The bottom like here is about branding. As we have said before, there is no doubt that carefully selecting a domain(s) can make a difference to a website. But how important is it to choose a keyword relevant domain name? Prompted by a recent post over at SEO By The Sea, we thought we would revisit something we wrote over a year and a half ago about the power of keyword domains. You can download the raw data of our findings here. Back then we said spending a big part of the budget on keyword related domains was not really worth the effort.
Based on the video and comments from Bill Slawski, we still believe that breaking the bank on keyword related domains should take a distant second place to actually purchasing domains that will help you build your brand. This is clearly shown in a quote from the Google Patent granted today;
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.
Hi Good topic by the way and good analytical data to make your point. Building a brand is a long timely process in which the vast majority of individuals would not be able to compete with larger businesses. To date keyword domains with no hyphens coupled with an seo optimised website and content will enable the smaller business to be able to rank and compete online for a term.
In saying that I wouldn’t spend my whole budget on the one strategy. There are a number of sales opportunities to be able to purchase quality keyword domains at reasonable prices. They may not be the category killing domain names like lawyer.com but have sufficient traffic to enable a good income to be generated or for a product to be released.