Lately I seem to be getting this question a lot. At BHB Unchained it was asked of me several times. Finally, a good friend asked me today: I am looking getting a site and choosing a domain name and I KNOW I need to get one full of keywords.
“How about CityRealEstateStateHomes.com?”
My response?
“How about
CityRealEstateStateHomesCondominiumsSaleBestAgentHomeSearch.com?”
I mean, if you are gonna get (what we call at EricOnSearch) a marketing turd, why not go all the way? (grin) ( I know, I am being absurd…but hopefully this helps illustrate the point.) I think THAT one is available.
I made the statement at Unchained. From an SEO perspective, QUIT trying to keyword stuff domain names, thinking that you’ve just helped yourself in a hugely meaningful way to get great rankings. I said it. I meant it.
If there is ANY benefit, it is small (there are exceptions to this, which I will explain.) and it is MORE than offset by the marketing damage that you are doing by SOLELY looking at your domain name through SEO eyes. Notice I am NOT saying there is NO benefit. I AM saying simply that it isn’t worth it.
Do yourself a favor and use marketing eyes and not SEO eyes alone when buying domain names.
Now before people start throwing tomatoes, please allow me to explain in detail:
Search engines are smart.
Depending on how you break them down, there are hundreds of variables that make up a typical search engine’s algorithm. The name of the domain is only ONE (1) of those. So even if ALL of the possible variables carried the same weight, it would still NOT be a big deal.
Google (and other search engines) evaluate apply different weights to these characteristics to determine where your site will rank. They KNOW which of these characteristics are easily spammed. They know which ones are NATURALLY self correcting.
A Title Tag is somewhat self correcting in that it forms the TITLE that you see in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages). Characteristics that affect how text looks on the screen are also likely to be self correcting since it makes sense that these could only be abused so far without damaging the user experience. In other words, search engines look for defensible characteristics that people would not abuse because they would want to protect their ability to attract and keep visitors.
This is why in April 2007 Rand Fishkintook a poll of 35 of the leading SEO practitioners as to which characteristics they deemed more important when optimizing a site. Notice that domain name was well down the list. (Also notice that there is much disagreement between SEO folks!)
Have things changed since then? Undoubtedly they have. But I have seen nothing that leads me to believe that domain names have dramatically increased in importance since that time.
The exception to this is a domain name that EXACTLY matches a keyword phrase. I have worked on sites like CityHomes(.)com that have seemed to get extra goodness WHEN searching for the Exact Term “City Homes”. This also seems to apply to .org and other extensions. This makes SENSE to me. It is designed (IMO) to protect trademark holders since in many cases they own the domain name for the EXACT search.
I can also imagine that in a TOTALLY non competitive environment, that having a keyword centric domain name might have some effect. BUT over the long haul it is NOT the major factor that some might think. You are better off writing for the readers. A domain name that catches their eye and helps them remember you is the way to go.
I met Cyndee Hayden at BHBU. I like her Clearwater Florida site SandbarsToSunsets.com much better than a domain name like clearwaterrealestatetampahomes.com. Call me crazy. One is great branding, the other is a marketing turd. Which would YOU want on your business card?
So I guess the bottom line is: Choose a domain name that works for Marketing. If there is a great mix of both keywords, then GREAT. One example would be Bob Wilson’s site HomeSalesSanDiego.com. I think that is great marketing wise AND happens to contain the keywords.
If you can get ’em both GREAT! If not… go with the marketing.
Thoughts?
Wayne Long says:
SandbarsToSunsets is the way to go – no doubt.
SEO tunnel vision is easy to get but usually what is good for your brand and good for your client is the path of choice. IMO
November 10, 2008 — 8:21 pm
Sue says:
SandbarsToSunsets I just love and Bob’s obviously has it all. I wish I had known more about domain names, marketing and SEO before I choose mine which was about 5 years ago. At the time I thought I would benefit because its close to the magazine name. I really had no clue what I was doing…just forging ahead with determination. 🙂
November 10, 2008 — 8:43 pm
Steven Leung says:
I completely agree, Eric. I can’t think of a more effective way to penalize people for wanting to do businesses with you than to make them type a soulless, five or more word, generic domain name to get to your website.
I want to add one thing to what you said, which is, for every new word you add to your domain, you dilute the others ones in search engines. (Documented in the patent apps.)
Anchor text matters far more than the domain name. And no one is going to want to link to a site that looks one step up from…
random-city-real-estate-spam-site.info
There’s a reason why marketers don’t go around describing their wares as “pasteurized cheese food products”….
…but there’s no reason why their anchor text couldn’t.
November 10, 2008 — 8:54 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
@Steven – Exactly. Spot on as usual!
Thanks for dropping by with an experienced voice to this. These types of things get started with confusion between “Correlation and Causation” and they take off from there.
In efforts to optimize sites, it is easy to get caught up in the thick of thin things. This may well be an example of that.
November 11, 2008 — 3:34 am
Cyndee Haydon says:
Eric – I too agree with you after having tried it both ways and being a marketer at heart – I never use the 2nd in my marketing however it also would have been nice to know what all those “s”‘s in SandbarsToSunsets was gonna do me – lol. I have to own lots of typo domains – another lesson learned. 🙂
Enjoyed meeting you at Bloodhound too and look forward to more SEO discussions with you. I’m always up for learning which is why I made a point to be at BHUC!
I also have seen biggest difference in the “exact match” keywords however when you consider it’s less than 1% of my traffic – even being on page 1 for over a year – it’s easy to see a name that’s Marketing friendly makes sense.
The beauty of the blogosphere is we’re constantly learning from people like yoou along with events like BHUC and NAR so keep up the good work – there are “lots of things I’d change”…if I’d only known! 🙂 – Instead we take the knowledge and press on.
November 11, 2008 — 6:38 am
Eric Blackwell says:
@Cyndee-
It was great to meet you as well.
Exactly! I have a ton of those domains from the “old” days as well. Drop me an email…I have a couple of fun (easy) ideas for you. 😉
Thanks for dropping by!
Eric
November 11, 2008 — 6:48 am
Jay Thompson says:
Great post Eric, as usual.
I’ve had people tell me the only reason my blog gets good search placement is because it has “phoenix real estate” in the URL. As if the 1400+ posts and 68,000 some-odd inbound links don’t matter.
For those that believe that a domain name must be keyword stuffed, I ask this:
What does “amazon” have to do with books? What exactly is a “zillow” or a “trulia” and what do they have to do with real estate?
November 11, 2008 — 10:07 am
Eric Blackwell says:
Spot on, Jay.
And what does EricOnSearch have to do with the “Greatest Real Estate Agent in the World”.
The list goes on and on…
Best;
Eric
November 11, 2008 — 10:33 am
Missy Caulk says:
Hi Eric, loved your session, learned lots. Keep it simple, consumers have a hard time remembering, don’t they?
November 11, 2008 — 11:25 am
K2 Group says:
Great points, Eric. You have to keep in the consumer in mind for everything you do. Just because a keyword rich domain may give you a slight boost (if any) in the search engine results shouldn’t be the primary motivating factor in selecting the name in the first place.
November 11, 2008 — 11:55 am
Eric Blackwell says:
Hi Missy! It was nice to meet you as well! Yep. Shorter the better. We need to hang out.
@Jay (again): If they only knew how hard you work at this stuff… You have worked tremendously hard at building your web presence. One of these days, I am going to do a post about “A day in the life of: ” (grin)
November 11, 2008 — 11:57 am
Matt Goyer says:
When I got started blogging about Seattle condos I never thought anyone would read my blog and so I choose a name reflective of that, Urbnlivn.com. (Yes, I know, I don’t think its possible to pick a worse name.)
Fast forward a few years and the space is now pretty competitive with three or four of us fighting it out.
Some of my “competition” chose keyword rich names like SeattleCondosAndLofts.com and SeattleCondoReview.com.
I agree there may be little inherent benefit to have keywords in your domain but I think there is benefit in that when people link to you the link will have the keywords you want to rank in the link.
Compare when someone links to me they usually write the link as “Urbnlivn” when they link to my competition they’ll write “Seattle Condo Review”.
So I don’t think you should completely write off picking a bland name because there may be some real benefit when people link and getting keyword association with your url.
November 11, 2008 — 12:36 pm
J Boyer Morristown NJ says:
Nice post Eric,
If I had it to do over again I would not have gone with a domain name around my name. Not sure what I would have gone with, but it would have been something a little more brand able and sell able in the long run.
I am with you on the long domain names stuffed with key words, no thank you. You are right on Bob Wilson’s domain name, it was a very good choice for him.
November 11, 2008 — 1:59 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
Matt;
It is a great point and as I said above, if you can get both, TAKE em (grin)…
But doing it for the sake of SEO alone ala what Steven referred to as 5 word “soulless” domain names is not the right course. That was more my point.
The examples you provide are GOOD, MARKETABLE, and MEMORABLE domain names on their own. I don’t view Seattle Condo Review as bland. I think that’s a great one. Just as I thought HomeSalesSanDiego was a great find for Bob. Those domains are good for reader and spider alike.
Good to meet you!
November 11, 2008 — 2:06 pm
Steven Leung says:
Matt – In your case, you might consider pulling a “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim”, where the domain of your blog is Urbnlivn.com but the title of your blog describes what you want people to link.
Personally, I think the symmetry of the domain name Urbnlivn.com and the spelling most probably hits your target demographic.
But like you mention, the anchor text you get back is usually Urbnlivn.
Eric mentions the title tag which is a great place to start. Another hint for people linking to your site is the title at the top of the readable page. Folks are cued by that text and typically ignore anything after punctuation.
(In the disclaimer department, any major sitewide change will probably result in short term pain until Google figures out you have “honorable” intentions and you start getting new links.)
November 11, 2008 — 7:36 pm
Al Donohue | Ridgewood's Real Estate Economist says:
Eric,
This makes a lot of sense and this is basically what I was told by the folks at Real Estate Tomato when I set up my blog a few months ago. My domain is RidgewoodFrontPorch.com. I was originally going to call it RidgewoodRealEstateFrontPorch but for the reasons you describe above I didn’t. However, I have noticed that my site ranks highly for what I would think were pretty broad search terms like “front porch real estate”. It seems like the only reason I rank well for these terms is “Front Porch” is in the domain – because there is zero content on my site about Front Porches.
This leads me to wonder if I would have gotten better results for my main target search term “Ridgewood Real Estate” had I used that exact term in my domain and called it RidgewoodRealEstateFrontPorch.com? You did state that the only time keywords matter in the domain is when the desired search term is an exact match for the domain name. Do you think there would be much of an advantage in changing the domain to include “real estate” and would any small advantage be outweighed by the negative impact of changing my domain mid-stream? I assume the answer is to stick with what I have but I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask.
Sorry this is so long.
Thanks.
-Al
November 27, 2008 — 7:13 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
Hey Al.
I can only answer that with “what would I do.”. I would stick with what you have and build authority to that domain.
Just my opinion. 😉
Eric
November 28, 2008 — 5:19 am
Sue says:
Al, RidgewoodRealEstateFrontPorch.com … this seems too long, just my opinion.
November 28, 2008 — 2:19 pm
Budi Waluyo says:
I wanted my domain name simpler than bestsurabayaproperty.com but it had been taken. In my opinion, a domain name should as short as possible. A domain name should be easy to remember, to write and represent the business we run with it. It’s impossible to compile all the keywords into one domain name. In example, there are dozens of keyword relating to a word of property. I agree that domain name is not the only factor in optimizing a site. How about the content ?
January 3, 2009 — 7:54 pm
Susan says:
@I agree that domain name is not the only factor in optimizing a site. How about the content ?
We need good content? (smile)…
January 4, 2009 — 1:29 pm