12 replies to this topic

[hypntzd3]

Hello,

I understand that there is a lot of power in a keyword hyphenated domain name. I also understand that certain words are ignored by search engines and are only weighted when it comes to page rank, i.e. "in", "the", etc.

Assuming these things are correct. I found a keyword based domain that seems like a gold mine, but I'm worried its too long. So lets say hypothetically my industry is car parts.

brakes-for-bmw-racing-georgia.com

Lets say that the keyword "brakes" and keyword phrase "BMW Racing in Georgia" are my big ticket items. Saying that I give good keyword density throughout the site and good copy, etc. Aside from all that is that a domain name that would be considered too long? Also would it be of value to me?

Would this be a good buy and base domain name for my site?

Help...Hypntzd3

Edited by hypntzd3, 14 November 2003 - 10:53 AM.

[Haystack]

Hypntzd3, way back in 2000 or 2001, keyword stuffed domain names were very popular because you could submit them to Yahoo's directory and pretend that long string of keywords was your actual company name. At the time, Yahoo's primary search results were coming from their own directory rather than Google, so this was a trick to get to the top of their results. The same thing worked at other directories, but that's largely gone away now that most major portals (exception: MSN until January) provide search engine results rather than directory results as their primary results.

However, this can have some benefits in another way. If your company name 'happens' to be brakes-for-bmw-racing-georgia, and every link to your site uses those words, you'll get a bump in the SE results based on the use of those words in the anchor text of the inbound links. But good luck getting anyone to link to you if you have a domain like that.

If you take a look at the names of many top SEO companies, you'll see that they largely don't use keyword stuffed domains like that, yet it's pretty safe to assume they still rank high for the search phrases they're targeting.

Personally, I'm not a fan of dash-dash-dashed domains. I think they have the potential to turn some visitors off, and I see value if having an easy to remember and spell domain. Let's take your BMW Racing in Georgia example again. Say a guy's out with some friends boasting about getting a great deal on new brakes for his BMW. His friends says, "what was the site?" BMW guy responds, "brakes dash for BWM . . ." I don't remember.

[mcanerin]

not to mention the fact that if someone forgets a dash they may well end up at a competing site, or getting no site at all and thinking you are out of business.

And can you imagine the email address? Ouch.

There are some good reasons for certain dashed domains, but it's a case of less is more. Many people simply won't click on domains like that because they were (are) so popular with spammers.

One alternative is to use subdomains (in moderation) or sub directories.

ie : keyword.domain.com or www.domain.com/keyword/keyword.htm


Ian

[hypntzd3]

Hello Haystack,

Well...that was great feed back. I would like to add to that wouldn't it be advisable to have a redirect that I publish and use as my store front.

So if I have: brakes-for-bmw-racing-georgia.com submitted to the search engines with the name of the company and logo reflecting, "bmwracing.com". Couldn't I sell my self as "bmwracing.com" and have it redirect to my "brakes-for-bmw-racing-georgia.com"?

Just a thought.

Hypntzd3

[hypntzd3]

Thats a good thought regarding the email address issue.

[SearchRank]

While having a "keyword rich" domain may help a little, and I mean a little in SEO efforts, it really is not worth the sacrifice in trying brand a domain name that is too long for anyone to remember or type out for that matter. IMO, a domain is something you want your visitors to remember, something that sticks in their mind. As for SEO, I think they have about as much impact as the keyword meta tag.

If you are targeting something like "brakes for bmw racing in Georgia", hypothetically speaking of course, you should be able to have any domain and with a properly optimized site, do quite well seeing that it is such a niche market.

[Haystack]

Hypntzd3, I'd skip the dashed domain and the redirect. Just pick an easy to remember and spell domain and optimize the tags and copy for the appropriate terms.

[ldcdc]

Yeah... Even if the keywords in the domain would be as important as the keywords in the title (of the page) I think I'd have to choose the short domain version. Long domains filled with keywords were not a very good idea even when they had real weight in the SEs' algos. They make the website look too amateurish. (IMO)

[DanThies]

The only real reason to use keywords in a domain name is that the domain name will tend to get used in links. If the domain name happens to include keywords, then you'll have more links that include keywords.

It's a marginal benefit, certainly not as effective as just using keywords in your business name, site name, or a tagline, since those also get used in links.

It's just not a good reason to choose a domain name, though. Much better to have something memorable (like Haystack In A Needle), easy to type/spell, etc. Start sticking dashes in, and it gets hard to find you.

Look at the top sites for the most competitive search terms, and you won't see a lot that look like keyword-keyword-keyword-keyword.com. It's not because people with those domains aren't trying to get ranked - it just doesn't make much difference what's in the domain name.

[ldcdc]

If i where to design algo's in google i would do something about it

You are not alone well. I bet most people in involved SEO would do something about many things in Google's algo...

[samt]

Oh this reminds me of something funny that happened a couple weeks ago in my office. Well I thought it was funny anyhow. My boss, he's a fabulous businessman, and he really knows his stuff in our field, he's nationally known. Like a lot of these 'old hands' I see in my industry, he's got the very basics of the internet and email down, but a lot of times, simple things just take too long for him to figure out, and if I'm not there, he'll give up completely (since I've gone to being a work at home 'virtual assistant', I guess it's happening more lately). Anyhow after talking to a friend at a certain company, he decided to go check out their web site. The site was www.brand-keyword.com, which is actually their company name, hyphenated for search engine purposes. But this guy told my boss, it's "www.brand hyphen keyword.com", and my boss could not find it, because he thought a hyphen was an apostrophe, it never occurred to him that a hyphen was a dash. Apparently he went all around the office asking the other guys there for help, and they tried semicolons and all kinds of other characters there, and finally after several hours, called me with the silly question, what is a hyphen, because it never even occurred to these guys to try a dash.

[mcanerin]

That's really scary, samt. Ouch. One good test of whether you have a good domain name is "can you give it to someone over the phone"?

Admittedly I'd probably say dash, but it wouldn't occur to me to NOT say hyphen. Scary that you could potentially lose customers over it.

Reminds me of the old days, when almost no one had a domain name.

My first URL was (no longer active, btw)

www.spots.ab.ca/~mcanerin

That little sqiggle after the slash is a tilde. Just imagine the look on a lot of people faces whenyou told them to type in a tilde.

And I know no one believes me now, but when email first began to be popular, most people had no idea that when I said "at" they were supposed to type "@" <sigh> It's hard being a geek...

Ian