will need the support of both onpage and offpage SEO, along with "SEO hosting". If you spent the same time and effort on the main site instead of with this form of tactic, the site would be far better off.
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
-
Domain Name Keyword Change
Hello. I have a question. I currently have a client who is exploring the option of changing his domain name to one which includes a key word and his company name. Currently he is using a domain name which does not include a keyword and does not include his company name. I understand that with proper redirects we can keep a significant amount of the juice behind it and we aren't so concerned about the domain name change. However my clients only concern is this. His company and new domain have the words Best Buy in it. He is concerned about the words best buy being in the domain name as it would be directly competing with the electronics giants. Should this even be a concern? He isn't in the electronics business and the remaining of the domain would include a keyword which directly relates to his business. Any input would be appreciated.
Competitive Research | | Imagination0 -
Building a high-traffic website in a jobs-related domain
Hi, We are currently planning upon starting a website that’s targeted towards people looking for government jobs in India. Here are the primary / base keywords that we are targeting: Sarkari Naukri Government Jobs / Govt Jobs Latest Government jobs Banking Jobs Bank jobs Railway jobs Employment News IBPS SSC We’re confused that how should we go about ranking on top for these / long tail keywords around it? Because, we think that this is not a domain where you can write long and information-oriented posts (1400-1500 words) to crack SEO. People come to websites under this domain to look for latest jobs and that might or might not be around the high-traffic keywords mentioned above. Secondly, it might not be possible to write a lot of long & information-oriented content around these newer job posts. How do we go about building a high-traffic website in this domain? Thanks...
Competitive Research | | Shalin.TJ0 -
Is there an SEO benefit to purchasing domains for a website?
Greetings Mozzers, I wanted to see if someone could clarify the power of domains for me a bit. Is there an SEO benefit in purchasing fresh domains for a specific website? Something that would effect certain metrics like parking keyword domains to pages that target that keyword? I'm not talking about buying pre-existing domains that have value and are for sale. I'm talking about newly registered domains. Thanks for any advice/clarification.
Competitive Research | | MonsterWeb280 -
Information Overload! Please can someone help me simply, with this specific example?
Hi Guys I am asking a lot of questions lately, so I am very grateful of the community support. Hopefully I can start giving back soon. I am getting myself tied up in knots with SEO on my site. I have read so many articles, and many contradictory opinions that I can't workout which path to go down. So could you look at this specific example and give me a brutally honest kick in the right direction? If you do a search on google (UK) for "Vogue Magazine Subscription" you will see one of our main competitors in position 7,8,9 for Teen Vogue, Luomo Vogue and Italian Vogue. We come in at position 4 page 2 (UniqueMagazines). Why is it that our competitor ranks higher than us, for what is really an unrelated search? I mean, yes Teen Vogue, Italian and Luomo are relevant to those keywords, but surely our page is more relevant? Is it because the competitor has a slightly higher domain authority? We are working on generating content to drive back links, and so get authority. I have looked into so much, generating content, updating internal link architecture, creating back links. What in this specific example should I be looking at? I have analysed our back link profile, it's ok. I did some work on internal links, as our site ranked first for Italian Vogue, which seemed to be due to more links internally pointing at the italian version. What metrics should I be looking at to determine what makes our competitor rank higher? Many thanks if you can help Paul
Competitive Research | | TheUniqueSEO0 -
How can I estimate a domain's overall organic search traffic - any tools?
Most of my analysis revolves around looking at rankings for specific keyword phrases that I've identified as important/relevant. But it'd be nice to be able to look at a domain and get a sense for how much organic traffic they get overall. If they're not ranking for the keywords I'm researching but have a lot of organic traffic that would be a nice signal to me that they are probably targeting other phrases more or have a big brand presence or something. Any suggestions? Thanks! Jeff Gibson
Competitive Research | | jeff.gibson0 -
Fast Question - domain value
For example, If I have a domain: dvdumwandeln.com , and I want to focus in the bellow keywords: dvd umwandeln , dvd in avi umwandeln , and so on... I develop a IA like this: www.dvdumwandeln.com/dvd-in-avi-umwandeln/ . Here the domain will give any value to the keyword dvd in avi umwandeln ( if we have the domain dvdumwandeln.com )? I hope I did explain it well... If I do it, its a good SEO pratice, is this going to really boost my keywords? Thanks for trying to understand my explaination
Competitive Research | | augustos0 -
Domain Authority Question
So in looking at my first campaign with 3 of my top competitors, I have a domain authority of 65, and my competitors are 31, 43, and 38 and yet all of them outrank me by quite a bit. How can I take this research and make some sense of it to beat them in rankings? Thanks!
Competitive Research | | azguy0 -
"keyword" - rank the home page or sub page domain.com/keyword?
One of my clients has a pretty decent website that ranks 1st place for most major keywords in their line of business. EXCEPT one keyword that i've been struggling to get 1st position on Google (currently 2nd). My problem is: let's say "tennis shoes" as a keyword the home page of course has several other shoes listed but I've seen that Google took my home page and made it 2nd position (on 1st page). Where the section domain.com/tennis-shoes is on 2nd page of Google. My question is should i rel cannonical from the /tennis-shoes section to the home page so it focuses more on the specific keyword that i need to get the home 1st? Or should i leave the home page generic and focus more on /tennis-shoes to get that 1st position? What do you Moz'ers Think?
Competitive Research | | mosaicpro0