I’m trying to perfect my new domain name before I purchase. I’m using google search as a tool to do so. Say I google “red strawberries” and get 300,000 results. And then “red and green strawberries” and get 100,000 results. What’s better? Is it better to have a more specific group of keywords so there are fewer results (as if a few hundred thou less is fewer lol)? Or is it better to have a more general group of keywords so you get more search results? More specifically if I add an “s” at the end of my preferred new domain name the results drop by from 1,220,000,000 to 331,000,000 - more than half. Thanks for your thoughts!
I’m sure you know about the devaluing of keyword domains recently right? If not, you may want to research it. I think it is more about your on page content these days than the keyword. I go more for brandable keywords that look “cool and catchy” in the search results rather than something like: “red-and-green-strawberries.com” but that’s just me
Having said that, I was gonna suggest RedStrawberry.com as a keyword and brandable domain but it’s listed as a premium domain for $2,000+. I’d lean more towards the shorter one. Keep the domain general and shorter and target specifics with your pages and content. The S isn’t always super important since google will recognize related word forms most likely including strawberry and strawberries. I’d focus on the base form without the S in this case since volume is so much higher.
I’m not sure I totally understood your question. You were asking about choosing keywords to include in your domain name? That might be a moot point in the first place considering the devaluing of keyword domains. Maybe not totally moot - but at least less importance than what it used to be.
I also realized you are talking about results. I thought you were talking about search volume. I’ve never cared about search results much. There are always millions of results for most searches but people only look at the first couple pages if they get past the first 5 results. I’d recommend looking at search volume using the Google Keyword Tool or a similar tool. For you domain name, if you’re using a keyword domain, go with the higher search volume keyword. In your content, optimize for the higher volume keyword but try to include the lower volume keyword too. Depending on how close they are related, you may pick up rankings for both.
Cool thank you. You had my question right. So you think volume is better. still not sold on that. However as Matt cutts said, they are only turning down the dial a bit. Not off. Redstrawberries.com will always display before bobsgarden.com when searching for strawberries. If you dont have 20 million to spend on branding then a name like yelp or fredscode.com will never do well. As my current site name has proved.
Volume and number of results are probably closely related anyway but results can widely vary. I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at page 500 of the search results but usually once you get to page 20, they are barely relevant anymore. So I’m skeptical that the number of results always displays exactly how many sites are competing for a keyword. I’d rather know how many people are search for a specific keyword monthly to evaluate a market.
I agree building a brand domain name can be more expensive but it depends on your market. I went with a brand for my domain name although it still has “web” in it and haven’t had too much trouble ranking for keywords. Regardless of the domain, it takes an investment of time, money, and hard work.
You’re in a pretty tough niche I’ve noticed. I’ve posted some web tutorials before and found them much harder to rank than other topics I write content on. That’s one arena where you’ll find the number of relevant search results to be high and so competition is fierce.
I agree it’s a tough nut to crack. I know much more than I did 7 years ago . I think I have a good shot at it. Another site I have in a different field does really well so Ive done it I just need to transfer the same thing to this field.
My only question remaining really is… To 301 dedirect all of my 812 tutorials from my old google failed domain or to just start fresh and completely move away from being associated with the old domain. My current (old domain) does fairly well in comparison. Usually within the first 2 to 5 pages for whatever search. I’m leaning toward starting fresh and not doing the redirects. It will take longer to rank well but when I do I believe it may rank better. It’s a toss up? What do you think?
I’m confused again. What’s the problem with the old domain? Has it been penalized you think? Is it the one in your footer? I’d lean towards using an old domain rather than starting a new one. I would be building up the reputation and rankings of the current domain that as an established reputation (even if rankings aren’t excellent). That would be a lot of content to just abandon. Maybe it just needs some solid promotion, good incoming links, etc.
Thanks. The site name is visibilityinherit.com. I think google is confused by this. So I am changing it. But your right on further thought I’m going to 301 redirect mainly so all my old links floating around still work.
You’re talking about how many results come up, but that’s not a good measure of the competition of a keyword. You could have a lot of results for a benign result and conversely have fewer results for high competition results.
You should use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to look at actual keyword volume. Using an exact match on “red strawberries” shows that it only generates 22 searches per month. I know it’s an example, but that will help you know whether or not a keyword could drive viable traffic.
Exact Match Domains (EMD’s) still work very well and have not been utterly devalued. Keep in mind the video with Cutts is from 2011. As a real world example, take a look at a search for “used cars”. UsedCars.com has shown up on the first page for the last decade and has really crappy SEO compared to the competitors. That’s a keyword that generates 550,000 exact searches per month in the US. Not too shabby for an EMD.
With an EMD you still have to do good SEO and provide value. The biggest problem most people have with EMD’s is that they’ll put up a single page with a half assed article and an affiliate link or Adsense ad and then walk away. You still need to drip some links in and update content over time to make it work.
For what it’s worth, UsedCars.com is #4 for “used cars” behind 3 non-keyword domains.
EMDs are not totally meaningless. I guess we don’t know for sure how much they have been devalued. We just know they are valued in search rankings less than they used to. I would guess given all other things being equal, usedcars.com would get a better domain score than edmunds.com based solely on domain name. It’s just not weighted as much anymore so more people are going to go after a brand name. I prefer brand name domains now myself because it communicates a higher value and a company that is working to build a quality and relevant site with good info. It might not always be true but it usually is. UsedCars.com looks like a high quality site though.
Yeah, they’ve never been #1 and their highest rank ever was #2. I used to work for a different automotive aggregator company like Autotrader.com that wasn’t an EMD and it took two years to get to position 2 for the term. The company has since gone out of business, but I can tell you if you jump into the links and everything on UsedCars.com the different in link profiles between them and the other competitors is astounding. Autotrader, Edmunds, Cars.com, KBB.com all have much more robust SEO, so the EMD helps them quite a bit (though as you pointed out they are a high quality site still).
I agree mostly on the brand thing too. I have my own branded site ListHere.com that’s for classifieds and like the name more than if I could get classifieds.com or what not, but I also run a bunch of EMD’s for affiliate stuff that rank well and convert well since they’re focused on singular products. Really depends on what the purpose is I suppose. For me, List Here is a “legitimate” business opportunity, while the affiliate EMD sites are really just short-to-mid term incremental revenue, definitely not something to quit the day job for.
My goal is to keep my day job and make $5000 or so passive income from advertising. I usually accomplish what I set out to do. I really-really enjoy web design. But I really-really hate dealing with flaky clients. 10 years ago when I was a client I had to painfully wait for the developers work to be performed. When I was a developer myself I also had to painfully wait on the clients to pull their head out of their ass. I now prefer to only rely on myself.
It’s hard to turn down a cool domain when picking just to get a boring one that will do better. But I had remind myself what my end goal was. I came up with about 50 good .coms. The one I had to force myself to pass on was codegratis.com. Thought that was really cool. But google didn’t seem to. Although gratis does have the distinction of meaning the same in most languages which is a large benefit.
I am agree with you as per Google new update Google does not like having keyword in URL. If brand name is used in URL it will help you for branding your site also. So I also suggest use brand name in URL