89 replies to this topic

[Jill]

Having the keywords "Smart" and "FAQ" in their domain names did not help me in doing a Google search. But the names helped me only when I was trying to enter the URL (guess) through the address bar.

That's what I've been trying to say this entire thread!



Jill

[webstream]

That's what I've been trying to say this entire thread!

Agreed!

Webstream

[Mel]

Having the keywords "Smart" and "FAQ" in their domain names did not help me in doing a Google search. But the names helped me only when I was trying to enter the URL (guess) through the address bar.

Webstream

of course not, because it is all spelled as all one word, but if you had a hypen between the words in the URL it would help.

[webstream]

of course not, because it is all spelled as all one word, but if you had a hypen between the words in the URL it would help.

From your above statement can you show me documented proof that a hypen in a domain name will not be ignored by the SEs?

Would it not be feasible for a SE to sort the most important keyword, or keywords used in the page title and content and then do a simple string search of the domain name to see if it exists in the name? If they are going to bother spliting a domain name into an array of words because it has a hypen isn't it possible they may perform other string manipulation? From a programming standpoint that would be easy to write.

The companies writing the SE software have to realize numerous domain names have multiple words within the domain name and may have important revelancy to the web page, or web site.

Webstream

[bwelford]

I believe Google does not do "stemming" and so would not parse a word from within a series of combined words. However a hyphen would be treated by Google just like a space so the individual words would be indexed.

Some other SE's do "stemming" so would see a word within a series of combined words.

My concern is for the human visitor. If you put a hyphen, will the visitor remember that: or should it have been an underscore. So for the human visitor I would recommend running the words together. You then handle the Google problem by using the individual words prominently within the page text, title, etc.

Barry Welford

[Mel]

Hi Webstream:
sorry but my notary public is off this week so I cannot offer you documented and certified proof of anything regarding SEO.

But try a few searches in google and see what you get back; try searching for searchengineoptimization and look at the highlighted words - you will see only 1310 results and you will only see the term searchengineoptimization bolded.

Now search for search-engine-optimization and you will get back 547,000 results and you will see that the individual words in the phrase are bolded both individually and as combinations of these words and that the hyphen does not have to be present in the term for Google to recognize the words. Google treats a hyphen as a space and the words between the hypens as individual words.

Not try searching for _ (the underscore character) you will get back 70,200,000 results for all kinds of uses of the underscore.

Edited by Mel, 10 September 2003 - 11:57 AM.

[webstream]

Mel, great answer!

Have a virtual drink on me.

Thanks!

Webstream

[mcanerin]

If you redirect product.com to company.com, the search engines will just pick up company.com, no? That's what they're supposed to do, at least.

OOPS. Jill is right - I got carried away and went one step too far. In my defence, I remember a while ago typing in post-it.com on a while I was sent to the mothership: www.3m.com/us/office/postit/ and had mixed that up with doing a search. Which I just discovered.

I still stand by promote the product for searches and promote the company for sales, but I was wrong on the re-direct. The only way it would work that way I said would be a doorway page or re-direct. And they are BAD.

Ian

[webstream]

>>re-direct<<

I think it should be clarified there are server-side redirects and client-side redirects which serve the same purpose but are totally different. On a client-side redirect the server sends back a redirect request to the browser to go somewhere else. On a server-side redirect there is no round trip, the server just goes to the redirected URL. With server-side redirects the only thing the client's browser sees is the new, redirected page.

I have seen SE success with server-side redirects where more than one domain points to the same hosting IP address. This has been used when the owner of several domains was on very limited startup budget.

Webstream

Edited by webstream, 10 September 2003 - 10:02 PM.

[Googlefrog]

Which order is better: for seo?

mysite.com/canada/britishcolumbia/vancouver/restaurants/
mysite.com/vancouver/restaurants/britishcolumbia/canada


for vancouver restaurants

[Randy]

Neither is better for seo.

Or did you miss the first four pages of discussion?

[tomer1]

NO!!

in the past it was very important, but today there is alot of parameters to determine your PR so the keyword in the URL is not realy matters.

[Chris Kevin]

I've been working as content writer as well as freelancer for the past9 months. I've learned the keyword placements and the importance of it. Keywords are very essential for SEO (to be easily crawled by spider). Plus, proper keyword density and placement is essential in ranking your page. However, my knowledge in this area is not enough, that's why I am presently having my SEO training

[BBCoach]

Keyword placement doesn't matter so much so as to give yourself a brain hemorrhage. Your energy would be best spent understanding what the majority of your clientele's search phrases are and ensure those words show up in the title and body of your pages. For example, I wanna sell red glass beads to the world. Do my potential buyers primarily search for that phrase? Or do they tend to search for [glass necklace beads] or [red juju beads] or [red stringing Christmas beads]? This is where most people don't put in enough effort to understand their customers/potential customers and therefore do not optimize their pages accordingly. Why? Because it takes a lot of work and time to figure these patterns out. Most think that because they use such and such terminology in their searches or conversations "that it must be the most common use of that product in searches." Right?

[Googlefrog]

Neither is better for seo.

Or did you miss the first four pages of discussion?

I read it. Many people said keywords in url is important or did you miss that?