Exact Match Domains (EMD) Do Matter for SEO
When it comes to SEO everyone has their own opinion and everyone thinks their opinion is right. Me too. Exact match domains (EMD) are exactly what they sound like. If you wanted to create a site to target the keyword phrase “New York Attractions” the EMD would be NewYorkAttractions.com or .net or .org. In case you’ve been living under a rock with the Fraggles, .com is what you should always go with if it is available. If not available and you have a choice between .net and .org I would see what your keyword phrase is about and see if it fits into the .org mindset (which to me is that .org’s look like authority sites about topics that are serious or important). So for NewYorkAttractions I’d prefer the .net over the .org. I don’t think Google cares either way in terms of the SERPs if you have a .net or .org, but I think having the right extension can increase the percentage of clicks you get from people after they search Google. If I was going to have a site about health, actually I do have a site about health, and the .com was taken and I chose the .org extension over the .net extension. Health to me is a serious topic, when people search for health related items they want an authority site and the .org extension has that in people’s minds.
OK, so I strayed a bit from the topic, getting back to it now I would buy an EMD whenever you can over a non-EMD. This will help you in the game of SEO. I speak from experience. And if the EMD is not available try adding a letter and see if that domain is available.
Example: I would rather buy eNewYorkAttractions.com or iNewYorkAttractions.com than StuffinNewYork.com or NewYorkInformationNow.com
I’ve had some very solid success by adding an “e” or “i” to the front of a domain name in order to get the next best thing to the EMD (in my warped mind)! But don’t think that you can buy an exact match domain and you’ll be at the top of Google’s results based purely on the EMD. That could have happened years ago, but it won’t happen today. It will help you but it is just a piece of SEO. You still will need to do backlinking, have good content, make sure your meta tags and H1/H2 are set up properly, among many other factors. So long story short, if you can get the EMD than get it, it will only help you on your way to making money.
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you mentioned adding an e or i to the domain name when you cant het the emd. but does shortening the emd work? eg. instead of “NewYorkAttractions.com” would “NewYorkAttraction.com” work just as good?
No, removing a letter is not the same. If you want to rank for “New York Attractions” you cannot remove the “s” if you want to maximize SEO value.
I´m about to select between two domain names to start a website (in Spanish) related to buses (departures and terminals).
1.- The first one is 4 keyword long (A-B-C-D.com)
2.- The second has 2 keywords with one “dead” word in the middle (A-x-B.com).
I used capital letters in lieu of actual keywords (in Spanish).
Is the first one considered as spammy, stuffed with 4 keywords?
Which one should I select to pass the Penguin proof?
Thanks for your attention.
Vico.
If I had to choose between the two I’d pick the first one. I don’t like to have a “dead” keyword in the domain name.
For the first one, if the words are lots of letters it may scare people off when they see it in the search results.
I think nowadays it actually does the opposite, thanks to the google fury beasts.