Q: Are keywords in your domain name an important ranking factor?
Posted by: Marketing Guy Date posted: June 12th, 2008 Published in: Domain Names, Search Engine OptimisationKeywords in domain names have very little importance in actual ranking calculations - that’s been the case for years now. The positive effects people see are a consequence of sites linking to the domain using the URL as anchor text - link text containing keywords is what helps the domain rank, not the actual appearance of the keyword in the domain name.
It’s a common mistake SEOs make - differentiating between “direct” ranking factors and “indirect” ranking factors is very important. People just tend to make the wrong assosciations - they optimise a keyword domain site and see it rank for the keyword and assume that this is down to the keyword in the domain. It isn’t.
The strength of keywords in domains is very easy to test. Find a keyword with mild competition (say anywhere from 500k +), buy the domain, stick a page up with content that doesn’t mention the keyword (nowhere in the body copy, title, etc). Then link to the site from another site using the text “click here”.
If the appearance of keywords in the domain name were so important, then the domain would rank well. But it won’t. That’s because it used to work (circa 2002, 2003) and Google SERPs were filled with spammy keyword domains hosting scraper sites so Google heavily devalued the impact keywords in domain names.
Think about it logically. If this was such an important factor - i.e. more important than any other SEO factor as people are saying - why would Google allow this? A keyword in a domain says nothing about the quality of the content on the site - it’s something that anyone can manipulate in an instant and at very low cost.
BobsWidgets.com ranks well for “widgets” because people link to it using the text, “Bobs Widgets”. There’s a reason that marketing.com, seo.com, searchengineoptimisation.com, travel.com, food.com, etc aren’t number 1 for their respective keywords - that reason is that they have uncompetitive levels of keyword inbound link text compared to their competitors and the domain name is largely irrelevant.
That’s just the “pure SEO ranking” value however. You need to also look at other types of value that can come from keywords in domains - it makes link building easier - people link to the site using keywords more often so rankings can come quicker because of that.
But look at the issue in a larger context - sure having “widgets” in your domain name will help you rank faster because people link to it saying “widgets”. But widgets isn’t your only keyword is it? What about the dozens, hundreds or thousands of other keywords you want to target? The appearance of “widgets” in the domain name doesn’t help them in the slightest.
For those reasons, overall keyword in domain names have very low value to even small campaigns and the overall value decreases as your campaign increases.
Personally, I wouldn’t even rank the value of this factor in my top 10 - it’s inconsequential to a SEO campaign where even a made up word as domain name (i.e. a brand) can achieve the same success just as easily.
There’s also an issue of image. I guess many people won’t realise and this is probably less and less of an issue as time passes, but there was a time when keyword domains were synonymous with spam (because as I said, spammers used to buy up keyword domains and throw up spam sites because they used to rank well because of the keyword in the domain). Personally, I ignore link requests and business requests from keyword domains for that reason - this may be the exception rather than the rule, but I believe there are probably a good percentage of website owners who feel the same.
And then the marketing issues. You spend loads of money on SEO for edinburghwidgets.com just for someone else to go ahead a buy up glasgowwidgets.com or buyedinburghwidgets.com and legally there’s nothing you can do about it - and there’s a decent chance they will outrank you and capitialise on any marketing efforts you are making. Why would you risk that as a business when you can optimise “abrand.com” just as easily?
Keywords domains are good for some applications, but I would be seriously concerned if a legitimate business wanted to spend money developing a keyword domain for their core business solely on the belief it will help them rank better.
Scott
Comments
The evidence is completely contrary to your post. I was engaged to research the the subject by a client, I will not list all the case history but as as example;
Below are some comments from leading SEO experts
Matt Cutts, of Google’s Webspam team specializing in search engine optimization issued statements last week reinforces the strength of the keywords in SEO ranking
“Domain names are the primary way of mapping where domains are on the web and Matt expects that to continue. Domain names are important and inseparable going forward”
“Owning a keyword match domain name is going to carry some weight in Google for the foreseeable future. It is something they want to reward. ”
“The keyword in backlink is golden, if I launch http://www.beer.co.uk or http://www.steel.co.uk, been a half decent SEO I should be able to get top 3 of those terms, BUT and this is a big but, if your in a highly competitive term area and you are good you can actually bind your brand to a search term which is golden as well”
“Having a generic domain helps with link building tremendously, if you owned the domain hotels.com, it is likely that when people link back to you from their sites that they will use the anchor text ” hotels.com”. The fact that this is one of the main keywords you will be targeting in the search engines, combined with the fact that it is used exclusively in anchor text to your site and it matches the domain location exactly adds up to a very powerful piece of SEO, with the additional benefits of direct type in traffic”
“content is king…but only if users can find it, generic keywords and good SEO guarantee top placement”
Brown Shoe Co. Inc. in the North American markets. Shoes.com, No. 155 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, is the main e-commerce site among Brown Shoe’s online businesses. The Brown Shoe sites include FamousFootwear.com, Naturalizer.com, DrSchollsShoes.com, LifeStride.com, CarlosShoes.com and LuxuryShoes.com http://www.shoes.com/
The Leading national and international companies Jonston & Jonston, Honda (motorcycles.com) using generic keywords to further establish the brands to consumers and increase market share with appreciable ROI
other examples of corporate owners of generic keywords in use
Fixodent - Dentures.com - Procter and Gamble - Toothpaste.com Laundry.com - UK Travel company - Cruises.co.uk Cruise.co.uk - Bank Of America - Loans.com - Barnes and Noble - Books.com - Office Depot - OfficeSupplies.com As a marketing man you are way off target
Hi Jonathan,
The point of the post was a reponse to a claim that the keyword’s appearance in the domain was a ranking factor in itself - i.e. that Google would rank a site for a keyword simply because the keyword appeared there. The claim was made that the appearance of keywords in a domain is actually a more important ranking factor than inbound links - which is clearly wrong. The claim had been made in response to someone new to SEO asking what the most important ranking factors are, hence my response to clarify.
The direct “ranking value” of the keyword in the domain is minimal, even negligble. The “ranking value” comes from the links, not the domain name - which is what Matt is saying.
The reason I posted this was to clarify that specific value in context with other ranking factors - i.e. “keyword in domain” vs “keyword in inbound links” vs “keyword in title tags” vs “keyword in H1 tags”, etc. In that context the importance as a ranking factor is minimal - other factors are clearly more important.
I think it’s important for people - not particularly experienced SEOs who know the difference, but those new to SEO - to not make the wrong associations with what is important and what isn’t. What I don’t want is a small business owner to go away from this thinking they “need” a keyword domain in order to rank for keyword terms, or to think that this is the most important ranking factor, which it isn’t.
Of course keyword domains do have other values - either indirect ranking values (helps with keyword link building) or marketing value (brand associations with rankings, etc) - I’m not suggesting otherwise. Like I said at the end of the post - I’d be worried if a business wanted a keyword domain solely because they thought having it was their easy road to success. There are legitimate business reasons for using a keyword domain - thinking that Google will rank the site better instantly because of the keywords in the domain isn’t one of them.
I’d also say that there are different applications of keywords in domains that businesses need to appreciate. It’s fair enough for big brands to use keyword domains to capitalise on positive brand associations and generic traffic levels, but this isn’t necessarily a realistic approach for smaller businesses.
I would concede though that perhaps Google is better now at filtering out keyword domain spam and giving more weight to the loans.com an dentures.com of the world - but at the same time, for every instance of a generic keyword domain ranking well, there are probably thousands of keyword domains out there with some kind of penalty or ban slapped on them.
Plus, looking at the pure ranking values of the sites you mention - exact keyword matches on Google.com:
1. Dentures.com (not top 10)
2. Toothpaste.com (not top 10)
3. Motorcycles.com (not top 10)
4. Shoes.com (number 1)
5. Laundry.com (not top 10)
6. Cruise.co.uk (not top 10)
7. Loans.com (not top 10)
8. Books.com (not top 10)
9. OfficeSupplies.com (not top 10)
I didn’t check all of them, but some resolve with duplicated version of the brand name domains (which do rank in the top 10) - one at least returned a 200 server response with the duplicated content. Which means that the keyword in domain value is minimal, and the keyword link value derived from that is in cases not being capitalised on.
Of course, it is safe to assume that not all these domains were used for SEO purposes - promoting generic keyword domains can be useful for marketing purposes (easier to remember and offers solid brand associations). But where’s the marketing value if you spend millions on a campaign only for users to Google “books” and not find you number 1? When you could spend the same money on promoting “your name” and users will always find you?
I’ve never like that “just because big brands do it, it’s a good approach” attitude to marketing - corporate red tape can lead to some very poor examples of marketing. Marketing and SEO should be entirely subjective - when you start taking a cookie cutter approach you begin to stagnate IMO.
Which takes us back nicely to the original point of this post. The direct value from keywords in domain names is minimal (in terms of pure SEO value). The relative value that comes from natural links, branding and so on is entirely subjective and there’s no one solution that fits all situations.
Some businesses will be able to approach keyword domain marketing very well - but not all. It should be taken on a case to case basis, and going into a campaign on the basis that “keyword domain = rankings” is short sighted in my opinion.
Scott
Hi Scott
I understand the point of the post was a reponse to a claim that the keyword’s appearance in the domain was a ranking factor in itself, IMO The direct “ranking value” of the keyword in the domain is a very important when used as part of the SEO strategy. “Some businesses will be able to approach keyword domain marketing very well” I agree. “I’ve never like that “just because big brands do it, it’s a good approach” attitude to marketing - corporate red tape can lead to some very poor examples of marketing. Marketing and SEO should be entirely subjective” IMO if having the keyword gives my SEO/Marketing team a superior full set of tools to work with I will take it, nothing short sighted in that just as the relative value that comes from natural links, branding and so on is Not entirely subjective and there is one core solution that fits all situations that we work from, after all the bots are not at the A.I. stage yet.
The examples you give on page rank for the generics is misleading as most of these have not been developed as stand alone sites, they are used as simple redirects to the brand name, The ones that are developed as stand alone sites are listed at pages one, one, two under the respective search terms baby: baby.com Cruise.co.uk shoes.com When the keyword is developed as an authorative website with content that reflects the URL the fact that this is one of the main keywords you will be targeting in the search engines, combined with the fact that it is used exclusively in anchor text to your site and it matches the domain location exactly adds up to a very powerful piece of SEO
Give me the keyword every time unless I can run the BBC website with more backlinks than you can throw stones at !!
I agree that a pure keyword domain ends up having power in the way that it is developed, but I would also say that it isn’t a prerequisite for success. £100k for a domain name alone - then how much more in marketing / development costs? On the other hand, any big brand with an established site should have the potential to rank for any given search terms. Hell, if I can rank personal sites for generic keyword terms with no marketing budget, 6 figures should get everyone else at least close!
Sure, having the keyword domain for a big budget marketing department would be a major boon for an established company - but what about a new business (with no established brand)? A keyword domain is a poor choice, regardless of the indirect benefits. Why would I spend money and time optimising SEO.com when some chump can come along and promote SEO.co.uk for next to nothing and capture some of my traffic? Like you say though, big brands tend to use keyword domains as secondary sites to their core web prensence for this very reason.
But I think the situation is different for big brands vs small businesses - and again different depending on the level of SEO input / knowledge they have.
I’m not questioning the value of keyword domains in terms of ease of link building or marketing value in some cases - I just highly question the claim that in itself it is a significant ranking factor. I.e. Google doesn’t rank sites higher because they have keywords in the domain name - they rank higher because of the links. Thinking otherwise is what I would say is being short sighted.
Just a bit more background on this post because I think there has been some misunderstanding to the point of it. I wrote it in response to a forum discussion as I said - the person asking the question had asked “what is the strongest ranking factor to get the number 1 spot” - someone responded, “keyword in domains, then links” (paraphrased). Hence this post - it’s a clarification of the difference between actual ranking factors (stuff that Google actually takes into account) versus indrect ranking factors. It’s here because I don’t want small businesses going away from this (or the thread) thinking that keywords in domains = improved rankings. It’s better they have an accurate picture of what actually happens than a broad, misleading statement.
Saying “keywords in domains are an important ranking factor” is like saying “link bait is an important ranking factor” - it’s clearly not - or more precisely, it’s is a misleading statement. The results of these “techniques” (for want of a better word) can contribute directly to rankings, yes - but they don’t necessarily equate to improved rankings by themselves (although arguably there is some direct ranking value to keywords in domains alone, albeit a small amount).
Personally (for my own sites anyway), I’ve been favouring made up words / brand words lately. Just personal preference more than anything - I like the sites to have their own unique indentity and I think there comes a point where an SEO doesn’t need to worry about if they can get enough keyword links or not. I did go through a phase of keyword domains years ago (and stupidly didn’t register all the TLDs so got some copy cat sites following me) - hence my preference towards branding over keywords now.
We should meet up over pint, think it would be a two way curve, which is why I respect you for starting the blog.
I would (if I had it) spend £5m on the right keyword domain precisely because it will save me £££££ in marketing brand development costs costs. If having the keyword domain for a big budget marketing department would be a major boon for an established company, it is a fantastic opportunity for a start up !! I mean if I was a multiple retailer such as M&S well known for the childrens products I would continue with the important paid search placement of my brand name and develop a stand alone site for all childrens products under Childrens.co.uk creating further income streams under a category killer domain whilst using my existing inventory but specialising the one product line. IMO generic keyword domains in the hands of an SEO such as you are worth far more than your mindset allows you to see.
I hope the made up words will become brands and evolve into generic brands that warrant copy cats, is that not what we want to achieve. Meanwhile if I can find keywords in any .com or country code in any language that has a population of over 50 m I will register it, text or verbal instruction we are limited to how we communicate. That was my last post, I can hear the bugle : )
Haha yeh pint sounds good - where you based?
I think we’d differ on the (quite literal!) million pound question - I’d rather spend £5 million on development and marketing than the domain - hell, I’d even be happy to take a new domain name for 6 quid if I couldn’t find an existing site to buy over that I like, as long as I had £5 mill to spend on dev, etc.
That’s just down to personal preference at the end of day though - if I had £5 million to put into a project, it would likely be something a little bit different so there would be less value in a keyword domain. Of course if I decided to setup a kick ass online book store that would only ever sell books then keyword domain might be the way to go.
To be perfectly honest, I think any startup spending serious money on a keyword domain would be a little risky. The marketing and development work still needs to be done, and any help the keyword domain gives to link building still doesn’t ensure top rankings (assuming an “average” business here, not a pro SEO). Operating a secondary site for product lines (e.g. like childrens.co.uk) is very different kettle of fish to starting out with a keyword domain as your core business site.
Everything in it’s place I guess.
“Operating a secondary site for product lines (e.g. like childrens.co.uk) is very different kettle of fish to starting out with a keyword domain as your core business site” NO the keyword domain would be the the main site irrespective of the supply chain multi product branded site, as with baby.com
I think you’d have a very hard time persuading any marketing department to priortise a keyword, generic domain over their main brand domain! Perhaps in some cases where the main brand is a broad company with multiple product lines they might focus on certain keyword domains for certain product lines, but that is going to be the exception rather than the rule.
Even then, it’s never going to be a SEO decision - it would be a pure marketing decision (perhaps with some thought on SEO) - and even then, a marketing team will never ditch brand.com because they think keyword.com will rank better on Google!
I’d wager that of the top 1000 companies in the world, the vast majority would favour brand.com, over keyword.com.
“I’d wager that of the top 1000 companies in the world, the vast majority would favour brand.com, over keyword.com” I think your right they will always prioritise the brand. That IMO is not the mindset that will increase market share with appreciable ROI after all I am suggesting is the brand adds to the portfolio of websites without impacting on the existing brand website, as I said “the keyword domain would be the the main site irrespective of the supply chain multi product branded site, as with baby.com” The keyword would have an authorative website in it’s own right creating traffic & sales. As an established site what is the value of Baby.com Baby.co.uk I rest my case.
The short interview with DDB Chairman Emeritus Keith Reinhard mentions ROI in duality terms and mentions the mistakes the agencies made in not understanding the online potential
http://adage.com/brightcove/lineup.php?lineup=1579871196
From my personal experience, the existence of targeted keywords within the actual domain name makes a significant difference.
I purchased the domain AvailableDomainNames.com in the Fall of 2007. Up to that point, the domain was redirecting to a primary site and didn’t rank at all for the term “available domain names” at Google.
In November of 2007, I created a Wordpress blog and did my best to optimize it (I’m not an SEO expert) for the keyword term available domain names. Within a few weeks, I was on the first page of Google for the term “available domain names” with and without the quotes.
I’ve held that position and steadily moved up the page ever since. At this point, I’ve got some decent back links but that wasn’t the case in the beginning when I first managed to secure those rankings.
I should also point out that I created a similar blog in the past with the domain NameClerk.com. Although that blog was also optimized for the same term, I never sniffed the first five pages of Google for the term “available domain names”
I can only go by what I’ve experienced first hand. Acquiring that domain made a huge difference for me.
Hi NameClerk thanks for dropping by - great blog you have there!
That’s an interesting case - did the domain start out with no backlinks on launch in 2007?
I’ve had completely new domains (made up terms or terms that aren’t usually associated with each other like “fusednation”) not rank first page on Google (for the domain term) on launch (no backlinks, or just 1 backlink) for a while. It’s interesting that your domain ranked for a competitive term without backlinks. Are you certain the domain didn’t have any kind of history before you picked it up or there were no other contributing factors?
I suppose on one level it makes sense for a domain to rank for “domain name” based on something more than just links - otherwise we’d see loads of sites ranking for “microsoft”, “bbc” and so on when they really shouldn’t be. But I still feel from a business point of view that search engines should (and do) distinguish between brand vs keywords. BBC.co.uk *deserves* to rank for “BBC” - Jobs.com doesn’t necessarily *deserve* to rank for “jobs” if you know what I mean? With the huge increase in keyword domain purchases and the use of hyphenated and other keyword domain variations over the past 5 years, search engines can’t realistically offer the same importance to keyword.com as they do to brand.com.
Aaron’s post that covered this subject recently does make the point of quoting Matt Cutts saying Google “does give some weight to keywords in domain names”. But I gave “some” money to charity last year - that doesn’t necessarily quantify how generous I am does it?
Not very as it happens! 
I think the important comment from Matt is; ” Google does give keywords in the URL a certain amount of weight, but you don’t need it in order to rank“. Regardless of opinions and different experiences on the subject (which don’t necessarily need to be conflicting points of view - it’s a varied industry with lots of factors after all), keeping perspective is important.
Going back to the point of my initial post - to counter a statement made that “keywords in a domain name are the most important ranking factor” I’d say this still isn’t true (and never will be!). There are many more important factors. Can keywords in the domain help though? Sure.
I’d be interest in hearing any more experiences with / without keyword domains. It’s not easy to compare and contrast to come up with a definitive statement of value as there are many other influencing factors but it makes for an interesting discussion.
I’ve got one main site using a keyword domain and a few other smaller ones. The main one has ranked since launch (number 1) for 7 years now without any issue. But one of my main gripes with keyword domains (and this is entirely my fault I admit) is that at the time I was a little green around the edges and only registered the .com - couple of months later someone picked up the .co.uk. It always stuck in my head that this would be a drawback the day I wanted to spend some serious money on promoting the site (i.e. moving it on from a hobby site - albeit a high traffic one - to a business). That’s my main (personal) argument for brand over keyword domains.
Scott
Johnathan, I agree with your post only to the extent when a keyword domain lacks content that is irrelevant to the search keywords. I have met so many clients that are very frustrated with SEO falling way short of expectation. The point here is a logical one in my opinion and is very simply, the reason why owning keyword domains to leverage your brand makes so much sense is because that is how human beings online primarily search!
Now do you have the relevant content for that keyword match? if so then you are very very likely to rank on the very first page of google and better still in Yahoo. I can give you several examples of very basic websites I personally own, and only after 2 weeks my sites are ranking either no. 1 or on the very first page of google. I just launched CannesFilms.tv only recently and its already ranking first page, DiamondsRetail.com is no 1 on yahoo when you enter those keywords and that site is a parked content site! Companies who overlook the value of owning keyword domain names will find out later that they will pay extremely dearly on online for advertising and wastage on SEO that dosen’t always add up. Look at it this way, in the conventional world, its about location, location, location! The entire web is pretty much built around keywords which is why people buy them and that is primarily how people search online. Only very very big brands like google, ibm etc enjoy the priviledge of direct navigation 90% of the time. When you look through your local yellow pages for services, you look by category and then you select what looks mostly prominent before the basic listings.
It works the same online, just ask the guys who own londonapartment.com or londonapartment.co.uk, they both enyoy very high rankings and conversions with those keywords. If businesses fail to capture assets that can naturally leverage their brands for the forseeable future, then they only have themselves to blame and will lose out to their competitors. If I were an SEO specialist, I will advise my clients to acquire keyword domains that match the services or products and then help them with developing unique landing pages and associate the brand!
Finally, notice how yahoo now uses character recognition to help with your searches. Fundamentally it’s about the keywords backed with authoritative content, to buck this trend may end up costing you very dearly!
>> Keywords in domain names have very little importance in actual ranking calculations
I think that may be a fallacious distinction. Whether the benefit of kw-in-the-URL is direct or indirect, the actual correlation is strong
Perhaps to you or me Brendon, but not to new-to-SEO-business-0001 looking for definitive answers to broad questions, which was the reason I made this post.
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