A question I get asked a lot is about what domain name to build my site on. So in this post I will provide my opinion about domains and choosing the best ones for SEO and conversions.
Most people want to know if they should go for keyword domains or not bother and just go for something more general. To answer this all I can say is that I have both kinds, for various sites I own. Some domains are the exact keyword I’m targeting for that site (mini sites).
For example if you decide to target a keyword phrase such as “women dress watches” then it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go out and see if you can register www.womendresswatches.com, if the .com is gone then go for the .net or .org instead.
By having the exact match keyword domains you can get an SEO boost and rank with less backlinks, in most cases than other competing sites. If you can’t get the exact match, then try for something close to it, such as www.bestwomensdresswatches is still effective, just not quite as much of an SEO boost.
These exact keyword domains are good, but they are not absolutely necessary, and for my sites that are a lot larger and more general in nature, by that I mean that are targeting a broad range of products, I don’t worry about the keyword as much, but I do try and fit some form of keyword in there.
Non Keyword Domains
Now to throw spanner in the works, I’ve tested buying high page rank domains that have nothing to do with my niche and building sites on these, and the results are often staggering. I’ve seen these sites get very quick rankings in Google and make sales for me. The name of the domain really needs to be something that is very general and could mean anything at all.
What About Hyphens?
Often when you try and get a domain with the keyword that you want in it, it can be hard, because other people have bought them already. This then leads to the dilema of whether or not to buy the hyphenated version, and if we stick to our example it would be something like: www.womens-dress-watches.com.
This is an option to get keyword domains, but they don’t look that great, and can give the impression that the site is less of an authority. Nonetheless I have also tried this approach and had sites rank very well, so from my own experience it does work.
Other Extensions?
Apart from the main ones of .com, .net and .org I have not actually tried any other extensions, because I have heard that they don’t perfrom as well in Google, so I don’t want to risk it, but then again maybe I should set up a test of my own.
Brand Names in the Domain?
Another very common question that gets asked is whether or not you can buy domains that have brand names in them for your affiliate marketing sites. The short answer is no, its a trademark breach and you can get into trouble.
So why do we see so many of these kind of domains in Google then? It’s a valid question, and from what I know, unless the company who’s brand it is that you are using, contacts you with a please cease and desist notice, then you can carry on. I personally don’t do it, and my advice to you is not to, but if you want to take the risk then you can, and this is another way to get keyword domains too.
In closing if you are building a long term asset, and the kind of site that will get passed around via word of mouth, then it’s a good idea to get a domain that is short, easy to spell and catchy. This is more the case for e-commerce stores, because people can tell their friends where they bought something, and your domain can become recognized.
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A small note about brand names in domains.
You’re usually good to go as long as you are promoting the brand that you have in the domain. If lets say you get a domain name for a specific model of a Canon digital camera and you put up an affiliate offer promoting Nikon or any other competitors, thats a sure way to get in legal trouble. Canon prolly won’t mind as long as you’re promoting them on that site. Please not though, this is just an observation I have made. It is possible to get into trouble even if you are promoting the same brand you have used in your domain.
Some companies take this very seriously. One of my friends got sued by a company for this same scenario. the company sued for $30,000+ in damages while he had not even made more than a couple of thousand dollars from that site. He wiggled out of it because he has a lawyer for an uncle.
So i’d say using brand names is possible, works well too BUT tread very carefully.
Thanks again for this awesome post, Matt. I think hyphen domains are especially good if you intend to get all of your traffic from the search engines, because in my experiences people will not always type in the hyphen. So if you want direct traffic, the hyphen would not be the way to go. I agree with only using .com, .net, or .org. Some of my friends use .me though which is interesting. Never even thought of using the brand name domain and I won’t now anyway. Thanks for the value!
Ryan
Hi Matt,
Some good points there. Especially the long tail keyword phrases do extremely well if they have a 100% match in the URL. One big note though: You have to size up your competition properly before buying a domain name. Usually the long tail competition has to have little backlinks and of low quality. If they are well linked than it’s better to think of another keyphrase.
If you cannot get a 100% keyphrase match, some good high PR links could do the trick, or a well optimized ezine article could outrank the competition too, and drive their traffic to your site.
Cheers,
Andi
Hi Matt,
Quick one – I am doing some offline marketing for companies in the UK and feel that .co.uk domains are the best ones to go for? Would you agree, or would you go for the .com?
Thanks,
Dan
Hi Matt,
I am doing some offline marketing for companies in the UK. Would you use .com’s or .co.uk’s
Dan
Hi there matt bezzer here, I agree with you on this 100% I did you these method before to get ranked very quickly on Google and they work, lots off people try to do there own thing and then they never get ranked if people follow you lay then they will see results quickly bezzer brown
Very usefull tip. Thanks Matt.
Very helpful again, this will help me because i was a little bit confuse about that keyword domain
thank Matt!
Hey Matt,
Have you ever tried reversing the order?
Like:
http://www.dresswatcheswomens.com
I am about to try that out with a new website….
Matt Carter Reply:
November 6th, 2010 at 7:51 am
Hey Ronnie
I haven’t but I think it is a good idea, let me know how it goes for you
Matt
Awesome tips Matt.
I like the advice on brand names. it truly is not worth the hassle.
For a mini site, getting the exact keyword phrase can rocket you straight to numbero uno. Although I have a question Matt, I had this sweet website http://zebradiaperbags.com that was on number 2-3 position for the keyword ‘zebra diaper bags’ and I was sending traffic to Google. Well, i did some linking building for this site getting links from pr6+ sites. A week or so after my efforts, i couldn’t find my site on page 9 (mcuh less page 1). Its been a month now. Do you know what I did wrong?
Hello Matt
Thanks for this. I have recently set up three sites with a keyword in the title. They have all ranked in Alexa quickly and the ranks are improving day by day. Nothing has happened with Google yet though.
Regards
Mike
@ Susan.
It could be that you have been over-optimizing your site.
Just the other day I visited Dori Friend’s blog. (dorifriend.com) She’s a big player when it comes to SEO. In one of her video’s she explains that sometimes people get too many links too fast. Or the link variety is suspicious. When a mini site only has PR6 do-follow links and no less significant and no-follow links too balance your linking structure,it might just look a bit suspicious to big G.
This when you are going to have to be patient, because those links will pay off at some time. The biggest mistake you can now make is building more high PR links. Just keep adding a bit of content every couple of days, so your site seems to evolve naturally. Go easy on the linking. Max one link per day, make sure you put some nofollows in there. Slowly catchy monkey.
Good luck!
I can tell you that the .info extension is worthless and I’m actually going to transfer http://www.projectcamelot.info to some other .com or dot org domain. I’ve got over 150 high quality posts and add at the rate of 2 to 4 each month and I’ve had this for over a year and my google page rank is still 0. Anyway, my 2 cents. Thanks for the post.
Hi, Matt Just a quick reply to Susan I have been doing a experiment for the last couple of months with one of my website and I found that if you leave of adding content to your website for just a week your rank will drop dramatically, however if you add content in small segments it will hover around the same.
So the answer must be the more content you put on your website the more love you will get from google.
Matt Carter Reply:
November 6th, 2010 at 7:50 am
Hey Alan,
Thanks for your input, much appreciated. However I have sites that have held position 1 in Google for 12 months now, and I hardly ever add content to them, so its not always the case, but I think adding content does help.
Matt
Thanks Matt…I always enjoy your posts. Your blog is especially attractive to me, because it is easy to read for the visually disabled.
Thanks again!
Hey Matt,
You are right about trademark name domains being a problem. I had a domain that I never even used and got an email from the company just because I registered it. Some are very aggressive looking for their trademarks.
As for hyphens in the name, this still works very well for me. Some advise not to do it, but I think it is better to add the hyphens and not add extra words that dilute the SEO value. Just my 2 cents.
Robert
Great tips Matt. On the subject of domain extensions, .com/.org/.net are the most recognized and most used which is why they tend to dominate the rankings. Things like .info or .biz can rank just as well as a .com. If anyone wants to use a country specific domain extension (.ca/.ar/.es/etc) but doesn’t want to target the Google for that country, I’ve been told you can specify which country you want to target in you Google Webmaster account. I’ve never personally done that one, but I’ve seen a number of social sites using such extensions (eg. indenti.ca).
Thanks Matt.
Let me share this too. I learned that if you don’t have the exact match keyword domain, one should be creative by adding few letters/words as suffix 9after) and not as prefix (before) the target domain name.
According to the sources; the prefix methods work like Matt said, but the one that has suffix carries more weight that is similar to the exact match keyword domain in Google’s eyes.
Matt Carter Reply:
November 6th, 2010 at 7:48 am
Hi Samuel
Yes I have tried that, but it has only been recently so I can’t tell the results, but I think its a good idea
Matt
Thanks for this, Matt.
What are your thoughts on using ‘stop words’? I’ve read conflicting views on these and wondered if you have any first hand experience. I’m thinking they could be useful in cases where the keyword domains have been taken and just parked, so there is no keyword domain competition. The easiest ones could be something like just putting an ‘x’ at end of domain, or ‘101’.
This is all great advice Matt. I love reading everyone’s comments, as it gives me more ideas.
Hi Matt,
Another great post mate! I agree with you 100% that the exact keyword domain gets an SEO boost and can rank with less backlinks. I know that Mark Ling doesn’t think it makes a difference but I guess whatever results we get from our own tests that work we should just keep using them.
Hi Alan,
I will have to disagree with you on that one. You can have static sites that retains its rank even if no new content is added for months so long as you don’t completely stop your linkbuilding activity.
Regards,
Renato
You’ve managed to answer most of my questions about this issue, Matt. Thanks.
If you ever get around to testing any domains besides the .com, .org, and .net domains, I’d really be interested in finding out what you discover. Everything I’d heard is that you should always stick to the three amigos. I would think that may be sound advice since I’ve almost never seen a domain on the first page of a Google search with any other extension beside those three, except for .edu and .gov. I’ve actually seen a .biz on the second page of Google, but very seldom. I wonder, though, if that’s because Google dislikes those other extensions or if it’s because everyone is being told to stay clear of them.
I was thinking about what you said about buying high-ranking domains that aren’t related to the niche. I’d wondered about that before but never encountered any information about it. If you have a minute, would you care to give a small example of what you mean when you say that the domain name needs to be something general that can mean anything?
Always great info Matt,
I’ve tried different ways for domains, keyword matches, dashes, general and I can’t say one was better than the other. I agree with the general domains if your selling several products.
Generally I try to get the exact match in the .com. I don’t know if there is an exact science to this domain picks or not. We just need to keep on testing I guess.
Thanks Matt, great info and great comments from you readers. I’ll put this to use. Thanks again!
Excellent article thanks Matt, I can testify also that i have tested some domains out with rich all in one keywords for a domain and the hyphenated ones and they seem to do very similar in the rankings and also SERPS.
Staffing Services and Employment Solutions
Matt, Love this info. Short, informative and to the point for a quick read. Question, has any one tried the new TLD .co and getting results? I know .co can represent for the district of Columbia but out of everything that I have read it is a Top Level Domain as good or better than .com …(as i have read)!!!
When .co first came out they gave the chance for major brand companies first crack to secure there brand then they opened it up for everybody else to register.
Any info on this anyone would be great.
Thank a Million
Matt Carter Reply:
November 6th, 2010 at 7:46 am
Hey Social Tycoons,
I don’t know about .co but I think I’ll give it a go,
Anyone else???
I’ve personally had good results with .info sites. Obviously, I’d prefer a .com, .net or .org, but if they are all taken a .info can be just fine and it’s cheaper as well.
Hi Matt,
Very good tips,. as we all come to expect from your blog. I think that you stand head and shoulders above most of the other so-called internet gurus, as you understand that content is king.
What at doing a post about how to get super fast indexing of new sites, and rapid ranking within Google (i.e. in the shortest amount of time?)
Thanks,
Snow Chains for Cars
Hi Matt,
Thanks for another great post as I seem to learn something new every time I set eyes on your blog. I have recently been wandering about using hyphens because the domains I often wish to target are taken, there are a few other tips here that I will consider for domain names as well… keep up the great work & thanks again : )
It would be very interesting if you test .co or something like .me domains.
Hi,
Thank you very much Matt you just saved my life man i purchased a domain name yesterday and it has a brand name but because of your helpful tip i deleted that domain and you saved me a ton of work and a huge trouble with the trade mark policy thank you again and keep it up 🙂
Best Regards Omar.
Hello Matt nice blog and very helpful – its about time people started giving out good useable advice instead of disinformation like the Gurus. Just to answer Ron’s comment you can switch the words around anyway you like [http://www.dresswatcheswomens.com] They key is: It must be a “keyword” with good monthly searches and low competition. That particular one “dress watches women” is a keyword but…. 716,000 results is not good? So; just need to make sure you do the research before you try (buy) the Domain name.
cheers Phil
PS I have founds Hyphens in Domain names work and get ranked for Google. However, they get lost or dropped in Yahoo and Bing for some reason? Also they are ugly’ but the main reason not to use them- is they do not sell. If you want to flip the website and sell it; then you are not going to get any interest. Also it devalues it drastically.
Also; If you try to get into a CPA network and you give them a Blog or site with Hyphens; then you will not get accepted. You need the site to look professional.
It may not matter too much if it is a Minisite; but its your call…
I am of the opinion that if you are going to look at your website as a long term asset then you really need to get the domain name right.
Cheers hope that helps, Phil
Hi Matt,
I decided a year ago to try the .ws extension which was originally Western Samoa but now means ‘web site’ and is set up as a top level domain like .com. I have an affiliate web site which is first page in google and yahoo for some keywords.
I don’t think it matters what the domain name is or what extension you use. Google has so many parameters in it’s indexing equation that it won’t make a lot of difference. As an example if you search in google for ‘penang’ you will see penang.ws ranks higher than penang.com both on the first page. Or at least it did a few minutes ago but google can change that tomorrow.
Thanks for the great tips as always Matt! I really look forward to your posts and really appreciate you sharing your experiences with us! Thanks again and much success!
I tested out using .info and .us domains, with over 35 exact match keyword domains registered for 1 year, I only got 1 domain onto the first page of google, and that was with some link building. So for me its not worth it at all. Stay with .com,.org and .net. Domains with dashes can work but need more effort and links.
Great info as per usual Matt:-)
@Phillip You are absolutely wrong when you say that you will not get accepted to CPA with hyphens in your domain name. I have been accepted with hyphens with no problem at all.
Nada … Zilch! Another urban legend bites the dust … lol
Hi Matt,I have recently put my toe in the water for helping niche business in my area-I have built 3 sites-I live in Sydney-the niche business is dog walking & dog minding- I have a domain name dogwalkinginmanly.org Manly is a local area in Sydney.This ranks on first page of google -took 3 weeks,real skinny site at the moment but proves to me a domain name is very important for ranking as a keyword.Another site selling Amazon products with the domain name K9doggy also works well but not ranking high on google as a huge niche to crack-Also have a site selling video games-I used ReviewAzon to get Amazon products,the content as in posts do not exist-ranks no where and makes no money-realized this site needs unique content to work.
What you have posted is of great help to me and many people-Thank you.
Great post Matt.
Exact keyword domains definitely help for your ranking mainly when the competition is low or average.
We have to be careful about the brand in domains but i was shocked recently when i receive an email from Facebook regarding a domain name of mine because it has the name “book” in it. They said i should not use it . I had developped a kind of community site in it.
When i investigated i noticed that i was not the only one.
How come the Law allows a company to have trademark on a work “book”. I still don’t understand the logic behind that.
Laws are make by humans who are very far to be parfect!
Hi Matt,
I have been trying to use several tools to find aged domains with a minimum of PR 2 and a minimum of 2 years old. However, whatever tool I used I never found a tool that really worked for me. What are the tools you are using to find good aged domains quickly? And can you tell a bit more about the whole procedure?. Thanks!
Matt Carter Reply:
November 7th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Hey Elie
Have you tried digital point forums, there are always loads of domains
being sold there, go to the “businiess” section and then “domain sales”
Hi Matt,
You have no idea what a life saver this wonderful post is! It answers so many of the questions I’ve got with regards to domain purchase.
Thank you so much! 🙂
Aldric
Hey Matt
Apparently the new .co domains are to be equivalent to .com, as you have’nt tested or experimanted with these odmains yet, what have you seen so far in terms of their credibility and effectivness form others?
Cheers
Morgan
You made some very valid points on domain buying, but people should understand that having a keyword rich domain won’t guarantee top rankings in a competitive market. It will help boost your ability to rank well, but there are other factors you will also need to get right.
I have used brand names in my domain names at a time when I thought it was ok (pretty green then). I won’t do it again though even though there has been no reaction (touch wood!). I know people who have had quite nasty legal letters on that.
I have one domain with a hyphen and that seems to be doing ok. All my domains are keyword targeted but I am trying names that are a little shorter and easier to remember. Let’s see how it goes.
Aged domains seem to work really well. I have set up mini sites with domains that are 5 or more years old and they ranked immediately and have stayed on page 1 and 2 so far.
Certainly shorter keyword domain names are harder to come by, it can be confusing to know really which way to go.
thanks for all the info Matt. I am trying both keyword and more general wording for my sites. The bigger more general one http://www.goscubadivingnow.com seems lost in google land and i think will take forever to get to page one.
Hi Matt,
Your 12 Steps to internet success videos bowled me over!
Thanks mate,
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Great post, Matt. In my opinion it’s always best first choice to look for a domain name with no hyphens. Especially if it’s a similar or the same as a one without hyphens, for example:
buying my-super-duper-domain-dot-com.com when mysuperduperdomaindotcom.com is taken. And the other thing is – if you type (in this case) just “mysuperduperdomaindotcom” (without the .com extension) in the address bar in Safari, you will be taken directly to mysuperduperdomaindotcom.com! So, in my opinion, it’s a good thing to look for a good .com domain first. [note: in the time when I mentioned this example domain names, the domains were not taken].
One area I still struggle with is a hyphen vs .net
example
golf-balls.com
or
golfballs.net
I just can’t decide which is better. One has a hyphen but is a .com the other is the exact keyword but . net
What’s Scenario is best????
Thanks All
Paul
If you are dependent on people remembering the name of your site then you want to be careful with the site name but if you are getting traffic to your site via SEO the domain name does not really matter although if I was a visitor the name of the site will tell me if it is a scammy site or if it really appears as a valid business.
I am really surprised about the issue with having a brand name in your domain name when you are promoting only that brand’s products.
Other SEO/internet marketing “experts/trainers” suggest using the brand name in the domain name as a great way to rank well on Google when people are including the brand in their keyword search string.
I recently bought a domain with the brand name in it for this very reason. Only just adding content now with links to Amazon to sell this brand’s products.
Will see if I get contacted by the company in question.
Cheers,
Andrew
@Paul – I had the same question! Whether to hyphenate a .com or just go with a .net – I ended up putting 1 hyphen on my domain and I’m hoping it will be okay (it’s a .com). I haven’t published the site since I haven’t built it yet – I’m totally new to this and LOVE Matt’s Blogg.
Matt Carter Reply:
November 26th, 2010 at 8:43 am
Hey Suzana
I actually don’t know if a hyphen in a .com is better or worse than the .net to be honest, but I have
had a few hyphens .com’s rank well, so can’t be too bad.
Thanks
Matt
hi matt
great work keep on
I am not really good ion keywords but with the article you have. I gain some input from you. Thank you!
I`m going through your excellent blog now Matt and found this article. I was approved last week by one of companies as their affiliate. They sale photoshop plug ins for photographers. I use their software myself so there is no problem for me to write review and first of all make on screen video tutorials. However, as week passed by I`m still struggling with domain name. I use Google Keywords Tools and Market Samurai, but I cannot decide. I eventually was thinking to go for their brand name with added word like “review” or “plug in”. However, through keyword research I found photoshop plug in have more search than their brand itself. I have one question for you. If I had “photoshop” name in my domain and someone search for “photoshop software” or “photoshop CS5”, will this make my website to show up too?
Content is KING!!
The more you write – and write original content – the more love Google will give your site, hands down. My site gets lots and lots of traffic which came about from plenty of hard work. The more linking inside your site, and the more back links to .gov and .edu sites you have, the better – because Google will view your site as very authorative. If content is king then links are the queen.
Thanks for the great info! It eases my mind a bit. I have a website that does not have an exact match keyword domain, and I was beating myself up a bit over it, wondering if it would hurt me a lot. You give me a bit of hope:) I do try for keywords generally.
Thanks again, Ruth
What about forming a domain and leaving out small words like at, for, to, etc.?
Do these domains rank just as well as the ones who include these small words?
Anyone had any success with a keyworded exact phrase domain with a letter added to the end?
Like mykeywordphrasex.com
“.Info” does work actually, I have one “.Info” with a PR1…. Everybody has to remember there is a difference between PR and the SERPs… You can have good PR and be on page 10 in The SERPs… I outrank folks with my PR0 sites in The SERPs all the time because they’re not doing what I mention below….
Make sure you’re doing the little things onsite in the meta tags… Keyword in the H1,Title, Description and for God Sakes in the keyword meta!
The domain keyword is just icing on the cake… Offsite SEO has to take place as well… In any case, you’re in good hands here…
Brian
Hi Matt,
I echo everyone else’s comments on your post – clear, practical and very helpful. Thanks for this.
I have a quick question about something you said though – about hyphens.
If we compare
(1) http://www.productnamereview.com
and
(2) http://www.productname-review.com
can you say how much less effective (2) is than (1)? (assuming it’s less effective).
Also, does (2) not count as an “exact match” (because of the hyphen)?
Thanks so much for your help. I’m inclined to buy rapid profit formula and also possibly rapid rewriter on Monday and start following your system!
Best
Adam