15 replies to this topic

[sg1]

I was doing some keyword research for the phrase, "freight bill factoring". I noticed the #1 site on Google has all 3 keywords in its domain.

It's domain age, page backlinks, domain backlinks don't even come close to competing with the other sites. And it's onpage coding is horrific (I noticed that the links point to another site, which is most likely the real vendor here)

Is it safe to say the having the keywords in your domain trumps all the other important elements of SEO by a mile? Is it THAT important? If so, that would be such a shame that people can game the system like this.

[RisaBB]

You might find this article interesting from SEOmoz, Search Engine Ranking Factors 2009.

[DonnaFontenot]

We had a recent discussion about this in the Seomoz Survey of Top Ranking Factors thread.

As you can see from that thread, the thoughts on the matter run the gamut from one end of the spectrum to the other.

:notme:

[eKstreme]

Regardless of SEO value, having keywords in the domain and URL will get them bolded in the SERPs which are quite attractive to the eye and thus increase click throughs.

Pierre

[notepage]

I find them useful, I would not recommend redoing the names of existing pages, but going forward it makes sense to use a hyphenated naming convention IMO.

[cre8pc]

Will a keyword or two in the url structure help site visitors orient themselves?

The answer is yes, they stay longer on the page and if the information architecture is done well, they will follow links to other places inside the site and use keywords in url structure to help again. These are usability cues and usability cues are signals for search engines regarding user behavior.

[David Peters]

Adding the keywords to the url is one of the best options to increase traffic on your site. If you have your keywords in the url, then whenever a search is made for that keywords, your url appears and this definitely helps to increase page rank.

[fairclb]

I am not sure how influential naming pages and other filed called by the page (images, css, js etc) are in a pages rank but I make a habit of naming everything with keywords just in case. It certainly doesn't hurt. As for keywords in the domain, I believe that it helps especially in location based searches. It is not the only factor, but it does have an impact. For example, if you were planning a vacation to Myrtle Beach you might go to a search engine and type in Myrtle Beach hotels. The large majority of the resulting pages have Myrtle Beach in the URL. But you will also notice many sites that do not use those keywords in their domain at all. So... how much impact is up for debate.

I was doing some keyword research for the phrase, "freight bill factoring". I noticed the #1 site on Google has all 3 keywords in its domain.

I looked at this search, the #1 site is an ad, so I am assuming you skipped passed the first three results and went to http://www.freightbillfactoring.org/. This site is a .org site, they will always rank higher than .com. While the site isn't the prettiest site it seems to have a lot of content making it well suited for rankings.

[Ruud]

Michael "Graywolf" recently tweeted a nice search:

convert 670788 bytes to KB

[EGOL]

In my opinion the most important factor about owning a keyword.com is the mental energy that it can give to the owner.

If I owned Bagels.com I would be so excited about bagels that I would learn everything possible about them, have a huge collection of recipes, know all of the sandwiches that you can make with them and eat them every day for every meal.

I would wear t-shirts advertising bagels every day and would have bagels painted on the doors of my cars.

My website would be the best on this planet for learning about bagels and probably the best in this universe. It would have everything that I know about bagels on it and it would impress everybody who visited. With all of that Google would have no choice by to rank it #1 in the search results.

It would be a lot harder to get that kind of excitement if I owned a pedestrian domain such as EgolsBagels.com.

So, if you can possibly afford the KeyWord.com for your niche it might give you the same type of energy.

[bwelford]

I am not sure, Egol, that everyone agrees with you. You would think that the owners of sex.com or love.com might do more with them.

[cre8pc]

All I know for sure is "cre8pc" and "cre8asite" are NOT in the dictionary or any language and we is doing jez fine :kicking: :kicking: :nanadevil: :nanadevil:

:pieinface:

[pmolds]

very important, it can make your site to top rank of SE

[rustybrick]

Or listen to what Matt Cutts of Google had to say about it http://www.youtube.c...h?v=gRzMhlFZz9I

[EGOL]

I am not sure, Egol, that everyone agrees with you. You would think that the owners of sex.com or love.com might do more with them. smile.gif

Yes, you are right. I would be doing different things if I owned those domains. Actually, I would probably sell them and buy another domain that I could develop properly.

[earlpearl]

Wow.

If EGOL owned bagels.com, and after reading his dicussion I'd be eating his bagels.

In fact if I owned sex.com or love.com as Barry brought up, I'd eat EGOL's bagels.

OTOH in that Matt Cutts said it mattered "a little" that is as good as it gets saying it matters as far as Google is concerned. A little, a lot, how much is a little or a lot probably depends on the level of competition.

IMO it clearly matters more in Yahoo and Bing than it does in Google.

Hey EGOL how much for a dozen pumpernickel bagels?