DirDn

I see on here a lot about keyword domains, two, three and even four word keyword domains.

while there is no doubt that single keywords are great domains especially from a SEO point of view, domains like LocalFinance have no advantage from a SEO point of view, we all know the results returned for "LocalFinance" and "Local Finance" are two completely different things.

accelerator

I disagree. Domains with the keyphrase in them give you an SEO advantage, particularly on Yahoo.

Rgds

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DirDn

but its not the key phrase, "walkmydog" is not "walk my dog", someone searching for "walk my dog" the domain walkmydog.co.uk would get no advantages over any other site, and even if there was, it could easily be beaten with good SEO

I can understand the memorability side of things, but SEO wise?

accelerator

My understanding is that the search engines can recognise "walkmydog" in a domain as "walk my dog". My understanding is that they can recognise individual words when they are joined together. However, I don't have any specific reference to back this up, it's just my general understanding. In practice I have found an advantage when registering "walkmydog" type domains.

Secondly, if you have the domain as "walkmydog.co.uk" then people are more likely to link to it as the exact keyphrase, i.e. "walk my dog" and that will be an SEO advantage.

Personally I feel that keyphrase generic domains are very advantageous for SEO, and these are the type of domains I like to buy.

Best rgds

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DirDn

the reason i say this is SEO is what i do for a living, the number of times i am working on a clients site and come across keyword domains rating better is very little, and when they are we have no problem beating them.

I can understand single generic keywords, they can have the same affect as someone searching for walkmydog no spaces, and if your site is walkmydog and your not getting top spot then you are doing something wrong

but there is no major weight put on keywords in the URL, not to the extent that would warrant someone paying a small fortune for a two or three word keyword domain.

Its just the emphasis that seems to be put on keyword searches that baffles me, as though purchasing a multi keyword domain is going to be the answer to all their prayers.

is a fair point, but even that can have a negative SEO affect, if you go out link building and use the same tag text on all your links, this can be seen as link spamming.

when link building you need to vary tag text and descriptions, if anyone as ever been link building and done 500 then wondered why google is only seeing some of them, that is one of the reasons why.

Edwin

Well, considering the domain "walkmydog.co.uk" is #1 on Google for a search on "walk my dog" I don't think your conclusion is accurate.

It's easy enough to see that Google takes keywords within "joined up" domains into account - just do a search and look at what gets bolded within the results...

For example, if you look at the results from travel insurance - Google Search you'll see that Google can spot the keywords "travel" and "insurance" anywhere in the URL, whether they're joined up or separated by non-ASCII characters. It can spot either/both words in the domain as well.

So all other things being equal you can't beat a site with the exact keywords in the domain name, but you can if the other stuff isn't equal e.g. if you can get more relevant incoming links, produce more and better quality content and so on.

But it is 100% certain that the keywords in the domain name are one of the many SEO factors taken into consideration by Google, and therefore for companies that want/need to squeeze the absolute max out of their promotional efforts, it makes a ton of sense for them to chase the appropriate generic domain name to put their site on.

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DirDn

well yes, they are taken in to account, but what I'm saying is they don't carry major weight.

I could give you hundreds of examples, search for the phrase and in a lot of cases the domain with the same phrase is not on page one, one i just clucked out at random "boat insurance" google it and none of the top ten results have those words in the domain.

as for bolding out, the most basic text editor will pick out any word from a phrase without spaces, but that doesn't necessarily mean it carries major weight in the algorithm.

I'm not saying it carries no weight at all (bit very little IMHO), I'm also not saying I'm some know it all a-hole who as all the answers.

its easy from a domainers point of view to justify it with a few examples, but all I'm saying is, as well as being a domainers, I come at this from a different angle in my full time work SEO, and the real world results don't bear out the MAJOR emphasis demonstrated in the domaining world

one of the reasons i don't have too many 2,3 or 4 word keyword domains.

all that said, yes from a memorability point of view, if you have a top search phrase "tinned dog food" then the domain TinnedDogFood.co.uk is going to be memorable.

accelerator

The other thing is, if you have the major domain for a given product, you gain instant credibility and trust for your business.

I don't think everyone would spend so much time on domaining forums and buying domains for large sums if there wasn't a very real advantage to owning quality generic domains, including many that are multi-keyword.

See also:

Domain Name Trading Resources

Rgds

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nnh

One, two and even three keyword 'search term' domains can easily be placed high in the search results on search engines like google.

This takes very little effort, it just depends if you want to pay for one or pay a company for a long term SEO contract.

I would go for the domain which is usually more memorable so long term will hopefully return more traffic.

Yes good SEO can beat a good domain, but its not free You possibly havnt come accross a combination of both

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DirDn

I come across them all the time, but a site that relies on its keyword domain for good SERPS is not a serious contender, keyword domains will NEVER outstrip good SEO.