Exact match domains have always been the source of a lot of contention among SEOs. For quite some time, EMD’s have offered a competitive advantage for SEO’s who understood how to use them. In the early days of search when relevance algorithms were rather weak, many folks used “double dashed” domains because they were cheap to buy, and easy to rank. $6 to rank for a 3 word phrase. Sold. However, when you see best-online-seo-company.biz in your search result, you start to question the weighting of relevance factors. This is, in large part, how EMD’s got a bad rep to start with.
Despite the debate and obvious abuse, EMD’s represent what SEO’s do best – Seize Every Opportunity!
I’ve always been a pretty big fan of EMD’s, and I agree with Elliot Silver that EMD domains can be brands. High value keyword domains have been a commodity since the internet became a commercial marketplace.
Matt Cutts (esteemed Google engineer) has made this comment in the past (about 2 years ago):
"We have looked at the rankings and weights that we give to keyword domains and some people have complained that we’re giving a little too much weight for keywords in domains. And so we have been thinking about adjusting that mix a little bit and sort of turning the knob down within the algorithm so that given two different domains, it wouldn’t necessarily help you as much to have a domain with a bunch of keywords in it."
Types of EMD’s
I think it’s important firstly to qualify the different types of EMD. The major factors in identifying quality domains, to me, includes:
- TLD extension (.com/.net/.org/.other)
- Number of keywords
- Dashed or non-dashed
- Domains with “stop words” only qualify as “partial match domains”
Let’s start with dashed domains. It has been proven statistically that domains with more than a single dash are very likely to be spam. Multiple dashes in a domain was an early spammer trick because of the low barrier to entry with cost. This rules these out. Don’t bother with a double dash domain.
It is very common to see domain names that include a single hyphen, but when two, three, or more hyphens are present, this is often an indication that these domain names are associated with companies that are attempting to trick search engines into ranking their web pages more highly.
From this amazing patent post by Bill Slawski regarding EMD's and detecting commercial queries.
Even though there is plenty of evidence that a single dash domain can rank just fine, I would avoid this technique as well. Many of the single dash EMD’s that rank are old existing domains. It is my opinion that a single dash EMD still really provides very little advantage over a non-keyword domain with all things considered. Skip the dashed domains as well.
The next question is how many keywords in a URL is too many. I would answer 2-3 for a .net/.org and 3-4 for a .com. BestBusinessCreditCards.com may be long, but I think it is still effective and too the point. Four words is pushing it, but I think you can still make a valid argument for a 4 word .com domain in certain spaces where most all the domains are taken, and there are some very niche commercial products worth targeting specifically. While .net/.org domains are still very credible, there are more of them available, so I think you have to reduce by a word. 4 words max for .com, 3 words max for .net/.org. 3 word .com or 2 word .net/.org is the best idea.
.net/.org keyword domains have proven to be very effective as a tool for bootstrapping a website. I think this is valid strategy. Instead of flickr.com, start with onlinephotos.net or even onlinephotogallery.org. I understand the value of a brand, but I think there’s also value in embracing “bootstrapper traffic.” There's definitely a lot of value to a startup in some highly relevant long tail traffic from your targeted keyword phrase set. .net/.org domains are generally priced at about 10% of the value of a .com domain. This can be of great value in competitive verticals where most of the domains have been registered for many years.
Find the BEST two-word .net/.org within your category, and buy it in the aftermarket if it is available. For buying your EMD - see the advice below. This can be great for your mainsite, microsite, or just to keep your competitor from getting it. At worst, think of it as a defensive strategy for your most important phrases. Just don’t think you’re going to dominate the SERPS spending less than three or four times what you paid for the domain in the first place. A crappy microsite that costs half of what you paid for the domain will get you a one way ticket to Nowhereville these days.
Stop words in keyword domains
Domains that include stopwords don’t truly qualify as an EMD, but can be mildly effective. It probably wouldn’t be my first choice, but if you can get theDetroitRoofer.com for $6, it will probably be a decent bet you’ll have some decent signals at your advantage in ranking for your targeted term for the relatively reasonable future. There is the potential for some brand confusion here though if someone owns detroitroofer.com
The most significant benefit of an exact match domain is that it makes it much more easy to develop targeted keyword anchor text from authority sites. Anchor text as an SEO tool is in decline, but it has always been a very significant factor, and will likely remain this way to some extent. It’s much easier to get someone to link to your site with the domain name, than it is to tell them “link to me with these keywords." This is probably the major competitive advantage over non-EMD domains.
Offsite optimization is more than just links these days with the increasing importance of social mentions. Smart money speculation says it will be easier to get keyword rich social mentions for an EMD than for other types of domains as well.
So with all the talk of EMD’s, what the people really want to know is: what should we do? For those of you in this camp, let me offer you my best practices with keyword domain names. Unfortunately, I can make no guarantees to the amount of time these will hold true in the ever shifting tides of SEO change, but this is where I think we're at as of the time of posting:
EMD and domain best practices
- Always be willing to spend 10-15% of your overall budget on the BEST domain name you can get. It will make a big difference in both the short and long run. Dive into the aftermarket, and send some emails.
- Skip the second level TLD’s - .mobi / .travel / .info isn’t worth it.
- No more than one dash in your domain (better to just skip dash domains altogether)
- 3-4 words max for .com EMD’s
- 2-3 words max for .net/.org EMD’s
- Best to build a Brand site on a keyword domain so you get both brand mentions and generic intent keywords (see Toys.com owned by ToysRus.com and associates)
- Geo-local EMD’s are great to own, and offer lower barriers to entry
- You're going to have to focus some efforts on "de-optimization"
As the proud owner of MiamiFishing.com (no, I’m not a retired fisherman, but thanks for asking) and other exact match domains, I can say that there are both pros and cons to EMD's. I saw a few sites of my own pay the price for “over optimization” during Penguin. It's hard to always know how aggressive to be, and how far G is going to turn the "filter knobs," In a time where disavowing, delinking, and de-optimization seem to be the valid strategies, it's safe to say you should probably take a more conservative approach to your organic ranking strategy.
SEO factors aside, there's something valuable about having your domain name "say on the box" exactly what you do when you put it on a hat, t-shirt, or sign. There's a lot of implied credibility in a .com EMD (and even to some extent .net and .org).
After years of being an SEO, it’s sometimes difficult to maintain a TAGFEE mentality and put my own site up on the chopping block for public criticism, but it’s a site I’m also very proud of, and I think really stands up to the other websites in the vertical in delivering value to our users. Please be gentle. I do believe the Moz has great tenants, but it can be very frightening to put your site up in the crosshairs for people to take aim and fire at, especially when you haven't accomplished everything you'd like to do with it sometimes. Being optimized or optimal means getting the most you can from the resources at your disposal, and sometimes this isn't always enough to create the perfect website (I have others that aren't nearly as pretty).
EMD’s do have their advantages, but they have some disadvantages as well.
Pros of an EMD
- Great for a startup to gather some relevant longtail traffic
- Easier to get targeted anchor text
- Easier to get social mentions with keywords
- Can dominate a single niche (IE: “Category Killer”)
- Good for targeting variations in the long tail keyword phrase set
- Brand mentions and keyword mentions become one in the same
- They can be very effective for generic commercial intent queries
- They can be very effective in local search
- Great way to build startup “bootstrapper” traction
- Can be an effective strategy with a well built microsite to target a single niche.
- Some businesses have very limited keyword sets – this is a decent approach in these areas.
Cons of an EMD
- Limits future brand expansion
- Can create “brand confusion”
- You don’t get the same “credit” for brand mentions.
- Your brand can come off as “generic”
- It can be harder to claim social media profiles
- It can be more difficult to associate mentions with your brand
- Hatorade on your site quality if you outrank competitors
- More chance of “over-optimization” (seriously, does anyone else hate this phrase as much as I do?)
- There are a limited amount of them
- They can be very expensive
- The effectiveness of the advantages are slowly being neutralized
EMD's and Brand Confusion
One of the main problems facing EMD's is the brand confusion that can come with a keyword domain. It’s HARD to own a very sought after generic commercial intent keyword. Google really doesn't want someone to own a keyword, and for good reason.
Keywords are the new brand. Someone in every vertical is trying to own their generic commercial keywords. Think about the big brands Staples and Office Max; do they really DESERVE to rank better than a well built OfficeChairs.com or OfficeFurnitureOnline.com ?
Generic commercial intent keywords are hard to come by; there’s really not a ton of them around, and they are VERY sought after when you start looking at the search demand curve. It doesn't make sense to for a SE to allow only one advertiser own the keyword when several can compete to drive prices to a point of maximum profit for G and diminishing returns for advertisers. There will always be competition to be the brand associated with the generic commercial intent keyword. Logic follows that value in the associated domains should stay pretty strong as well.
This is probably beyond the scope of this post, so I may leave this discussion of "branding" keyword domains for another day, but it is at the crux of the EMD debate. I’ll leave the solutions to the commenters ;). We all know that G is expecting much more out of a website to allow it to remain on their first page these days.
Think there’s a lot of keywords with generic commercial intent? Consider the main ones in each of these categories where G makes the majority of their ad revenues. The list might not be as long as you think. I'm willing to bet most consultants and agencies here in the Moz community have at least a client or two in each of these major verticals.
So what was the “solution” to the EMD relevance “problem?”
Google engineers have always attempted to “level the playing field” for webmasters. They do a great job in many cases, and provide lots of fantastic tools these days with Google Webmaster Tools. Unfortunately, I don’t really think EMD’s are inherently a bad thing. They were just too large of a competitive advantage for some competitive niches where it was difficult to get targeted keyword anchor text. It's still going to remain difficult to get targeted anchor text in these niches (though it's now much less valuable to do so). EMD’s became a goldrush landgrab for optimizers and domainers when they saw the advantages they provide, and the tactics got used and abused and started to create some relevance problems.
As with all landgrabs, people got greedy. Speculators starting creating sites that gave EMD’s a pretty bad rap.Competitors start reporting these websites go Google as S.P.A.M (sites positioned above mine), and users start to complain that the SERPs suck. Speculators started putting up 1 page garbage microsites and ranking for large 2 and 3 word phrases with 3 crappy directory links and a page of outsourced content. The EMD's started to look like those old double dashed sites, even though the barriers to entry for top search rankings were a bit higher. Those barriers continue to get raised.
You can’t cry about your rankings when you didn’t deserve them in the first place, and honestly you never deserve rankings. You earn rankings, and often lose them. It’s part of the love, joy, and pain that is SEO. As John Andrews says in “You’re Free to Go Home” "That’s alot like SEO. You win, you get traffic. You don’t win, you don’t get traffic. It doesn’t matter how you play."
The real issue with EMDs
The main issue originally posed by suffering relevance was not EMD’s, but the amount of influence that keyword anchor text wielded over the search relevance algorithm. EMD’s just benefitted disproportionately from advantages with targeted anchor text. Anchor text carried too much influence without that added benefit. It’s a whole lot easier to get a link that says “Real Estate” when you’re RealEstate.com than it is to get one when you’re Zillow.com. The same can be said right down to Buy-my-crappy-spyware-cleaner-software.com.
It was much more important to fix the overall issues associated with the anchor text relevancy problems, than it was to fix the EMD “problem,” and that’s why we saw the anchor text issues being remedied first with Panda and Penguin (which fixed a slew of other issues as well), before directly fixing EMD issues. There is a lot of potential collateral damage that can occur when making the decision of if a keyword domain has enough "brand signals" or "quality factors" to be near the top of the search results for a phrase, so I imagine it's a pretty difficult search relevance area to tackle. The simple fact is many EMD's ARE good valuable sites that deliver a quality experience to their end users. Can you really take a way all their advantage that they were wise enough to gain from paying top dollar for a great domain?
As with most important signals, optimizers found a way to take full advantage of benefits that inbound keyword anchor text provided. As with the rest of the history of SEO, we’ve seen a major shift in the importance of anchor text that has sent a lot of SEO’s reeling. If you didn’t see the writing on the wall, you either didn’t pay attention, or didn’t care. Either way, SEO’s who ignored the impending anchor text over-optimization warning bells are now paying the price, and trying to fix mistakes.
Panda and Penguin cured most of the major EMD relevance issues by forcing EMD websites to earn their rankings through achieving acceptable engagement metrics. Think of Panda as a beast that eats sites who don’t give their users what they want. If you don’t hold up the the “relative engagement metrics” within your SERPs, your site gets eaten.
If I were to play “if I were a search relevance engineer” (one of my favorite games), I think would just set the barriers to entry higher for EMD’s to rank in the short and medium tail keyphrases. I would also validate with user metrics the fact that they deserve to be there. Long ago (in 2005), Google introduced the “sandbox” (or trustbox) The “trustbox” made new websites “guilty until proven innocent” with regards to their page authority unless they demonstrated sufficient signals to be let into the index.
The principles and ideas associated with the trustbox are still very much in effect today. Value to your users creates trust and credibility verifying engagement metrics like high time on site, multiple page views, low bounce rate, repeat visits, and new websites are let into the index more quickly, but the barriers to entry for commercial intent high dollar short and medium tale queries are much higher. Essentially, your user engagement metrics must validate your rankings.
Yes, that was an “Eminememe”, and as Eminem says: “you get one shot, never miss your chance to blow.” When you get your “audition phase” in the top of the search results, your site needs to perform well against other sites in that keyphrase set. Make sure you pass your “audition” instead of puking on your visitors sweater and telling them it’s value. Positive engagement metrics during your audition phase is equivalent to the importance of quality score in you PPC campaigns; it can really have an effect on the outcome of your webpage's success.
Positive engagement metrics
- High time on site
- Multiple page view
- Repeat visits
- Low bounce Rates
Not every industry requires 10 minute time on site, and 50% repeat visitors, but some do. These metrics reflect brands and brand signals, which is what G has repeatedly mentioned as their priority for providing quality and relevant sites to users in the search results.
What are the solutions to my exact match problem?
It’s obviously a bit troubling times for EMD owners. No one likes to be at the center of an SEO witch hunt. It’s all fine and good to do spam reports, until it hits your site, or targets your niche or competitive advantage. One of the best competitive advantages has always been the ability to stay under the radar and keep your mouth shut (though I sometimes fail to fail at what I preach).
The solutions are the same as to many of the problems with Panda and Penguin. It’s a tough time to be a site owner, and admit that you were “over-optimized” and start back peddling a bit, but it’s G’s world – we just play in it. How many times has Google said it? Focus on the user. You may have always scoffed at doing “what’s good for the user,” but with engagement metrics that suggestion has turned into a requirement. We'll continue to focus on both how to make our websites better for users and Google with more actionable execution taking advantage of how user's interact with our sites via search engines.
There’s still plenty of advantages to EMD’s, and we should continue to see instances of their success, but it’s hard to build a generic commercial intent keyword brand. You gotta have the chops to back it up!
We all know ranking for generic commercial intent phrases is valuable, or we wouldn’t be targeting them. In order to stand up to the scrutiny, you’re going to have choose your favorite EMD’s, and let those other pipe-dream microsites die their slow painful death. It’s important to know when to pull the plug on a losing web property. Any good web entrepreneur has plenty of failures on their resume.
A few things to consider for solving problems with EMD sites:
- Disavow all public knowledge of SEO
- De-optimize
- De-link
- Prioritize your SEO efforts – you can’t win the battle on all fronts anymore
- Focus on quality of quantity (with site indexation)
- Redesign and Rebrand (maybe it’s time to get a mascot for your .org)
- Innovate ways to improve user engagement metrics
- Develop a social presence and improve your social mentions
- Diversify your backlink profile
- Diversify your anchor text
- Okay – I’m (kind of) kidding on rule #1 - #3
You know who hates on good EMD's most? The people who don't own them. You know why? Because they've always carried an advantage with them. While this advantage is diminishing, there is still a tactical advantage in spending some money up front for a great exact match domain name that describes exactly what you do and acknowledges the generic commercial intent of your visitor.
EMD's will always receive lots of hatorade because the majority of people don't own them. Toolman at webmasterworld said it best: S.P.A.M = Sites Positioned Above Mine. There’s plenty of SEO’s who could make Silky Johnson look like Tony Robbins. Don't participate in the hate, and don't feed the trolls.
Very few people are going to come out of the woodwork, and “extol the virtues” of an exact match domain, and put their website under the ever scrutinous eyes of search engineers, and a community that often prefers to focus on failure instead of offering opinion for improvement. As usual, I enjoy being the exception to the rule, and figured I’d pitch in my two cents.
How to find and buy an EMD (and avoid being a hater)
- Type in whois.sc/yourkeyword.com/.net./org (this will redirect you to domaintools whois search for the targeted phrase)
- Identify if the domain is owned by a domainer or owner and do some further research
- If there is no established website - Write an email and ask if the domain is for sale.
- If you get a response – offer approximately 40% of the asking price, or propose one high enough to not offend the seller.
- Meet in the middle if .com is worth it. if .net/.org offer 2-10% of your .com price
- If there is an established site, check the other metrics, and be prepared to pay much more.
- After EMD “death” be prepared to pay more for domains in the aftermarket after their “rebirth”
For more on domaining, check out the domainer myths.
Take my opinion on EMD’s with a grain of salt. No, I didn't test my theories like Pete. This is just my experience. I have bought a fair share of them thinking they were a great buy for future projects, or just to invest in and sell in the aftermarket at a later date. We’ve been warned of the “death of EMD’s” for a long time. I just hope EMD's continue to suffer the same type of death that SEO constantly battles with: one that is curable with creativity, innovation, and execution.
Resources:
- https://moz.com/blog/googles-emd-algo-update-early-data
- https://moz.com/blog/are-exact-match-domains-in-decline
- https://www.seobook.com/exact-match-domains
- https://www.seobook.com/should-you-buy-exact-match-domain-name
- https://www.seobook.com/category-killer-domain-names
- https://www.seobook.com/googles-matt-cutts-talks-down-keyword-domain-names
- https://www.standingdog.com/blog/why-exact-match-domain-names-are-good-or-bad-for-seo/
- https://www.seobythesea.com/2011/10/googles-exact-match-domain-name-patent-detecting-commercial-queries/
- https://www.winningtheweb.com/value-exact-match-domain.php
- https://www.elliotsblog.com/exact-match-domains-can-be-brands-2692
- https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4480480.htm
- https://upmarketdns.com/highest-sales/
- https://www.dnjournal.com/domainsales.htm
- https://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/post-penguin-emd.html
- https://www.hmtweb.com/marketing-blog/google-over-optimization-penalty-exact-match-domains/
- https://www.standingdog.com/blog/why-exact-match-domain-names-are-good-or-bad-for-seo/
- https://www.webmasterworld.com/domain_names/3019742.htm
I have a hard time understanding why so many people think that there is an "EMD problem".
If a person believes that an EMD gives a fantastic advantage in the search engines then just buy one of them. If you don't want to buy one then spend the same amount of money on SEO and you will probably get a rankings boost that is stronger than you would have gotten with the EMD advantage - and you will not have to worry about google devaluing your investment when the crank down the EMD influence in the algo.
You probably don't own an EMD do you? They rank with 1 quality backlink and >10 articles...
I own a few of them.
They rank with 1 quality backlink and >10 articles...
That is true when your domain is pinkhippopants.com. But if you are going after a difficult term the value of the EMD is much smaller.
Since most of the traffic on most websites is coming in through interior pages then the EMD is of zero benefit there. So if an EMD is beating you on the trophy terms - attack his long tail.
Traffic from EM keywords on my sites is about 1% of total traffic.
I love reading your comments.
https://vdestine.net/exact-domain-penalty-recovery/ Guys i think everyone should read this... Now Google comes up with EMD Penalty Recovery and so practically, this method is of no use.. :)
My guess would be that spammers are getting an unfair advantage over actual business owners that truly deserve those spots, instead of people looking to harvest email addresses or generate leads... Also, it's an irrelevant factor to determining one's authority.
Again, just my guess. :)
The sword cuts both ways. It can be hard for local businesses to compete for their local search terms against Yelp. So it maybe a good move for a local business to buy an EMD.
An EMD is not an investment. It's $50. The goal isn't to build a brand with them. It's not a great long-term strategy by any means, but it is only about $50 at the end of the day.
Saw this interesting comment from Matt Cutts 3 days ago on EMD's - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4595665 - seems to suggest Google have just rolled an update specifically for EMD's - "In fact, this past Friday we rolled out a change to reduce exact-match domains (EMDs), which are domains like "buycheapviagraonline.info" that put a lot of keywords in the domain name in an attempt to benefit in search rankings."
Hopefully Cutts was telling the truth when he said it was to target low quality sites. There are many quality EMD domains out there that are doing everything right, with a legit product/service. I have a feeling there's going to be some collateral damage with this update for some of the good guys :(
hmmm... this is the first I have heard of ycombinator.com. Wow. Thanks.
...and I'll just chalk that miss up to being a pest control guy.
Yes that. And That. Yes. Yes... and Yes.
You rock Todd, although I can't believe you are dropping those solid words of wisdom on the whole internet. Perhaps the reality is that many people take one piece of advice and believe it to be the golden rule. "Buy exact match domains." is a piece of a huge algorithm. There are so many other variables to weigh against that one piece...
And I believe in buying insurance. Buying an EMD can be just that.
So true that people take one little bit of info and run with it! They read "EMDs can help a site rank better" and take it to mean "my site must have an EMD and nothing else".Now the same people read "EMDs attached to lower quality sites no longer get that automatic extra boost" and think "Google hates ALL EMDs..."
Excellent post. I'm glad someone still can show that there are up sides to EMDs. I had the unique experience of launching a niche site for a company about 4 years ago using an exact match domain, violating most of your "best practice" rules (this was what the CEO wanted, not my choice).
Within 8 months that site made page 1 Google for the #1 targeted term, which is fairly competitive. It has been on page 1 ever since, even after Panda, Penguin and any EMD algo changes that Google has rolled out.
4 years later, I launched another niche site, targeting exactly the same set of keywords for a competitor who basically hired me away from my previous employer and said "We want you to do for us what you did for them."
I recommended the site be built on an EMD. Having already had 4 years experience optimizing a site for a specific set of keywords, I knew exactly what I wanted the domain to be. This CEO was firmly against it, for most of the reasons you explained in your "Cons of EMD" list - particularly the branding issues. This CEO didn't just want a niche site to sell products, he wanted to create a Brand. The site has been live since January of this year. The best it has done for the most desirable keyword (the same one I had succeeded with at the previous site) is the bottom of page 3. The other site I built, which is on an EMD, and extremely over-optimized.....is still on page 1.
Since I am the SEO who built both sites.....it's frustrating to watch...and I'm not sure what lesson I should really take away from that? All I can say so far, is that (from this experience) an EMD might give you faster short-term ROI, but hopefully a strong brand will trump that in the end. Only time will tell.
I would be interested to see a case study on situations like yours. Such as what was done that was similar for both and what was done differently. Is it possible that your situation is unique? Do unique situations exist in Google?
I work a SEO project of over 40 websites which are EMDs. Currently touched 15 of them and they all are still doing well. They have reacted very well to link building and even after the updates they have retained their rankings. They are 2 KWs .com domains which as you said seems to be ok anyways. Further, maintaining quality and link building will do the trick! Though, couple of websites suffered but I must accept that might be because of some low quality links not with the Google update.
Good Post: IMO The EMD's that count are one / two word TLD's / Quidsi / Quinstreet, Bankrate, Lendingtree verticals are great examples of the benefits inherent in cognitive marketing EMD TDL's whilst supporting / building the brand integrity. The best SEO people are 40% marketeers, the rest will be analysts or adword bookies.
Excellent post, Todd! It's really no surprise that Google is taking this EMD action. I like how you differentiate a EMD from a EMD with a modifier, like thedetroitroofer.com. Personally, I hope the good guys that have been doing SEO right succeed from this. The whole EMD preferential treatment went on long enough!
HiI'm redoing one of my EMD websites to HTML5 - so good time to redo titles and descriptions.
I had heard that NOW with latest Google update on EMD domains - that you should NOT use the EMD keywords in the Title or Description... is this true? If so how do you describe a website about the EMD keywords without using them...
Please Advise....
ThanksLiza (Cancun)
By chance I was able to buy a two word .com EMD for the most important keyphrase for our SaaS b2b startup.
The two word keyphrase in question is niche and not super competitive, but still gets 250k+ searches per month which would be super valuable us if we were in the top 3.
Most of the sites on the first page don't look like they've been optimised for this phrase, they are there thanks to very high domain authority and use of one of the words in the keyphrase in the title.
The top result is the exact same EMD as I have purchased, but the .net one, the page is old, stale and doesn't have good domain authority or link profile.
We already have a branded site, we've focussed almost all of our customer acquisition to date on LinkedIn and Google PPC ads. Previously we hadn't focused on SEO as there were lower hanging fruit for us, as a result we don't rank well for our target keywords. But now we want to get up there.
So my question is this. We already have too much invested in the branded site to rebrand. So if we say that the branded site has to stay, what is the best way to make use of this golden EMD?
- Micro Site
- Complete Copy of branded domain
- 301's?
What would you do?
Todd, as always, your memes are awesome! J
I am with you, I do not think EMD are inherently a bad thing and there are lots of advantages if used with good quality sites. Also, I do not think Google is blatantly punishing all EMD sites. I do feel they *want* to target the “type” of sites that abuse the EMD ranking factor, as well as any or other on-page factors that can be easily manipulated. Yet, we can’t deny the fact that lots of good sites are being penalized with this EMD penalty L.
I appreciate very much your insights.
Thanks for a great post with tons of info!
About engagement metrics... How does Google evaluate that? Do you need Google Analytics? My site just got dropped by Panda/Peguin yet visitors spend above 7 min on my site, 3-4 pageviews per visits and the site is fairly high traffic... My domain are keywords, ok, but again, how does Google judge the quality of a site or "engagement metrics"? Thanks
They might do what Bing does and check how long it takes for the visitor to hit the back button on their browser and return to the results. I think Bing calls this the pogo-stick effect. I know I heard Duane Forrester talk about this in a video.
EMD's never were and never will be a 'BAD' thing to own. Its always been the case that those who do not own it have been frowning on it. Yet these very individuals/consultants would have advised a client to go for them in case of delivering on a project.
About seeking advantages to rank better. Get real .. who isnt? That's the name of the game and competition drives it further.
So Google has stopped giving that extra weight to a 'low-quality' EMD. It may be a good move to improve quality of their SERP's/results, but tracking Google and its search related policies for ever since they arrived on the scene, its bound to evolve/get modified.
For me an EMD directly relates to what a user is searching for and if you have/promote a site whose domain/pages/urls use any kind of keywords then you are trying to adopt the next best solution to using an EMD ... all in the name of Search Engine Optimization.
As someone who deals with the thoughts portrayed in this post day-to-day. I feel my opinion is of a very similar nature to yours; do we, the ones with foresight and opportunisitc mindsets deserve to be somewhat put at a disadvantage/have our advantage removed? No...not at all.
Do we deserve SUCH an advatange, debateable. Sure, having an exact match shouldn't necessarily boost you to the top, esepcially if your website is of low quality and not too great. But if you're website IS of high quality, the design is nice, content is excellent, informative, helpful etc... then maybe the advantage should apply at a discounted rate?
I personally work in the online gambling sector, and rather than building crappy onlinegamblingdomainnameslikethis.com and cheat our way through. My partner and I have risen to the challenge and spent a lot of time and effort on acquiring some excellent generic domain names. These names have top quality websites and content on them, content of which is usually higher than most of the actual casino operators. In fact i'd go as far as saying we have some of the highest quality content in the gaming space, yet have been demoted on some (not all) of our sites just because 888 or whoever is a brand, and we are an exact match. Hang on on a second... who the hell says 888 know more about roulette than we do? HAVE YOU EVEN ANALYSED THEIR LANDING PAGE?
Let Matt Cutts visit both sites, and have him tell me his honest opinion. I bet money (ooh, gambling) on him saying our site was better for, in this case, that particular term; roulette.
The way I see it spammy EMD domain are getting punished , nothing to worry about for legit webmasters with EMD with good content. This update is something we should be welcoming with an embrace .
All my domains and websites are EMD's - 10 -15 years ago Google liked keyword domains. I have found with the last Google go around i no longer rank with for the EMD keywords (all other keywords are the same) but the boost i got from having a website using the keywords is gone.
Question - i am redoing one of my EDM websites to HTML5 - it's a good time to redo my titles and descriptions.
I had heard that Now with EMD you should NOT use those keywords in either title or description - is this true? and if so it makes it very hard to describe a website that is about the EMD without using the EMD keywords...
some advise please.thanksliza
Great Post
Great post, and I enjoyed the funny pictures.
I am curious If you have an estabilished brand name domain and an EMD (that is just 301-ed to the brand domain name that is relevent to what is being sold), which domain name would you build on, or just leave it as it is?
Good job on the article (I read the whole thing). Just to let you know, the link going to SEO Book in the anchor text "or trustbox" is broken.
Personally, I've always liked EMDs because they can give your visitor a better idea of what your site is about prior to even loading it into their browser. It's sort of like what the title of a book or movie does.
In fact, many of the movie associated websites just happen to be using EMDs You might have noticed that they tend to be pretty long and typically contain the words "the film", "movie" or "the movie". Just another reason why it would be hard to take away all of the ranking power from EMDs.
Although, I just noticed that these official sites are ranking below IMDb and Wikipedia. I wonder how they ranked before the update? I wish I paid more attention to this...
I own a small wholesale business and we recently launched a retail site for one of our product lines, faux, hollowed book boxes: www.bookboxshop.com
This EMD update explains it, essentially I've noticed a huge dip in the indexed pages by Google, and my targeted word "book box" just TANKED. I've been working on developing this site for about a year in my free time, and the past 2-3 months it finally started picking up. Now select keywords went from a still horrible 300-400th, down to 700+. Basically all my work down the drain.
Not all EMDs are spam, why penalize everyone, especially startups? Unfortunately it is very difficult to brand a niche product in a retail market when your main focus is wholesale and you don't own physical retail space, etc, etc, etc.
My dog training website "londonandbristoldogwalkingandgroomingservicesuk.co.uk" is doing great in the SERPs!
Just kidding, but there's no doubt exact match domains still have an advantage in the results compared to brand url's. But I hate the EDM vs BRAND IDENTITY argument, there's too many pro's and cons on each side to have a clear answer. But I sum it up like this…
“If you can get a short six character or less domain for your brands website go for it!! if not... try some domain keyword stuffing.” Frank The Tank
I am working on a website but this not an exact match domain, I tried lot to Reach top ten in Manali tour Packages but I am not getting result Please suggest.
Myhappyjourney.com
You are better off asking this question in the Q&A section...
Funny that the example he uses, "buy viagra online", still has a emd on the second page. OK, not in the top 3, but they are still there. Mind you, the domain is currently offline - maybe that helped it escape for now!
the most obvious example of exact domain match: search term \”guns for sale\” , country target : UK and the domain name is https://www.gunsforsale.co.uk ; so the question is ; is adding a blog, news , youtube videos, tweets, facebook likes will help this site? what are your thoughts about recovering from EMD?
In my opinion, the EMD update did nothing! Do a quick Google Search for "amish furniture" with the SEOmozbar enabled and look how Google favors the EMD or PMD. A site that has a DA near 50 is being outranked by DA in the low 10's because they chose to go the branded route instead of following others.
I honestly think that EMDs are going to be losing their weight gradually over time to have more measurable factors such as social indicators have more of a main role in search results.
Nice post about the EMD very informative I must say but I still think people must understand the actual branding firs then go to these special tactics to create better opportunity for the website.
This very confusing now, since I've read a lot of articles that EMD's are considered by Google as a spam technique after they released Google Penguin update. But, I still belive that EMD is still worth it because I can still see a lot of EMD websites that are rank really well on Google. But, I think this is not for a long term position since, Google always updating..
You mentioned the "audition" phase of a website, so I was wondering if you could give some follow up advice on that issue--for a site that failed that phase.
I have a site that was formed with only minimal content, but with the intent of gradually adding more material over time. I didn't even have enough content to convert people when they landed on the site. I was just going to get back to that project later. Well, much to my surprise, I was initially very high in the rankings (still intending to add more quality--really--just not the right time). Now that I am ready to add the content, the site rank has dropped.
If I add more quality content, do you think the search engines will look again at my site? Or am I doomed forever because my initial effort wasn't good enough? I would rather buy another domain and start over if Google has made a decision that isn't likely to change. Also I guess the lesson is that all sites should be kept away from search engines sites until they are really "ready" to go? Do you think that's true?
Thanks for any feedback!
Thank you, domain buyers, pros and beginners, will definitely find this info useful and profitable. You can purchase domains from different sources as long as they are reliable. I recently got mine from DomainKa.com.
I can confirm that a well crafted exact match domain will still produce good results. I have an authority site with hundreds of blog posts and thousands of pages, but my EMDs still outrank it for highly specific keyword phrases.
My advice is to keep building your authority site and look for things like this that still work. If you have the resources to pursue multiple strategies, you'll be leaps and bounds ahead of those that don't.
Hmm. What about if I want to target, and try to rank, to when people search for "Black and White" and all TLD are taken with the exact KW. What would be better
"BlackWhite-com" or "FreeBlackAndWhite-com" ?
I mean, is it better to have all the KW plus something, or almost all of then and any "strange" term?
Thanks
A little help with this. I'm wanting to get the domain name for my program but .com is taken. Better to go with programname.net, program-name.com or something strategic like programnamekeyword.com
Let me know what you think would be the best thing to do.
I believe this answer to this question is "Stick with your brand" but as I can't find any discussions about it, I thought I'd throw it out here.
How would this scenario play out SEO-wise:
We have a consulting company in Florida that does a wide variety of work - everything from tech support to websites and SEO. We have a brand name - Think Tank, which is very general - but we also own some decent local EMDs like SEOCompanyTampaBay. What I was considering doing was keeping our standard SEO sales page under our main domain but then building out a separate few pages of content on the CMS specifically tailored to SEO Company Tampa Bay. I'd then point the SEOCompanyTampaBay domain to just those pages and 301 redirect the exact urls from our main domain for those specific pages to the EMD. All of the on-page links on the SEOCompanyTampaBay page would lead off the EMD pages into our main site with no links leading from our main site back to the SEOcompanytampabay pages except perhaps in the site map.
What are you opinions on this idea? This would not really divide our SEO efforts in that it would be an additional group of pages just for the EMD keywords. It would be branded on page exactly like the rest of the site and we'd guide the user off those specific pages and into our regular site - so it would just be to catch traffic. For some reason it feels like if our main site is strong, something would trickle over into our EMD section and vice versa.
Thanks in advance for your input!
What a quandary. While we are still wanting to establish our Paris911 brand, I am opening up a new Wordpress site. My dilemma - do I establish it under a keyword rich url or go with Paris911 dot org. We already have paris911 dot com and rank quite well for our local real estate search terms - but when starting a new site - should I use the.org venison or a keyword rich domain name? Help me please - signed Lost and confused. :)
Nice Post.
As a South African financial services company, we have recently acquired a top EMD (.co.za) with the view of developing an online business and establishing a new Brand. We spent a small fortune on the acquisition and I am not in the least concerned with the recent EMD update.
We have spent more than a year developing the back-end functionality of our new business and we intend to REALLY offer a stunning user experience. I cannot for one moment think G will want to penalize us and keep this kind of functionality and service offering away from their users? If we are indeed penalized for being prepared to invest heavily in our online presence, then they are on the wrong track . . .
Great stuff. It's clear that launching a site today will take a different approach and mindset. I'm teaching my readers the same thing. Do everything you do with the reader in mind. Write to the reader not the keywords. Although keep in mind that the keywords are important but make sure your content is well written, easy to understand and useful to the visitor. Thanks for the points and I'll spread the love.
I think this is good in a way. Those spammy EMDs are the ones who are going to get penalized for this, that's for sure. I've seen a lot of those where they use the keyword then add just a few letters after it, and they are ranking on the first page of Google. What's bad is that, it's not just one website on the first page, but 3 or 4 on the first page with the same type of domain.
Regarding domain extensions - sometimes it's just not possible to get the .com because some domainer is squatting on it and wants $1500 to sell it to you. I have a few "lower" tds, and keep getting spammed by Godaddy to buy the .coms - but I know what they are asking for it isn't worth it, because I've actually ranked the non-dot-com and know what that niche generates!
It would be a pity if G punished non-dot-com tlds simply because webmasters couldn't get the actual dot com because of domain squatting.
Hi All, I got flushed by the EMD and Penguin algorithms and then I recovered back to page 1 today. I've written an article about what I did here: https://rachelroodhardt.hubpages.com/hub/Panda-20-and-EMD-Google-Algorithm-Recovery-Plan
Rachel
Awesome Post Todd !
Great post, Todd. However, while I think you make some excellent points about EMDs and how to go about utilising them in the best and most practical way, I still don't know how to feel about them. I definitely see cognitive bias in play here (especially in the comments), as Ross Hudgens recently discussed: EMD owners will defend EMDs to the death while those who have had little involvement with them will naturally be more sceptical and therefore may lean towards more brand-focused alternatives.
I still feel that a happy middle-ground can be achieved. If I were advising a client on a new domain, e.g. Joe Bloggs Ltd, which sells blue widgets, while I'd explain that joebloggs.com may appear strong purely from a branding/corporate point of view, I don't think I'd be comfortable recommending bluewidgets.com - especially if their name is Joe Bloggs Ltd and not Blue Widgets Ltd - as it doesn't align with their brand. I'd recommend joebloggsbluewidgets.com - of course the only (minor) downside with that is its length, but you have the benefit that it is a PMD (partial match domain) that includes the brand as well.
Like you I still don't feel like I have yet been able to form a real opinion. And with the way the SEO landscape is always changing, perhaps I never will. Even the "porn cookie guy" seems to be conflicted! However, there is one thing that is missing here, and from almost every review/discussion of the EMD issue - and its this... "Level". What "level" and what kind of SEO are we talking about here? When we talk about "branding" ~ that works for organisations with National importance and "National" type budgets, but doesn't really fly in a local SEO context, where an EMD is, arguably, much more important.
I think that still you have to be careful with opting with EMDs even on a local scale, as there's the risk that you'll look like a fly-by-night operation. One example that springs to mind is the double-glazing industry - unfortunately the industry has a reputation of cowboys who set up, 'go bust' and set up under a different guise. For established companies, choosing a domain name like doubleglazingcardiff.com might throw them into this category, as there is less focus on brand and more on keywords/ranking. While potential customers are less likely to spot this (compared to SEOs like you and me), I think customers are getting smarter and realising that an actual 'brand' holds more weight and is more likely established and reputable. So if it's not an SEO issue, it could potentially be a CRO (conversion rate optimisation) issue...
I share your ambivalence. Like - I suspect - many SEOs I have sites that may be negatively hit by the EMD update and others that will benefit from the downgrading of competitors. Overall I think it's a good thing that we're shifting our focus away from EMDs towards more sustainable strategies.
It definitely seems that partial match domains seem to be the most recommended these days - and are probably the safest bet.
Thanks! After panda we saw a lot of EMD sites getting hurt by it. But of course their domain wasn't the only factor, as we found out. Having a brandable name has become a little less important thanks to some simple techniques such as bookmarking and gateways such as search engines :)
EMDs hit "after Panda" was likely a case of correlation rather than causation
How accurate is this analysis now? Have there been any updates that would make this information inaccurate?
Excellent article Todd. I'm glad to see there are still a few positives to EMDs.
Fantastic post with great content built on experience :-)
TLD extensions play very prominent role in the EMDs because people prefer to choose the most common TLD with the domain name.As well as the dots and dashes also impact a lot so it's better to choose the right one domain name and preferably choose the short tail domain name.
In my opinion, EMD's do give you an edge in search engines other than Big G. The EMD helps with SEO but it does not help as much as it like to be in old days.
Incredible information about EMD and best domain practice!
It's really important to have proper aspects of choosing the right EMD domain which must be combination of brand and generic term. Combination of 2 or 3 words can do well but it must be combination of brand and generic as if you refer any domain name with two generic term then its definitely gone face of EMD situation.
I agree with the combination of 2 or 3 term which must includes the brand name as i have been working on some projects which has the same combination and they doing well since update of EMD algorithm.
Thanks for the posting of informative source in order to have best practice before build brand.
Love the memes!
We own an EMD that's #1 for its KW, and we keep watching our position nervously every time one of these updates happens. Nothing yet. Probably because it's a rich e-commerce site with a good user experience. Imagine that.
Great article, you cleared up a lot for me. I own several EMD's and now will start to use them more effectively and sit on the rest to eliminate the competition. What sucks is that you have to create a whole business, brand or website to make use of them or sit on them, because Doorway domains are illegal. That brings up a great segway, how exactly are the current Doorway domains still at the top of the SERP's? Is it because they're doing a great job of masking or is Google taking it's time finding and removing them?
I know 3 of my competitors in the web design industry that own 3 different sites, as 3 different businesses, yet use the same portfolio of work. How is one to combat against these types of practices, unless you repeat and beat what they're doing to pass them?
I guess that is where John Andrews statement comes into play? "That’s alot like SEO. You win, you get traffic. You don’t win, you don’t get traffic. It doesn’t matter how you play."
One more thing that just came to mind with regard to the Doorway pages. How does big G look at linking out in the main navigation to a Blog site? That's technically a Doorway page.
There's sometimes a fine line between "doorway pages" and "landing pages". Just remember spam is defined by the intent of it, and the extent to which it occurs.
I think you do have to take a bit of the John Andrews approach to this type of problem. You can't expect G to ban all your competitors - even the ones that walk a fine line. You just have to find a way to walk that line yourself and not DEPEND on your organic traffic only.
As someone who only ever really focused on EMD the recent updates along with Penguin last year really hurt my traffic a lot.... I realise the investment required now to get a EMD off the ground and be "trusted" by Google is significantly higher but also Geographic is a much bigger issue as algo update #81360 focuses on showing local ccTLDs instead of global TLDs which will reduce your potential traffic.
As for the first picture about the half-empty half-full glass, if the opportunist had waited enough to hear the realist he would realize that he just drunk a glass of piss. I mean I prefer the realist point of view.
Hum... Great Article and nice informative thanks.. it would be great if you share this article in two part its quite long but anyway you have given clear idea about EMD domain names.
As you mention that in domain name one dash will be fine so do you give me suggestion how many keywords and dash are fine in one URL?
Example like if I have domain name www.maths-example.com/ and now my inner page is for algebra examples. and I have develop URL like https://www.maths-example.com/algebra-examples-for-test.html then would it be fine as per new EMD updates? or i need to restructure my URL like https://www.maths-example.com/algebraexamplesfortest.html
Please share your opinion
Thanks
I usually go with no more than 2 dashes in the urls after the tld.com/ - example https://TLD.com/describe-this-article - however, you can see here at the moz they use LOTS of dashes to describe the article, so I doubt it's a hard and fast rule.
Mainly, I would just try to keep the dashes out of your TLD.
I think that at the end of the day it's always going to come down to whether you have a quality site or not. If your site provides quality user experience and content you should be able to name it whatever you want without being punished for using a supposedly undesirable naming convention. For example, EMDs with multiple dashes have a history of being crappy sites, so the perception becomes that all sites with dashes are sketchy. This doesn’t have to be the case, but it’s become a convention so we, of course, respond by not using dashes anymore for fear of being perceived badly.
For Google to come in and just sweep away all sites with dashes would be ridiculous. That would be akin to banning books because some of them have bad ideas in them. I don’t think Google is trying to punish all of these sites. They are, however, trying to address a reality that there are still a lot of junk domains out there that are EMDs and have 4 dashes etc.
People will learn to trust and value an EMD the same way they did with uniquely named sites like Google or Twitter, by going there and having a good experience. I can see how there is an advantage in making your purpose or product very clear (books.com etc…) but there’s clearly advantages of going the other way as well and having a completely unique name. So really, it’s up to the individual which way they’ll go and whether they have an awesome site or not stays the most important factor.
So do you recommend staying away from keyword friendly URL's as well? Meaning domain.com/your-keyword-here
Given these most recent updates and looking at moving forward, is it smarter now to include all words of your title in your url rather than trying to do a shorter, more user friendly keyword version.
For example, if I have an article titled Top 10 Ways To Build A Business Fast, and I want to target the keyword "build a business fast" am I better off having the URL be domain.com/top-10-ways-to-build-a-business-fast or domain.com/build-a-business-fast
And then also making sure the title of the page that shows up in Google is more than just the keyword...
It seems like this update might not be targeting just the domain name, but also sites with keyword friendly URL's and titles.
I think it's fine to still include keywords in your url - this is more a discussion of EXACT keywords in the top level domain (TLD)
You kick so much ass for incorporating Silky Johnson Playa Hater of the Year into this post.
Great post. Probably the best resource I've come across regarding the decision to use an EMD or not. I'm a huge advocate of brand building so we almost always go without EMD's. Loved the explanation of an 'audition' period for websites. I second your explanation and believe it works that way 100%.
Basically the EMD (exact match domains) update was for those who had low quality micro niche websites with naked content and keyword stuffing in url, title, description and in content with the same anchor text with which they were trying to rank. I have few EMD domains they are still okay. even they have a lot of quality back links.
Great opening paragraph and I enjoyed the bold in the paragraphs it really helped me pull out the key points. I also enjoyed the opportunist graphic. Classic.
Spot on about the length of the EMD and quality/age of the domain.
I have one client who has an EMD but is a BRAND with a ton of age and great resourceful content who was not effected at all by the recent EMD algorithm changes.
I have another that has a lower quality newer site with non branded EMD and what seemed like a direct impact.
The result was exactly what you would think.
One year later.
Collateral damage is putting it politely. Having started in 2006 we thought The Leather Briefcase Co Ltd was a good name, and got the website.
We knew nothing about SEO, just traded happily, and one day someone told us we were on top of page one. And we traded more happily.
Then "some people" talked to Matt Cutts, and he listened. Tens of thousands of small traders with the same common sense idea of a domain name matching their product have been hit very hard, and many gone out of business.
Who are "some people" I wonder.
In the meantime, we've discovered SEO experts. Having experienced that business, particularly the ones that rank high in the search engines, we were very disappointed.
The best advice we received was to buy "How to Get to the Top of Google".
Just wish we'd seen this article when it was written.
Good news, we're in recovery, but it's been a horrible year for this family business.
Hey Todd, I have a question for you.Firstly, I believe in it too that there are more chances of over optimization penalty in EMDs than other type of domains. Like I mentioned in previous comment that my SEO project involves all EMDs and just a little bit of low quality links and the rankings started dropping. Then I had to remove those low quality links. Bu in the past every time I tried to make the links, the site rankings just dropped. So now after I have removed some links should I make some links? I am scared that rankings might drop again with new links!
You definitely have to pay attention to the quality and quantity of links you're getting these days. When you get the right ones, there will be nothing to be scared about with regards to ranking drops though. Stick with it, and focus on getting the RIGHT links, instead of just getting links.
Ive noticed a few of my emd domains drop recently. Its a good thing and a bad thing as people who genuinely have a keyword in their because that maybe their business name or area of speciality. It helps to weed out the blatant keyword extortion used in some domains. Great article too.
Thank you
I don't understand why my website has rank 1 in the long run.Today suddenly main keyword.is " giay nam" has dropped pathetic. My domain is type brand . I think google update algorithm . I'm learning about it
Hey friendly SEOMOZ people, this is my first post in the community and I'm looking for some good advice pretty quick to be honest! Please help! :)
I'm about to invest in a website start up and I need some help selecting a domain that is going to last the distance after we invest money into its promotion. As a side note we plan to daily add high quality content and spend time optimizing the site to increase engagement.
Here's the low down...
We have purchased this type of domain 'www.keywordsmodifier.co.uk' and the same 'www.keywordsmodifier.com' is available. We are a UK business looking to rank as well as possible in organic search listings, due to our shoe string budget.
1. Please could you advise on whether we should scrap the domain name entirely?
2. Go to the .com version (even though we are only targeting the UK market), as this will naturally have a better ranking?
3. The niche we are entering is very competitive, however a 6 month old site recently got to page 1. I know this for a fact. However they seem to have been knocked completely down the rankings by this Google EMD update. Their domain was an EMD, had less engagement due to the lack of quality content and was slow to load. So these could be the reasons why they've been knocked way down the rankings.
My question revolves around this. Do you think their SEO company isn't any good because this EMD got knocked down the rankings? and therefore should not be used? Or do you think that its just a tough break on the domain owners because of a combination of factors? We will avoid these factors by having a www.keywordmodifier.co.uk/com domain, high level of engagement, new content added regularly).
I'd really appreciate some thoughts on these questions as soon as possible!
Thank you for your time.
It's difficult to comment unless you want to reveal the domains - then we'd be able to see the extent to which the domains are exact and the industry / niche they are targeting.
In answer to your second question, I've found there isn't much difference between the .com and the .co.uk if you only targeting the UK. If you prefer the .com, you can simply set the geo-targeting to the UK in Google Webmaster Tools (Configuration > Settings).
Either way I recommend you set up a 301 redirect from the "other" TLD (eg the .co.uk redirects to the .com). You'll likely find that some users type in the "wrong" address and maybe even link to it. The 301 will handle the user slip-ups and transfer most of any link juice to your preferred domain.
Hi Mark, thanks for getting back to me. I really appreciate the advice you've supplied and will definately do that.
As mentioned - it's difficult to give advice without all the information.
I think in your case I would probably
1. secure the domains you can for a reasonable amount.
2. develop a partial match domain strategy since it is a new site (and EMD's are under the gun)
3. 301 the other domain as mentioned
I don't think you can JUST blame that SEO company without having all the pieces of the puzzle. There's not a lot of way of telling which techniques they used, or what timeline it took to achieve them. I wouldn't be quick to reward or condemn a company in a situation like that. Just learn from what they did right and wrong.
Hi Stuntdubl, thanks for getting back to me.
1. Domains secured
2. Agreed and in progress
3. Will do!
Last point taken on board and will learn from it.
Thank you!
I wouldn't say that it shows that an SEO agency or individual isn't any good because they used an exact match domain. One algo update shouldn't be the basis for any decision; albeit on the side of a client or service provider. What it should tell us is who is worth the time and investment. SEOs that work with the systems and build with quality in mind may be hit by these updates and releases, but won't be completely blown away because they will have a diverse marketing strategy that has more to it than just keyword prowess.
That being the case, I have an EMD that was hit, going from 2,000 daily impressions to about 150. It was a shock at first but I realize that for the industry the site is in, this was pretty much standard for EMD with 3-4 keywords. My plan is to plan, research and continue creating good content as well as adding better markup (see: Authorship) to the site. Posts like this are extremely helpful in gaining perspective and understanding what works and what doesn't.
This was awesome, thank you. I learned a lot.
Good article, I picked this up on Matt Cutts Twitter on 28th of September, @mattcuttsMinor weather report: small upcoming Google algo change will reduce low-quality "exact-match" domains in search results.
I think EGLO made my point… I mean why spending tons of dollars on EMDs when you can get a normal domain and work on SEO to boost rankings… Yes that’s true that Google offer advantage to EMDs but you know Google is a 14 year old powerful kid that changes its mood from time to time…
Indeed i can't see why people don't do that. just get the exact .com name as your targeted keyword and you're immediately one step ahead of your competition
Thanks for an excellent post . I think Google has only slightly tweaked the knob with some engagement metrics . buying viagra online still puts two hyphen and three hypen results on first page .
The trick is two hit two birds with the same stone . Some times you can and some times you cant.
Why were keywords in the domain name ever allowed to game the system. Not everybody can have keywords in their domain, and to give preference to this is asinine. If you want to give weight to keywords in page extensions... another thing all together.
Thanks for your awesome. Clear post, no gimmick and no trick.
Well, I think EMDs that are spammy are going to get weeded out, premium domains have got nothing to worry about. As you have said, domains with one or two keywords in the URL are most likely to go unscathed and they should be. They are definitely not spammers. You cannot simply say that India.com or Jobs.com look like spammy. But things take turn for the worse, when you have domains like this -
Best-indian-travel-places.com. Now this certainly looks like spam.
However, one can argue that these sites may not necessarily spammy sites but they look and sound ugly and seem like the domain is meant for the search engines.
Really great post about the EMD domain, after Google EMD algorithm this post is really helpful for us to choose right kind of domain, i am agree with Pros and Cons of EMD domain, it is not always bad seo technique. You have written brilliant post about the EMD i have read several post about the EMD but this one is best for me to understand concept and effects of EMD.
A year ago I wanted to buy an Exact match but now I'm glad I didn't. After I searched the serps the site has been demoted. I guess they implimented black hat seo. I almost spent good money for what would have been a bad history.
Interesting article.What I'm still wondering about though: what about exact match domain names such as realestate.com?
If my imaginary brand Yoobliabla would also focus on real estate it still seems impossible to beat the exact domain name. The domain realestate.com is pretty much priceless right of the bat and wil starting rising in the Google ranks quickly, whereas my Yoobliabla domain is pretty much worthless until it reaches a certain rank 1 or 2. Doesnt really seem fair.Or does anyone have a different experience?
Few days ago, before panda udpate 20, there was a update named EMD, all know it. Google says they are not giving any extra privilege for exact match domains. Yes, right, search engine complementing google declaration. But some cases it is seen, still few sites with exact match domain raking top in SERP (search with "sem service" in google.com), though their Page and Domain authority are lower than the sites ranking bellow. I don't know what type of algorithm change it was. Google said that exact match domain with lower quality will be degraded, but in some cases it is not reflecting. I think Google should work out over the algorithm again. Last, i can say after this EMD algo change no need to inspire people to buy exact or semi exact match domain. I like to thank google for this EMD update because many quality sites were deprived due to some EMDs in SERP.
Great post, one of the first things to consider before creating a brand, website, company.
I think that might be backwards... People USED to buy EMD names and build the brand around it to get great rankings, but with this new update, hopefully people/marketers will look at building their brand first...
Just my 2 cents.
Very nice post. Instead of .mobi domain names that would be definitely better keeping the original one with an "m." at the beginning of it (for example "m.mysite.com").
Google is making the internet all about themselves and only about what they perceive to be desireable. If I want to place my storefront on some backstreet in NYC...will I wake one morning to see that the road to my storefront is blocked because I chose the wrong address?
I could have saved a lot of word space there with = COMMON SENSE. I don't think I have read an SEO Article in over 3 years now of the last 16, that could not have been replaced with that two word phrase.
I can save space on your comment with one word. hatorade.
I think EMDs have lost value these days. Now it is important to build brands and authority sites. Thanks for your in depth Analyse!