Keyword-rich domain names are valuable for a variety of reasons, including the long-held belief that they may be useful for ranking purposes directly or indirectly.
Choosing a domain name is an important step in the process of launching a website, so it’s crucial to get it right.
A domain name can be classified into one of three categories:
- Keyword domain.
- Word + keyword domain.
- Brand domain.
It’s debatable which method is the most effective. What is undeniable is that learning about a topic before making a decision is beneficial.
Keyword Domains
A keyword domain contains keywords. Widgets.com is a good example.
Using a domain name that includes the keywords can give the impression of authority.
For whatever reason, some businesses own generic domain names and redirect them to their websites.
Coffee.com, for example, takes you to Peet’s Coffee, an artisanal coffee roasting company. This makes it simple for people to find poets.
However, the disadvantage of generic keyword domains is that “all of the good ones” are already taken and will be prohibitively expensive to obtain from a domainer.
There’s also some background on generic keyword domains on the internet.
There was a time when internet users simply typed the keywords for a product or service into their browser or search engine. This method was known as direct navigation.
Direct navigation generated significant ad revenue for those who owned and “parked” those domains.
Parking a domain was the process of ensuring that the domain names displayed only advertisements.
The lucrative business of parked domains was aided by search engines of the time, which ranked parked domain names higher in search results.
So, if someone searched for [burgers] in a single word, Burgers.com might come up first.
The visibility of parked domains in Google search results was then reduced in 2011.
So, do keyword domains have any ranking power? Not any longer, but Google’s John Mueller has something to say about it, which we’ll get to later.
Keyword Domain + Word
As a result, adding a word to the domain name that helps to describe what a site visitor can expect on the site is a popular choice.
Cheap[name of product/service].com, [name of product/service]Reviews.com, Fast[name of product/service], and so on are examples of such domains.
For a domain name, combining a word and a keyword is a good idea.
The Benefits Of Using Word + Keyword Domain
The keyword instantly brands the site’s content and informs site visitors of what to expect in terms of user intent.
Are you looking for a review? Try [product/service name]Reviews.com.
The Negative Aspects Of The Word + Keyword Domain
The disadvantage of this strategy is that it confines the website to a single niche, limiting its ability to expand.
It will be difficult to transition [JoesCameraReviews] to reviewing (or selling) other products if you start as [JoesCameraReviews].
There are a lot of sites that rank well because they have keywords in their domain.
Personalized Domain
A branded domain is a domain name that does not contain any keywords.
Branded domains include Amazon, Zappos, and Etsy.
What’s great about a branded domain is that the brand name doesn’t have to limit the content of the site.
Many branded domain sites have little difficulty ranking in search results.
Google Provides Four Keyword Domain Insights
Google’s John Mueller provided four insights on the ranking power of keyword domain names while answering a question in a recent Webmaster Hangout.
Four key takeaways on keyword domains and rankings:
- Keyword domains don’t rank faster.
- Keyword domains don’t automatically rank better.
- Keyword domains lost strong ranking influence years ago.
- Keyword domains ranked the same as branded domains.
1. There Is No Time Advantage With Keyword Domains
There’s a popular belief that keyword domains rank faster than branded domains. This, however, is not the case, according to Google’s John Mueller.
Obtaining keywords in links through the anchor text is thought to have a benefit. This is a topic that has been debated for years. It is possible to make both a pro and a con argument.
Regrettably, John Mueller’s statement made no mention of this perceived advantage.
Here’s what John Mueller confirmed:
“…it takes time like any other new website… Obviously there are lots of websites out there that do rank for the keywords in their domain name. But they worked on this maybe for years and years…”
2. Domain Keywords Don’t Help You Rank Higher
John Mueller was adamant that keyword domains do not outrank branded domains in search results.
“…just because keywords are in a domain name doesn’t mean that it’ll automatically rank for those keywords.”
Many factors go into ranking, including content, user intent for that content, and links. All of this is likely to take precedence over things like the domain’s keywords.
While John Mueller did not specifically state that keywords in the domain name are not a ranking signal, he did state that having the keywords in the domain name has no significant benefit. That is a crucial realization.
Read Google Loses Top Domain Spot To TikTok.
3. Years Ago, Keyword Domains Were No Longer Influential
Keyword domains, according to John Mueller, lost their power years ago.
Here is what John Mueller stated:
“…just because keywords are in a domain name doesn’t mean that it’ll automatically rank for those keywords. And that’s something that’s been the case for a really, really long time.”
This could be a reference to a 2011 algorithm update (official Google announcement here).
Google updated its algorithm in late 2011 to include a classifier for removing parked domains from search results.
The following is a quote from Google’s announcement of the algorithm update:
“This is a new algorithm for automatically detecting parked domains. Parked domains are placeholder sites with little unique content for our users and are often filled only with ads.
In most cases, we prefer not to show them.”
Even though Google no longer gave parked keyword domains a boost, the notion that keyword domains were better than brand domains persisted in the search industry.
There’s a case to be made that there’s a minimum signal. However, there is no evidence to back up that theory.
It’s been a long time since any search engine published research that used domain keywords as a signal.
We live in a time when the importance of keywords in headings (H1, H2) has dwindled.
Title tags are no longer given extra weight in current algorithms. We know this, and it calls into question Google’s continued practice of awarding a direct ranking bonus to a keyword in a domain name.
4. Keyword Domains and Branded Domains are ranked the same
This is yet another statement that refutes the notion that keywords in a domain name help with rankings.
The keywords in a domain are unrelated to their current ranking, according to John Mueller:
The following is John Mueller’s statement on domain keywords:
“…it’s kind of normal that they would rank for those keywords and that they happen to have them in their domain name is kind of unrelated to their current ranking.”
Mueller makes it clear that the presence of keywords in the domain name has no bearing on their ranking.
Before you use a domain name, do some research on it
It’s always a good idea to look into a domain name’s history to see if it’s been registered before and how it’s been used.
Rarely, a spam-related domain can become stuck in a Google algorithm loop, causing it to be banned for a month, then released for a few days before being banned again, preventing the site from ranking higher than the second page of the search results.
Read Google Algorithm Bug Puts Sites In Weird Limbo State for more information on the legacy domain penalty.
Keyword Domains Have SEO Benefits
Having a keyword in a domain name has numerous benefits. However, as Mueller points out, an SEO advantage is not always one of the benefits.
“…that they happen to have them in their domain name is kind of unrelated to their current ranking.”
Make a Statement With Your Domain
It might be a good idea to go with a unique domain name. This could be done with a keyword or with a brand name.
In a webmaster help video from 2011, former Googler Matt Cutts suggested that in some cases, choosing a domain name that stands out can be a good idea.
Matt Cutts recommended:
“For example, if you have 15 sites about Android and they all have Android, Android, Android, Android, it’s going to be a little hard to remember, to rise above the noise, to rise above the din.
Whereas, if you have something that’s a little more brandable, then people are going to remember that. They’re going to be able to come back to it. Even sites like TechCrunch, nothing in there says tech news.”
On Domain Names, Here’s What I’ve Learned
There are advantages and disadvantages to using various types of domain names for a website.
A domain name that is less committed to a topic or even a brand name is appropriate if the business wants to leave wiggle room to grow to encompass a broader topic.
Of course, a narrow-topic domain name can be chosen at first and then changed later. However, this may cause other sites to reconsider linking to the site, as well as site fans to lose interest.
So, the best advice might be for the company to think about what it wants to accomplish right now, what impression it wants to make on-site visitors, what story the domain name tells the visitor, and how well the domain name fits into the company’s future.
In terms of ranking, it’s clear that a domain name has no direct keyword-based ranking benefit, which makes choosing one a little easier.
At the 21:50 minute mark, John Mueller discusses domain names:
Learn more from SEO and read Website Quality Score: Is It A Google Ranking Factor?
