Hyphenated keyword rich domains - is a hyphenated .co.uk better than a non-hyphenatedlesser TLD such as .org?
-
Hey there, Would anyone be kind enough to share their experience of using keyword rich hyphenated domains. Are they as effective at tanking as non hyphenated domains?
i.e would it be better to get a lesser non-hyphenated TLD such as .org for example rather than a hyphenated co.uk?
-
Carlos, thanks for taking the time, appreciated.
-
Here's some old posts that might help you further...
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-choose-the-right-domain-name http://www.seomoz.org/blog/rules-of-domain-name-selection http://www.seomoz.org/q/how-much-weight-does-google-give-to-exact-match-domains
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited You can see in the last post by Rand (2010) compared to the first link (2005) how things may have changed.
I am not sure what other views are on it now in 2012 - but again - I would always look at it as if I was creating a business first and not just a website. Go for the brandable non-hyphenated non spammy option.
-
Based on our experience I would I would stay away from keyword stuff over hyphenated domains. We have had better results going with brandable types names and just concentrating on content and other elements of SEO. If you are talking about a website with a UK audience I would stick to .co.uk unless of course it is some kind of org or charity etc.
If you do want to get keywords in the domain - then go for it - just don't go over the top to make it so spammy that you get penalized for it and you also don't need the hyphens. The keywords can get parsed in the domain without the separators.
Keywords in domains might have weight this year.... (again) - but next year after the herds have milked it to death (again) - they may not be given much weight... and on and on. I am sure I saw some study on SEOMoz some years back on this though (in terms of keyword rich domains versus no-keyword rich domains).
I think if it were me I would always lean on the side of creating a brand first - a business.... one that wasn't reliant on the swings and rollercoaster ride of the Search Engine algo's.
Do that, think about what the content is going to be - and your audience and your traffic will work itself out in spades no matter what your domain is.
Carlos
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to Incorporate Awkward Keyword Phrases
Certain keywords are good choices for my website (high CTR, low difficulty, high volume), but they would be very awkward to use in my website content. For example, "therapist near me" is a popular search term, but it would be very strange for me to use those words in that order in my content (I am a therapist). Any thoughts about this are welcome.
On-Page Optimization | | LPantell0 -
Keyword in url, which way better?
Hello, is there a difference between urls for targeting keyword "brazil tourist visa" fastbrazilvisas.com/tourist or fastbrazilvisas.com/brazil-tourist-visa ? ran the report In-Page Optimization it tells "no keyword usage in url". is there an idea behind that? thanks
On-Page Optimization | | Kotkov0 -
Value of Domain Names
Hello, I have an ecommerce site that sells personalized gifts. I am wondering about the value of purchasing domain names for specific products and have them point to a landing page. For example: the domain name personalizediphonecases.com would point to my page of that product. Is that a good idea? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | Confections0 -
Alt attributes same as jpg name and keywords?
Hi everyone, Quick question: Is it better to have your jpg name and alt text slightly different to your keywords for that particular page, or is it better to have them slightly differently? At the minute I'm doing them all with a variation on the keyphrase I want to optimize for (long tail and all that...). Any input much appreciated!
On-Page Optimization | | CMoore850 -
Duplicate content on my domain
I have several pages on my domain that are using the same content except for changing a paragraph or sentence. Do I need to create unique content, even though much of the information pertains to a feature and is related?
On-Page Optimization | | Court_H0 -
Give your opinion about our keyword strategy
This is our idea on how to create pages. Please give us your opinion on this way of targeting keywords. Meta Title Tickets [destination] | Tickets.nl | Flights [destination] Meta description Book your ticket to [destination] online and find the cheapest tickets in just a few clicks… H1: Tickets [destination] H2: Cheap ticket to [destination] – city of … Image Tekst with focus on tickets + destination and ticket + destination City guides general information, More information city guide
On-Page Optimization | | vliegticketsnl
introduction Short snippets of content. More information city guide
Short snippets of content. Additional tekst on flights + destination.0 -
Lots of links on homepage to internal pages with keyword rich anchor text - problem?
Hi, All! We have a new potential client, that when looking at his site with a tool, we noticed that the previous SEO company they worked with filled the homepage copy with lots of keyword-rich anchor text links pointing to different pages on the site - many links going to the same page, just with different keywords. These links are not indistinguishable in format from the other text, which is why we only noticed it with a tool. I certainly wouldn't recommend doing that to start with, but once all these links are there, would you recommend taking them down? Is there any conceivable chance it could help the site? Is there a significant reason to think it will harm the site? Or will it just be pretty neutral? In all that's been written (much by SEOMoz) about only the first link's anchor text counting, do subsequent links work like a no-follow in the sense that they are a waste of the link-juice of the page, or is it as if they aren't there at all? (And is "only the first link counts" still the most widely held theory, or have there been new developments since?) Thanks, All!
On-Page Optimization | | debi_zyx0