It's a well-known fact in the SEO world that Google shows enormous favoritism in its rankings to domain names that contain one or more of the keywords being searched for. If your domain name is a close match to the search keywords all glued together, it's as easy as fishing with dynamite to get on page 1 of the SERPs for that search phrase. While some (like me) might argue (like, against Rand) that it's a flaw in the algorithm, it's not a bug--Google deliberately favors this kind of match. If the search is a company name, well the reasoning why [that phrase] .com should rank #1 is obvious...and for everything else, well...it's pretty reasonable for Google to presume that a site named, for example, www.lightbulbs.com is probably pretty much about light bulbs. Whether it's the BEST site for light bulbs is of course another story.
The net result of the world realizing that Google works this way is pretty predictable: mass buying of keyword-rich domains, and trying to turn those into top rankings and monster-sized site traffic. We're seeing three tactics here:
- 301 redirection of keyword-rich domains
- content-rich doorway pages on those domains
- moving existing sites onto those domains
Before we dive into each of these in detail, let me throw out an example to help make all the details make sense. Apologies in advance to whoever actually owns these domains--y'all can just relax and think of this as just a free citation to help your local search :-)
Example: let's say your company is "xyzsignals.com", you sell cell phone repeaters, boosters, antennas, etc.
- page 1 of the SERPs for "cell phone repeaters" is dominated by domains with those words in the domain name
- being the devious and knowledgeable SEO that you are, you buy these domains: www.cellphonerepeatersystems.com, www.cellphoneboostersystems.com, www.cellphoneantennasystems.com
FYI, it's not necessary to add hyphens between your keywords; search for "web hosting" and see how well the non-hyphen versions rank. Also, hyphenated domains may be a red flag as many spammy domains have been built this way over the past few years.
OK, first up to bat: the quickie: buying the domains and 301'ing them to your site.
You buy these existing domains--perhaps they already have a bunch of juicy links to them. You HTTP 301 redirect everything from those sites to your main site, www.xyzsignals.com. Cool, right? Free link juice, immediately!
Not so fast...Google's ahead of you on this, and is looking for people who do this purely for SEO benefit. Matt Cutts is pretty clear on this in this video.
If you buy a domain, and immediately change the owning organization name, address, technical and admin contacts, etc., you can pretty much count on getting busted on this. At best, the sandbox....at worst, penalties.
If you're clever about it (I can't really tell you what to do, it's black-hat, but it's bloody obvious!) and avoid getting spotted as a domain buyer, keep in mind also that you'll likely have to move the domain to some new servers, which may in itself be a signal (when combined with registrar info changes) that the domain is no longer owned by the same organization, and perhaps past links shouldn't be counted as votes and hence flow PR.
Let's say you're smarter than the average bear, and get past that....what can you expect in terms of SEO results? Well, you're not going to see the keyword-rich domains in the SERPs, you'll see your own site. And you might think about the conversion effect of showing an URL with the phrase that matches the search phrase, versus showing your company name. My guess (and experience) would lead me to say that www.cellphoneantennasystems.com will get more attention from the searcher (hence clicks) than xyzsystems.com, presuming of course they searched for "cell phone antennas".
As well, there's some thought in the SEO community that the juice passed via 301s may decay over time anyway.
Lastly, let's say you're going all out and have bought 20-odd sites, each matching a target search phrase. Will Google spot a pattern if you redirect 20+ sites all to your 1 principal domain? If not today, probably soon...
On to Door Number Two: Content-Rich Doorway Pages
For each of the keyword-rich domains you've bought, you build light content, with a link/call to action that sends users off to the main site. The idea:
- the doorway domains will rank well
- users will click on them in the SERPs as the URL and title both will closely match their query phrase
- users will click the link on the doorway page to get to the main site
Most likely you will make it visually obvious to the user that the two domains are the same company (despite different URLs); the more black-hat approach is to make the doorway page appear to be a "review" site that recommends the main site, but of course, I wouldn't suggest such nonsense here.
The concern about buying the domain and changing the registrar info (and hosting ) all at once applies here as well. Tread softly....and slowly.
Once out of the sandbox (if you fall in at all), the doorway domains will rank really well for the key phrase, with proper on-page SEO and very light link-building needed.
So, is this black-hat? ask yourself: is there any reason to do this (for the human user) OTHER than search ranking? Does it honestly add value? Will it be detected automatically? Probably not....but...
If you're very successful at this, your competitors are likely to notice; you should BET on one of them submitting a manual spam report to Google; think about how you're going to explain to a Google engineer that you are doing this for some reason other than search rankings trickery.
A Beige-Hat Suggestion: if you go this direction, choose your main products and build a real site for each that offers Wikipedia-like information on each class of product, so that what you have is a generally useful resource for someone looking to buy a product like what you're selling; then, be upfront and put a "sponsored by" link to the section of your site that focuses on that product class on each page of the site; as well, a link on each page in the text to that same section.
You might create a mini site for each of those products, and talk about the pros and cons of the various types of each. Let's say on one page you're talking about the roof-mounted directional antennas - you could say on that page "At XYZ Signals, our most popular roof-mounted directional antennas are the ACME 3 antennas" and link both "roof-mounted directional antennas" and "ACME 3 antennas" to your main page for ACME 3 antennas.
Last, but not least: buying a keyword-rich domain and moving your entire site
This move isn't for the light-of-heart, even though it's pretty white-hat. You're still going to have issues with the sandbox, and to avoid this, need to execute this tactic over several months. Danny wrote a great post with all the details on how to move a domain a little while ago.
Consider putting up some light content on the new sites and watch the SERPs for a month or so to be sure the new sites are not sandboxed. Then, move all of the pages from your original site over, and 301 each page to the exact corresponding page on the new site EXCEPT the home page.
Retain your original domain and use it for a "corporate info" site; link to it from the new domain and vice-versa.
Finally, use the backlinks analysis from Open Site Explorer to find the important sites that link to the old site, and ask them to update their links to point to the new sites.
Great article, Michael, thanks a lot.
I've seen so many keyword-rich domains dominate the SERP for their niches. I think it's a bad sign for the internet, imagine there is no brands such as "apple", "microsoft" but "buycomputers" and "softwarecompany" in the future. How boring it will be! Google should definitely re-consider this.
About content-rich doorway pages with keyword-rich domains. I've seen countless cases that competitors purchased these domains purely for SEO benefits. But the good news is, apparently Google is aware of this issue. Unless you have really good content on doorway pages, that doorway page is less likely positioning on the first page. (jesus, I cannot even be bothered to report them, lol, too many...)
Lastly, purchase these domains willl cost quite a few unless they are park domains (i.e. on same IP), Google is good at detecting at this :D
I totally agree with the first paragraph. It's a conundrum for google because of people going to google knowing already what site they want to find
With regard to paragraph 1, I still think you'd have to do some serious quality link building to outrank major sites like Apple and Microsoft. In fact, if you search for "computer" on Google, you get Dell, Wikipedia, Apple, Tigerdirect, etc. "computer.org" is further down on page one, but that is a relavent result for Computer magazine. Likewise, searchengineoptimization.com does not rank on the first few pages of Google for a search for "search engine optimization" - despite the fact that the company holding that domain are "experts" in that very field.
In my experience, the tactic is most useful in niches that haven't done a lot of SEO to begin with. There's definitely a ranking boost regardless, but I think it gets drowned out in a more competitive ladscape.
Brevetoxin, I know what you mean.
What I meant in the previous comment was, you have a new company and you want to be ranked quick on SERPs, the fastest and easiest way would be registering a keyword-rich domain and then building quality link. So people will spend more time on domain name research than think about a unique brand.
Don't know if you get my point now. :D
Absolutely I agree with you there.
Excellent point in paragraph 2....I'd bet that a 2 or 3 page site won't rank all that well. In my view, to make this effective you probably want substantial enough content to be useful to a real user. Whether that means 5 pages or 50 pages...not sure.
Hi Michael, thanks
I've seen some 1-page doorway domains having reasonable ranking (not very competitive niches of course).
And imo, building doorway pages can never be more effective than writing compelling content on your very own website or submitting them as guestblogging articles (or ezinearticles).
And 5 pages on 10 doorway domains = 50 quality articles! :D
Great point in paragraph 2 - Of the 3 methods I choose the content-rich doorway pages as part of our SEO strategies. I would only suggest this is if the new micro site can offer more and better content then what you already have on your site.
A good question to ask is - Is this site on its own a good, informative and useful site for visitors?
You know... it seems at some point that creating great content becomes much less work than any of the things you suggested in the post. Seriously, if you added up all the time one spent on page rank sculpting, domaining, etc. and just put it into creating really great content (especially with long tail traffic), what would be the difference in ranking for the average search term.
At what point do you reach the point of diminishing marginal returns?
I think you really hit the nail on the head here. Some of the tactics people describe involve quite a bit of work in an attempt to gain what ends up being of little value now, and possibly of no value in the future with algorithmic updates. It seems to me that writing a good guest blog post on a highly authoritative site or the likes would be a much better investment of time and resources. Gret post!
What you say makes sense--today, however, Google shows so much favoritism for keywords matching the domain name that you can link-build until you're blue in the face and not outrank a much smaller, lower-link-profile site with the domain name rich with keywords.
I don't think it's necessarily right that it works this way....and CERTAINLY we all need to be alert to the possibility that Google's algo will change so that it doesn't work that way in the future, but the indications we've gotten from Google are that they kinda like how it's working in this area now and aren't planning on changing it much.
This is the big, aching question - one we have to ask ourselves constantly.
On-page SEO, setting up mini sites, controlling the flow of PageRank, etc, are all potentially valuable tactics, but links, 99% of the time, will outperform them all if you can attract enough of them.
I say do all of the above, but that's the easy answer - resources are never limitless.
I'd say Mike is correct here. What Jlbraaten is saying OUGHT to be right, but it's not how Google is behaving today.
low hanging fruit... id rather write good content than mess with a possible sandbox or cautiously changing domain info but i cant argue that the keyword domains do really well... sometimes Google thinks its a navigational query and will rank that keyword rich domain high when i was actually looking for something. a good domain name is key and if your not something cool like digg, flicker, mahalo its real easy for people to remember mykeywordsonline.com
Another problem with the first tactic (buying/301ing keyword-rich domains): the algorithmic advantage of the exact match domain is gone once you 301 it - you're only passing the link juice.
In other words, you might see an exact match domain ranking quite well for its target keyword - but if you buy that site/domain and redirect it to yours the benefits are potentially zero. The domain isn't ranking on its link juice, its ranking on exact match - and sometimes exact match alone.
These are my thoughts exactly. Once you 301 the keyword rich domain, you would lose all the benefits you originally bought it for. And if you were ranking solely on the merit of the keywords (no link building) then what would be the point?
I'd say the value of the exact match domain is a function of two things (if you're going to 301 it):
So there's some value beyond just the algorithmic tendency to rank exact match domains - but often there isn't much else going on, and if the domain is ranking on exact match alone as soon as you 301 it that value evaporates.
I purchased a domain just for the purpose of creating cool (cute?) sub-domain names to use in emails. But this idea could be a relevant way to build up a domain slowly.
For example, if I start using @cellphonerepeatersystems.com instead of @xyzsignals.com people would eventually start to associate the email domain with my company. This way, when people saw cellphonerepeatersystems.com in the search reslults, they would (likely) know it was for xyzsignals.com
I've actually seen this done in the manufacturing sector as buyouts and takeovers change names often but product name recognition is important to keep. So even though you're dealing with Bob's Widget Co, his email would be @Widget-Inc.com
Absolutely correct...I had meant to point that out! It's a juice-only strategy.
Recently, a few competitors of ours started using Content-Rich Doorway Pages with Keyword-Rich Domain Names (KRDNs).
What I have found is that these new doorway sites are out-ranking many sites owned by competing companies...and the company sites have between PR3 and PR6, and have been around for at least 2 years.
I'm questioning if Google has made yet another large change to their ranking algorithm, because just yesterday, a few doorway pages targeting our exact keyword phrases showed up and have grabbed top spots.
We have two main competitors, but our other competition is now using these KRDNs... and they're stealing away top spots from actual company websites.
I'd really hate to resort to this kind of lowbrow tactic in order to stay competitive, but what choice do I really have at this point?
It's unfortunate that the algorithm, in its current state, rewards these doorway sites with top rankings.
I'd expect that as this tactic picks up speed and mass (as all do once the cat is out of the bag) Google will be forced to adjust.
It is really an exploitation of the system.
I sincerely hope they "nip this in the bud"...before it gets out of control.
Good tips on what can (and should) be a complex decision. One mistake I see people make a lot with Option #3 is underestimating the time/cost beyond SEO. Most web-savvy companies that are medium-sized and up plaster their URL on everything (business cards, letterhead, invoices, shipping boxes, etc.). Changing your primary domain means recreating ALL of those things, which usually means not just printing costs but redesign. In addition, you have to change your emails, communicate the new URL to customers, etc. Often, the business cost (in real dollars) isn't worth what may turn out to be a minor SEO boost.
Absolutely true. The current state of your business will have a lot to do with whether this tactic is effective. For instance, I'm working now with a mid-sized wholesaler/manufacturer who's looking to go consumer-direct on the web. Their existing site is meant to support their retailers: product info, wholesale ordering, etc. So for them, buying a handful of product keyword-rich domains and pushing some of the product content there (+ shopping cart etc.) is most likely really going to pay off.
If you're Sears.com, this probably ain't the strategy for you :-)
This is a big question for me. I agree but then... if you are xyzsignals.com and then change to cellphonerepeaters.com with xyzsignals.com pointing to you, does it really matter if you immediately change all your print collateral right away? Folks will get to your site by typing in xyzsignals.com after all.
I'm not comfortable with the subject of this post at all. Not that it's not well written, researched and provides timely information. Michael did a great job here.
My problems are two-fold. First is that unless you implement these techniques absolutely right, the potential for grey and black hat behavior, unintentional or not, are huge. It's one of those aspects of the algorithm that we will someday look back on and say "Well, that used to work, but now you want to avoid it."
My second issue is that I hate any SEO technique that doesn't make the internet a better place for everybody (myself included.) Yes, value can be gained from certain mini-sites and whatnot, but this whole business of gobbling up keyword-rich domains and all the trickery associated with it benefits no one.
Great post thanks very much for this - we've been having this exact conversation around the office!
"If you buy a domain, and immediately change the owning organization name, address, technical and admin contacts, etc., you can pretty much count on getting busted on this. At best, the sandbox....at worst, penalties."
Michael I am not with you on this. There is practically dozens of reasons for companies to SECURE domains and do what they want with them. One of these could include redirecting them to their main site for type in traffic. There is nothing black hat about this at all.
I'm not saying it's black hat, I'm just saying you run the risk of being parked in the sandbox until Google feels all warm and fuzzy about your site, i.e. until they're comfortable that the changes were NOT part of an SEO manoeuvre.
Have a look at Matt Cutts' video (linked in the main post above). He's pretty clear on what they're watching for and what they consider "normal".
I do believe that you could accidentally get sandboxed or penalized by doing what are legitimate, normal changes all at the same time.
Wow is this timely, being I just bought 2 domains that were keyword rich for a new venture. However, I think it is a good way to test out a few domains (with some relevant content on each site as in Door 2) and find which one is really hitting home with the searchers is a good way to decide where to concentrate your full efforts. Then, let the other act as a gateway. After a few months, some Analytics should provide you with an actionable difference between the domains.
Thanks for the post!
Haha, I just bought 4 domains to test some stuff similar to this, but I dont know if I'll have time to work on all of them.Recently I just did the opposite to the last option and moved my site from keyword rich to basically no keywords so It would look better. Traffic dropped alot, but I can see it coming back again. I bought the KeyDomainTool to speed up the keyword domain finding part, but It seems the latest version is slower than the old one.
Great post!
Experimenting is key. Reminds me of back in the day of real cloaking and IP detection. I too have been playing with this alot.
Keyword domains are worth it. I had ran across DomainsByVolume firefox plugin, makes it simple to find new keyword domains.
"As well, there's some thought in the SEO community that the juice passed via 301s may decay over time anyway"
This is true, I have personally experienced it.
Although you may get a nice initial bump from the 301, typically if you don't have enough links to your main site for whatever phrase you are trying to game, you will see it fade into oblivion.
Nice post... this is not a typical post for such a mainstream site as SEOmoz.
Just to add to our own data/experience on this subject, mind if I ask you what the timeframe was of the decay that you experienced (i.e. 1 month, 3 months, 6 months...)?
just noticed this and thought i'd reply...
i ranked top 3 for a phrase that did appear on my site, but that i historically ranked for extremely low (like 150+). that top 3 ranking lasted about a month and then it dropped completely out of the serps.
I'm very interested....what sort of decay did you see, and over how much time?
Thanks for this, we have found that keyword rich domains are a great way to increase your visibility in search.
This is a technique that feels a bit black hat to me and something that I would always feel bad doing. Though, if you put that aside and create a site that is informative and will be used by certain people for info then that's fine.
In the end, it's a dog-eat-dog world at there, so just make mini-sites to no end and get as many links as you can.
Thanks for the article.
I agree that some of the applications of the technique are black-hat; I'd argue however that in some ways it's the equivalent of putting a listing in the yellow pages under your product category in addition to your white-pages listing under your business name.
I'll guess that by now, all y'all are aware that I think that Google is OVER-favoring keyword-rich domain names. But they're making the rules :-)
Hmm, I guess you're right when you compare it to the Yellow Pages analogy, however I think it's a little different. I think as long as a domain has got unique, informative content it's fine. But if you're using it literally just to forward to 301 redirect to your own site and it's keyworded, that's naughty.
Hmm, I guess you're right when you compare it to the Yellow Pages analogy, however I think it's a little different. I think as long as a domain has got unique, informative content it's fine. But if you're using it literally just to forward to 301 redirect to your own site and it's keyworded, that's naughty.
I've found this to work very effectively. As with all SEO you need to be careful, change things slowly and consider domain name registrations and IP addresses of your different domains.
Sometimes the hard part is convincing your clients that they should not necessary focus on their company name. Not everyone has heard of xyz company but they have heard of widgets etc.
It's one if those tricks that is obvious and powerful, great post!
Thanks Rodney. I would really love to see some stats on how long you really have to space your domain registration changes out...but, of course, that'd be a pretty long-term test and difficult to run. And by the time you were done, Google might very well have "adjusted things".
Interesting post, this [insert hat colour here] tactic has been through so many different variations in the last five years it is kind of hard to keep track of what Google now sees as spam automatically.
ucffool I agree with throwing minisites up and testing conversion and performance so you can build up the site and make it into something both worthwhile for end users and profitable for webmasters however do you not fear slightly that in this process we are triggering a bunch of the signals mentioned in the post (domain registration, changing hosts, pointing to similar/same sites) and then adding Google products like Analytics and WMT on there almost to hammer the point home?
I'm not down with the whole Google conspiracy stuff I just don't see how they would take all the server and other complex information and then not utilise this easy to access information coming from their own data sources.
If a company makes a takeover of another business, where the business is absorbed into the buying company, the company would naturally want to redirect anybody attempting to visit the businesses website.
Does this mean that google would see this as just trying to game the system, potentially resulting in penalties?
No, not gaming the system....just that the company that earned the links before might not be the company running the site now. I would suspect that Google would look at the domain registrar changes PLUS how much the site changed to decide if the domain was bought simply for SEO effects. And, again, if I were Google, I'd sit on it for several months (a la sandbox) before making that call :-)
I see what you're saying.
But in a takeover the whole comany is bought, including all it's assets. eg links it has gained
Do you think it's right for google to devalue this?
A fair question!
One would hope that Google would look at all the potential signs that a domain was purchased for SEO-only reasons, and if it saw enough of them, the domain would be sandboxed or penalized.
E.g., if the domain registration info all changed, and either (a) all pages on the site were 301'd, or (b) the site content completely changed, then Google ought to presume that it's an SEO-only move.
If only one of those three major factors changed, you could argue that that would be a sign of a normal business change, the same real-world business was still operating the site, and there shouldn't be any penalties/sandboxing.
Keep in mind that we're all working off just a little bit of data, gathered over a number of months...and the Google algos are changing throughout...while we're guessing at what's been considered :-) From the Matt Cutts video I linked to in the blog post above, you can see that they're well aware of the need for some of these changes to happen as part of normal business practice, as well as the propensity for SEOs to use the techniques we've described. So, in the absence of Google telling us exactly how they're doing things, we've got to make best-guess judgment calls, based on the evidence and how much risk we're willing to take.
the value of the links to google is decided by google (as bing decides their own value on links)
I dont see how you can ascribe the ever changing value google puts on your links as a company asset
Theyre gonna make a call based on whether they think youve been naughty or nice for the benefit of their searchers. your wants/needs are not gonna factor into their thinking im afraid
I agree 100%.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I agree with what you're saying firegolem. At the same time when a company performs a takeover they would have taken into account for example the ever changing "reputation" of the bussiness, it's not an actual asset but the company could righly expectct some of this reputation to pass to the company.
I am a bit surprised about all the comments along the lines of "this is spammy or Grey hat" or "better focus your efforts on creating content". Although I agree in principle with the spirit of the comments, it is well known, and Rand mentioned it a few times in the last whiteboard fridays, that you can create the best content in the world but without links it will never rank for your targeted terms. I don't deny that this is unfair but we are playing with a mathematical algorithm, and maths most of the times, don't understand about fairness.
This technique works very well. My blog ranked first for its keyword rich domain name a week after uploading the Wordpress template, with no content and only the title tag optimised. It has never moved from that first position since then. We see this all the time.
As for competitors filing a spam report, well, this is only effective if the "spammy" site is not spending money on adwords. This is a cynical and controverial view but it is true. Check the link profile of the first top 10 results for "online casino" and you will tell me if they don't look spammy to you. All the tricks in the book are there, the very tricks that Google claims to be able to spot. They are not even sophisticated.
Michael illustrates ,very elocuently, something that some of our competitors have been doing for a long time. Some of them don't even bother to host the keyword rich domains in a different server than the main site. They mix and match the three tecniques described: doorway domains, redirections, clone domain with conditional 301 redirects (soft cloaking). It is all very obvious. But it works.
ps I agree that the exact match effect is an algorithmic flaw.
Case in point: Google "Long Island SEO" - the 2nd result should be a thin, default template WordPress blog with a single in-linking domain and no updated content since December of 2008...and it's been ranked 1st or 2nd for over a year solely because of the domain.
Perhaps not the most competitive keyword in the world, but there are a dozen or so legitimate companies that should be ranked well above a thin shell of a site like that one.
That site was ranked 5th for me. But the site in 4th had some fairly poor content and set of the anti virus
Interesting. Yeah it isn't a mega-competitive keyword so probably some spammers are getting through - but a thin domain with little content and a single in-linking domain shouldn't rank for exact match alone IMO.
i agree. But alot of people that even know the domain name of the website they want to go to still tap it into google.
despite how stupid it seems i know i used to do it alot
Edit: Replace above with "potential navigational query"
What's really funny is that some people have their browser set up to search from the address bar, and will type something like "google widgets" etc. :-)
Chrome!
The result is #2 for me. That's a great example Mike. It looks like there haven't been any attempts by the author to push it up in rank and it's #2. I guess you'd have to consider it anecdotal as it's such a small sample size, but it sure lends weight to the value Google puts on keyword rich domains.
I dont agree that its an algo flaw, itd purely a google brand name bonus. It benifits people searching brand or local business names. Obviously there will be some examples where the bonus should not be given but they are in the minority.
If I search for "Maries Beauty salon" it expect mariesbeautysalon.com to rank in the first few results, not have to navigate through the high authority local business directory listings to find their website. nearly all offline business owners are clueless about SEO so the bonus is their only chance to rank.
Take a look at your example, "Long island SEO" if that was the name of their company, why shouldn't it rank well if people are searching their name.
If that is your niche, your very lucky that they havent put any effort into their website. Remember that its not only taking a ranking position from you, but also your competitors. If your good enough to make the first page, you only compete against 7 or 8 other listings (not including google local) because people clicking longislandseo.com will navigate straight back to the serps because that site doesnt offer anything.
I agree re: company names; but I'd say that today, while it works well for company name searches, it leaves a giant loophole for us SEOs to drive a great big dump truck full of traffic through :-)
Google knows that it gives too much weight to domains that are keyword matched and that the side effects are lower search quality, doorway pages, ugly looking urls with dashes, etc. Google is the evil genius. Since Google's source of revenue is from ads and not organic search results, there has to be more to the picture.
Keywords in the domain name is such an easy tactic to game/spam, that I'm surprised it has worked so well for so long, and that it continues to work.
I hate when I'm competing for position in the SERPs and the top spots are maintained by garbage sites with horrible onsite SEO and a weak link profile, but have the keywords in the domain. It's bad for users, and it's bad for Google.
We can only hope that Google will get better at identifying brand name words in the domain versus blattant keyword spam in the domain name.
I agree (and hello again, we met in Seattle at the PRO conference!).
I would think that Google would be looking at refining how they weight keywords in the domain, especially when the keywords are common words that (for example) show up in their Product Listings database a lot :-)
Whitespark,
I agree but Google is much better than Bing.com it that matter. Bing goes for keywords in domain, Google isn't that good fo keyword rich domains.
The exact match bonus is very handy when it comes to ranking on google. I would say it would be easily, the most powerful factor you can use when ranking on google for a defined key phrase. My thoughts are, Google have given a large ranking bonus to what appears to be brand/business names.
People searching for local businesses benifit from this exact match bonus the most. Many people search for specific business names, e.g. "AAA plumbing service". If you search for this business, you would expect it to be ranking no. 1 and it usually is due to exact match bonus.
Imagine there was no exact match brand bonus. Due to most local business owners knowing nothing about SEO, and others purchasing pretty looking websites made from flash that cant be spydered by Google. The ocean of business directory sites will dominate the listings for that business name. This is a big pain in the ass for any searcher, having to navigate through directory listings to find a business website. Exact match bonus also prevents SEO wary local businesses ranking above their competitors website for their competitors own business name.
Thank the Google god for exact match bonus, SERPs would be very trashy otherwise.
It would not be easy spamming the exact match bonus. Through my testing and tracking, only .com, .net and .org TLd's and ccTLds get the bonus. Definitely dont bother with hyphenated domains, no bonus there. Since the bonus doesnt cover all the tld's you have to be very lucky to find one sill available that has good search traffic.If you choose to buy 10 - 20 domain names related to the one niche, to use the exact match bonus, it will be more work developing them than focusing on one website and ranking indervidual pages for those search terms.
Google have been very smart implementing this exact match bonus. Lets say, you bought a domain focusing on an exact match phrase, you install wordpress and ping google to get it indexed asap. 2-4 days later its indexed. You will almost always find the domain ranking on the second page. Google will not rank the domain on the first page until there is some relevant content on the website and atleast 2 or 3 backlinks. I bought 200+ exact match domains that target local services, e.g. limohiresydney.com. 90% of the domains ranked between 10 and 20 on Google as soon as they were indexed with no content. 3% were on the first page in niches with very little competition. the other 7% where above rank 20 due to huge competition. Google has ensured that domains have to be developed to rank on the first page.
You dont find many single and double word domains in the serps due to domainers parking the domains and relying on direct navigation traffic for their income. Parked domains are not indexed by google. This is changing very fast, the owners of these premium domain names are turning to domain development, allowing the domains to rank in Google, taking advantage of the exact match bonus.
Congrats to the people that are lucky enough to own the premium exact match domain names. I cannot see Google lifting this bonus any time soon and why should they. If the domain matches the search query, there is a pretty high chance that site offers info on that subject, why not make it rank higher.
I agree that somehow Google ought to keep on track with giving preference where it believes the company name is what was being searched for. You'd think that they could reach into their Google Maps/local search info for help there....
I've read this article and posts, along with others, and I'm still not sure which direction to go with one of my clients. They rank well for their key phrases, have owned the main domain name for over 10 years, it is strictly their company name with no keywords in it. They own 4-5 extremely keyword rich domain names they purchased 3-6 years ago. Nothing has been done with these names. One of the key phrases is a common term for their product in Europe. I really want to help them use these domain names effectively. I'm not really looking to trick Google or do anything unethical (Although what I am proposing in general may be seen as unetheical). I'm leaning towards a one page site with unique content and product details that is clearly sponsored by my client, maybe even some uniqie articles on the product type, not specifically their patented product. I planned on having it all on the same server, same registrar data, etc. Any thoughts on this? Am I just asking for trouble?
After this post, everybody will start to buy hundrends of keyword-rich domains..
That's something that many people are doing anyway. This post merely reinforces what happens when you do and what are the most effective methods of utilising said domains.
Personally, the only time I'm going to suggest using keyword-rich domain is when they can be informative and good sites.
That's something that many people are doing anyway. This post merely reinforces what happens when you do and what are the most effective methods of utilising said domains.
Personally, the only time I'm going to suggest using keyword-rich domain is when they can be informative and good sites.
Well-timed post; thanks. Agree with your above-board white hat approach in making the new related sites decent informational and useful sites with unique content. Then let them gather speed, then one day link to your main site. Don't overdo it and don't try to hide it either. There is nothing wrong with a company having more than one website, as long as there is useful specialized information on each. Do Not install an automatic redirect on new sites that slam people back to your primary site; you will get in trouble with the G-men for this black hat tactic. Do Not create additional sites that look and feel the same as your primary; that is another black hat approach for which you will be punished, if not now; eventually. Create unique themes with unique content. Make additional sites good and decent repositories of information that can be productive andinteresting for people to go to on their own, without going to your primary. That's probably a good test of their white hat-edness. Rand.
Thank you for a wonderful post, MichaelC.
I understand that I am late in adding a comment to this thread.
My question is: What if we use multiple "Keyword Rich" domain name sites for lead generation only and do not interlink any of them?
Our proposed scenerio: We just have basic content and a form for the visitor to fill there details on all the "Keyword Rich" domain name sites. We also have a "Non-Hyperlinked" company logo stating our ownership of those micro-sites. Will Google still view this as Link Building spam ?
I re-iterate, the micro-sites are for Lead Generation only and NOT for any kind of Link Building activity.
Thanks.
I think that's going to be ok. Matt Cutts does discuss this a bit in the video I linked to as well. The way I read what he's saying is that there are MARKETING tactics (like the lead-generating or campaign-supporting mini sites) that are normal and expected (and not penalized)....just don't try to do this for link-building.
I have to disagree with some of you that believe Google should not rank a site with a keyword rich domain. However, I do believe that the site must provide valuable and unique content as well as have somewhat of an Authority in the niche. It is totally fare if the site is well optimized and provides quality plus includes the keyword(s) in the domain. Why not???
Thanks for the great post. I just bought a second keyword rich domain for my site. I'm planning on building this out as a topical landing page the drives traffic to my site and related, non-competitive sites.
We'll see how the little experiment goes. At worst I'm out $6.95 and own another great domain name.
It seems that real success is creating the brand unless the keyword is one of the few that can associate itself closely to the now familar brand: dot com e.g. Toys.com or johnson & Johnson's Baby.com
If you have have a number of keyword TLD's and they were syndicated to develop each 4 authoritative sites for the benefit of one new brand name: e.g. price comparison platform platform would they be penalised as duplicated sites
An example: carsales - carmagazine - lifeinsurance - houseinsurance in .com or cc each having relevant content, authoritative developed sites each using the same comparison insurance platform under the brand name "Whatever" or would each site need to white mark the aggregation platform in the site domain name ? I have seen some where the comparrison brand has been used and the wesite has stated the aggregation platform is under licence from "Whatever" Would this be artificially raising your SERP in a competitive area ? it would seem not.
I would like to know if multiple keywords in a domain like 4 at the most can be a pain to get good rankings. Is 3 the absolute max ?
Almost two years since this was posted and I see that the same "trick" still works, even if people don't realize that. I have noticed in the past few months websites that are ranked solely for their keyword rich domain name.
I am intrigued about this and if Google or any official has something to "share" with us I would appreciate it.
On the other hand, if nothing changes it's a good thing for smaller websites that don't even dream now towards awareness.
You are absolute right! Two years since this original post and the "trick" still works. The other surprise is how quickly it works. From my experiments, I have been able to get exact keyword domains to rank #1 - #3 overall in 4-5 weeks for moderately competitive keywords. Granted I do combine with good content and excellent on-page SEO, but no links or off-page efforts.
The question is to do, or not to do?
Thanks...
https://ibirdhost.com
Thanks Michael, interesting post. I'd like to ask a question as a non-SEO person (or technical for that matter) - i have had success in one industry using a great seo company in the UK with non-keyword domains (ie company brand) but am looking to enter the retail industry in various (not too competitive) niches.
I can easily register a domain such as justwidgets.co.uk or widgetsrus.co.uk or i could purchase the exact match keyword domain widgets.co.uk (that has never been used), obviously for a heftyish price. Would this be worth the investment and would the change in registration details you and others refer to affect the potential of the domain?
Here's another wrinkle to this story. What if you rank #1 for a keyword, but someone takes EVERY piece of original content from your site that you slaved over, rewrites it to the point where Google can't tell that it's your content (replacing words with synonyms, moving sentences around), and puts that content on a keyword-rich domain name?
The answer? In less than a month, you can get to page 1 on that keyword on Google.
I am facing this situation right now. Two DMCA notifications have been filed, one to the hosting provider, one to Google. Honestly, even though it's clearly derivative work and an infringement on my copyright, Google has gotten so big I don't expect anything out of it unless I had a high paid lawyer. I submitted a Webmaster Spam report, but of course that's as useful as pressing that button at the crosswalk.
I first saw them appear in the index two weeks ago on page 3 for a keyword I worked HARD to get to #1 on using MY content. A week ago they were on page 2. Yesterday they were #10. Today they're #6. I assume within a week, they will be #1.
Whatever the results, I'll blog the full and grisly details here. But suffice it to say, I am not thrilled with this "feature" of Google right now. It's such as 1990s way of thinking.
Nice post. Thats one of the first things i do. buying keywords domains with different registar. put some content and links on this website. then link the site. after they rank you can decide what you do. make micro selling website or whatever. ;)
This issue is driving me crazy. Anyone care to chime in?
There is a site that I want to buy or rent for a client. The site is #1 for the clients' top keyword, and #2 an #3 for others. But here's where it get weird:
There is no site on the URL! The URL is ranked, has been ranked for months (if not years) and there is no longer a site on it.
What I want to do is keep the website registered to it's current owners and have them do a 301 permanent redirect to our site. If it sticks, we will keep paying them. If not, we don't.
What do you think?
- Ryan
By the way - I have recently gotten the clients site ranke #9 on Google for the exact keyword that the blank URL ranks #1 for
Anyone considering option 3 (buying a keyword rich domain and moving the entire site) should first analyse the popularity of the branded terms that are bringing in existing organic traffic. For many (most?) established businesses these terms are likely to represent a good proportion of their 'head' (as oppposed to 'long tail') terms.
Whilst a keyword rich domain can have obvious benefits (cheeky upstarts sitting in the SERPs shouting out the search query in bold font), if people are searching for your brand or company name it could be argued that it is the appearance of this in the displayed URL that is likely to encourage click through.
Recent commentary on the issue of last click conversion attribution in analytics highlights this point. It is being acknowledged that for many companies, it appears that some variation on their company name is responsible for website conversions, yet the original introduction may have been the result of a generic search.
In other words, a customer first finds you by searching for 'cellphone booster systems', but later, when they're ready to buy/sign-up/make contact they search for 'xyz signals'. Just something else to consider before potentially throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Great article. Now I just need to make my clients understand this concept :-)
Michael, thanks for this post, it's very useful toget some further insights into domain purchasing moves, what Google may lately perceive as spammy, blackhat, good or bad practice....
I consider the last option the safest one: buying a keyword-rich domain and moving your entire site
In fact, for nearly a year, I have been considering to advise a current client to go down this road. The project is going quite well but I can see that if the domain included at least one of the targeted keywords, it would go a long way to gaining higher and better rankings. However, somehow I feel that something is not right in giving out that kind of advice and that Google should end that stupidity now. It just doesnt make sense. I can see sites that are not even half as good as my client (IA, link portfolio, content), yet they rank much higher as the targeted niche keywords are included in the domain. It's silly, isnt it? I wouldnt want to make the client go through such a rebranding hassle only to see Google a few months later backing off on the keyword heavey domain algorithm. Just some ranting! : )
I tend to agree with you--Google's weighting of keywords in the URL is driving a lot of domain-buying behavior purely for SEO gains. If you think of the leaders in nearly any industry, their domains are their company names, not generic product names (ok, Toys R Us is an exception :-).
How does Google weight keywords in the subdomain? Could this be a sensible approach...
cellphonerepeatersystems.xyzsignals.com
cellphoneboostersystems.xyzsignals.com
cellphoneantennasystems.xyzsignals.com
Great article, really interesting read. I've been doing this for a couple of years, putting up kw rich micro sites. Both as a 'hobby' but also for seo clients. I rarely register 'new' kw rich domain names I go after expiring domain names on the aftermarket with existing age.
You gave me the final little push to experiment with some of the many keywords optimized domains I own (sorry, they are only in italian... well I've some few as geo-targeting... ;)).
Jokes apart, the microsites tecnique is something that I think worth recovering if only playing a fair game and giving something really useful through them to your users. The "sponsored by" suggestion is one of the many in your post that I like the most.
Great post. I am finding more and more requests from current clients for some structure of 'Satellite' sites containing keyword rich domains as a quick fix.
I am amazed at how many low quality sites (such as 20 indexed pages of poor content coupled with 10 - 15 backlinks)have made it to the front page in a short space of time.
Wow...great post, Mike...
Trying to digest this info...and wondering about any associated risks to client sites....
;-)
Jim
Been trying to find more ways of getting my site up there in rankings and be "legit" with it.
Great post! Ill be marking this idea off my list :)
Thanks
I recently bought just one keyword rich domain and moved my client 301 to the new domain. So far its working well, we just need to do more link building. We rank #1 in yahoo already for our main desired keyword. Old school URL www.valueguardusa.com 301 to New school www.pa-homeinspection.com
Nice work!
Hey Michael, this is one SEO item that has been bothering me for some time & you wonder when Google will sort this one out!
Here in the UK we have been going after some SEO terms alongside some of the counties such as Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire and one of the sites, which is pretty lightweight ranks No. 1 for the term 'SEO Surrey' due almost entirely on their domain name of www.seosurrey.co.uk. This site is following your option no. 2: 'content - rich doorway pages'.
Why is it that people, given the opportunity, will always try & short cut the process....but in time this will come back to haunt them!!
Time for Google to pull their finger out on this one.
Great post!
Thanks
Conrad
Nice post Michael. I've wrestled with this issue a lot and this is the most comprehensive post addressing the issues I've ever read.
Interesting article.
However, I don't agree that www.cellphoneantennasystems.com will get more attention from the searcher (hence clicks) than xyzsystems.com; In my opinion keyword-rich domains are (I'd say mainly) used for spamming purposes, and search engines users are getting used to this fact. How many times have you clicked on a URL that had a keyword-rich domain, to find out that it was some SEDO or domain auction crap featuring your keywords without any real content?
I also prefer to use a domain name related to my brand than to my product (or what I'm selling), as other users suggested in their comments, as well as Rand (not directly but...) when talking about the importance of using your brand name in the front of your title tag for example...
If my company name if Bob's Cars, I prefer to tell my customers that my website is bobscars dot com (another free citation here), and not utahusedcarseller dot com... Brand? Brand!
Great article. Now I just need to make my clients understand this concept :-)
As almost always - very helpful!
Are you sure about the conversion argument in the post?
My experience is that my sites convert better by having a uniquely branded domain name than www.xyzkeyword.com. I think this conversion pattern makes more sense as www.xyzkeyword.com (or even worse, .info) is a pretty strong sign of something shady going on.
I'd love to see some stats on it though. Anyone tested this?
Good point...I think you're definitely right if it's a known brand name, e.g. if I'm searching for wrenches and I see a result for Sears/Craftsman, that's going to get my attention more than www.wrenches.com.
I think for products where the big brands in the industry aren't known to the consumer, then I'd be more inclined to click on www.wrenchesrus.com than www.thompsontools.com.
Very good point! I feel that as more time goes by and search engine users get more savvy, brand name domains will get better CTR.
Help!! I'm a bit newer at this than most of the posters. This is fairly basic, but...
Let's say my goal is to get a local business in the 7 box of Google Maps or even a 1-box. GM loves the keyword in the title of the listings and the domain name. I can see it by the map listings. I bought some keyword rich domains, some with hyphens. Some say that's fine; some say that's a negative. Let's say it's neutral.
I read that optimizing the listing for GM is slightly different than for the organic results. I have the newly purchased kw rich domain forwarded to the old/dull domain name. I thought it was a great idea to have my 100 backlinks go to the kwr name rather than to the old/dull name. Two very basic questions (please save me from myself before I harm a client):
Keeping things simple...no doorways, no switching the client's whole site to the new domain name, for just the maps listings, will it be ok to use the kwr domain for the Google Maps listing?
What's the difference between forwarding to the old/dull domain and a 301?
Generally, do backlinks to the kw rich domain show as links to the old/dull domain? I know this is basic. I just can't find the answer.
Perhaps I should use the kw rich domain just for Google Maps. Reviews on the GM page would really for the business and I know reviews help. It shouldn't make a difference whether the kw rich domain is showing; the reviews would be for the business.
Should I just do the backlinks to the old/dull domain? So... is optimizing to Google Maps different from SEO in general. So basic, I just can't find the answers.
Thank you in advance.
What about purchasing "off brand" domains such as .info and .us, are these viewed with less signifigance even if I search for "black keyboard" and the domain is for instance blackkeyboard.info
I have a number of keyword rich domains and they've done really well in SERPs for competitive words.
I'm wondering the same thing about some of the non-.com .org, and .net domains. I'm about to experiment with a .cc. If no one else KNOWS the answer or can offer good data to back up what they say, I'll report back my findings.
This is why I consider keyword research to be critical for maximum exposure online. Organic SEO is so doeable because of this!
https://www.FionaMaryOnline.com
Thanks very useful as looking to secure a keyword rich domain for my own venture.
And...the fourth option is to be really clever up front - choose your brand name because it is keyword rich...secure all of the domain names and do away with the headache. Works well if you can think this far in advance. If not, this is all great advice.