Thread: Choosing a domain name question

I'm on the process of choosing a domain name and I was wanting to ask, does the domain name in anyway add value to the site in terms of SERPS?

I'm thinking that it does, but then again I'm not sure. I asked a link builder friend of mine and he said it doesn't matter - he says that its the keywords and content which brings you SERPS.

Your thoughts then?

I've asked similar questions here and the story I get from the guys who actually make money from sites is that yes, it does help, how much is dependent on a lot of factors but all things being equal a domain with keywords in it seems to do better.

Definitely! appendicitis symptoms - Google Search -- Appendicitis Symptoms is in 2nd place for the keyword "appendicitis symptoms," I was actually trying to promote this page, but the Web site in general ended up ranking for that keyword so hey! I was still spreading a smirk. Zero link building was done to the home page, heaps of link building was done to the sub-page.

Keyword domains perform way better than non keyword domains, specially when you have an exact match for a highly searched term.

Yes, it does add value. I will give an example of my offline businesses' website (fictious productname). Note that:

• The core product of our business is Mango from 'Dustycountry' (it has quite a good reputation in the industry).
• Our site was and still is not SEO optimized.
• We were using our company name as the domainname: LokoFruit.com.
• When searching for our product on G. by entering 'Mango Dustycountry' our company site wasn't anywhere on the first couple of pages of G. (going for keyword 'mango' is a whole different story)

Then I changed our domainname to MangoDustycountry.com and a couple of days later our site landed on the first page of G for keywords 'Mango Dustycountry', just by changing the domainname.

I have to ask if you used 301 redirects to make this happen for you?

Yes, I'm having lokofruit.com 301 redirected to MangoDustycountry.com

An added value is that (in our case) the keyword rich domain is a lot easier to promote offline (phone conversations for example). Our real company name sounds a bit exotic and is prone to misspellings.

Another point - it does help in rankings, and as long as that is the only thing you want to promote the site with, then go for it. Otherwise, you may want to consider a more generic phrase that can cover more topics in that particular vertical.

Originally Posted by RankSurge

Another point - it does help in rankings, and as long as that is the only thing you want to promote the site with, then go for it. Otherwise, you may want to consider a more generic phrase that can cover more topics in that particular vertical.

I've always wondered how verticals work in SEO/domains. If we take a keyword like 'Ronda', my home town, then I would think that ANY keyphrase that includes the word Ronda would be part of the vertical. My reason for thinking this is just because I can't see the SE algorithm being smart enough to use synonyms to expand the vertical.

I've heard tho that it is possible for them to connect related keywords based on how often they're used in close proximity, is this true?