I was on Facebook last night and it happened to me to see in the home stream some comments about Matt Cutts’ recent words about exact match domains and the possible end of their “superpower” in the SERP. I am sure you know what I’m talking about, or just ask yourself if you’ve ever seen domains like affordabledogdresses.com in the first spots of Google result pages…
Now, will this situation change, as Cutts is saying? I think not, or at least not radically, and I explain why, starting with a quick chronology of the problem.
Keywords in the domain count (too much?)
Having the exact keywords in the domain give a boost in rankings and SEOs know this since a long time for some time; in October, Rand Fishkin at SEOmoz shows significant datas to support this hypothesis: they demonstrate, unequivocally that the keywords in the domain, and in particular the condition of exact match with the query, represent a factor of great impact in rankings. In particular, exact match with TLD .com seems to be the case with higher incidence.
Google says it will reevaluate this factor.
Less than a month after this post (but the same Fishkin argued already that something was moving) Matt Cutts at PubCon states – among other things – that Google is asking whether or not to change something in the algorithm to stop this situation, since in some cases the domain name has become an element of spam.
A greater emphasis on the concept come March 7: in this video from GoogleWebmaster Help, Cutts responds with his usual “read between the lines” to a German demand for a webmaster who asks: “How would you explain the ‘Power of Keyword Domain’ to someone who has to decide which domain name to choose?”
Cutts begins by bringing the attention to the most important and popular sites that have a branded name that differentiates them and makes them recognizable (Google, Yahoo!, Facebook). Having a particular name stands out from the crowd. So far nothing new. At the end of the video then he adds: “we give too much weight to keywords in domain and we will make some changes to the algorithm to adjust this”.
But, can Google radically change the algorithm?
And then we return to the initial question: is the end of exact match domains near to come? As I said before, I don’t think so, and for one simple reason: there are many people using the search engine to perform queries that it is difficult to discriminate between navigational and informational.
If I type diesel, I want the site of the fashion brand, or information on the fuel? In many of these cases, you use Google to go to a specific site: the query is a navigational one. And this theory also could be applied in the previous “affordable dog dresses” example: how can Google be sure that “Affordable dog dresses” is not a brand? And how can it decide not to show in the SERP a site that you may be looking for? The answer is obvious: it can’t (and in fact I have not seen generalized drops in ranking for exact match domains, at the moment).
The question then moves to a little different point: can Google exactly discern when a query is linked to a brand or not? Exactly, it can’t. But it can capture some signals, and there are several.
Look like a brand and you’re ok.
Ross Hudgens identifies incoming links as a possible mean by which search engines could determine whether they are faced with a brand or not: is www.brokentoys.com mostly linked to as “broken toys”? T
hen maybe this is a signal of link building done to push the keywords, and then your domain is not a brand and therefore there is no navigational boost. However, if the anchor text is more often “Broken toy” with some “BrokenToys” or “BrokenToys.com”, then we could most likely be faced with a brand and in this case Google should give a boost navigational, to ensure that users can find the site in early position if it is exactly what they are looking for.
It seems reasonable to me. A SeoMoz webinar illustrates some other signals than can make you look a brand in Google eyes: domain navigational searches, social media presence, physical presence offline, private references (i.e. in Gmails) are some of the most great signals, but you could just have a company profile on Linkedin, some geolocalized links and these could be good indicators.
A bit of brand and a bit of keywords: the best choice.
The key to have (or not to lose) a navigational boost for exact match domain is to look like brand so Google can’t lower your ranking.
But if you have to choose a new domain name for your site, however, the decision between a brandable name or two straight keywords is not immediate: as also illustrates an interesting post on SeoBook, it depends on what are your goals.
In general, perhaps, is a good solution: invent something branded that contains one or more keywords and you get two birds with one stone (my blog name is Posizionamento Zen, for example). Don’t you agree?
Note: An Italian version of this post can be read on Tagliablog.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Exact Match Domains: This is Why They Can Still Rank
