Exact Match Domains - Why are they still dominating?
-
Fantastic day!
I am seeing exact match domains still dominating. SEOmoz has some insight: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited
But that's from two years ago. Is Google ever going to target the manipulators that buy up all the exact match domains?
One of our partners is getting the itch, and I am running out of explanations on why we don't manipulate. But if these practices are dominating their industry, what to do? I have to get paid to feed the family so just telling the client buh-bye isn't going to work. At least not in this stage of agency building.
Their root domain doesn't do much for them, however, you know we well optimize those subdomains and rank those fine.
But if my client can just buy an exact match domain, and it will take less SEO work to get it ranked then why not? He has the SEO expert in his back pocket to clean up the mess IF they would even get a penalty or drop in rank.
Is all SEO really is find algo hole, manipulate, penalty, fix, find algo hole, manipulate, penalty, fix. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Please share your experiences and insight!
Thanks,
Ben
-
Maybe another factor is how if other people complementarily link to your site without you knowing they aren't necessarily thinking about your SEO, so an exact match provides automatic anchor text?
-
It's the king of content himself! It's been awhile. Hope things are great with you!
I think I'll take the "bite my lip" approach then deep breath then try to explain it one more time. Wish me luck!
-
You have a big bug in your bonnet about exact match domains.
You think that they are helpful for ranking a website and I agree.
But, building a site on those domains is not black hat or manipulation. It's simply a good idea. It is no different than buying a great piece of land on a high traffic highway to build a store.
Anybody can own these domains. You simply have to be willing to pay the price. I've paid an obscene price several times and it has been a fantastic investment in the long run.
You can do it too.
But owning those domains will not automatically get you rankings. You still have to do a lot of work to make that happen in valuable SERPs.
Building a great website is the best way to dominate a niche. If you do that traffic, links and rankings will all improve over time and you can make a lot of money tending to just the basics of SEO.
-
Thanks Greg!
I educate until I'm blue in the face then they read some black hat strategy, go look at their SERPs, and see it working for their competitors. LOL
But yes, preaching the long term is what it's all about.
You're two cents is worth a dollar, my friend!
Here's the thing. There is no limit to buying LLCs. So if they match the domain to the LLC, how in the world will Google be even able to detect the manipulative brands that are brands but not really brands.
Thanks again!
-
Hi Ben.
Now more than ever Google is focusing on Brands rather than standard "keyword rich" websites.
Brands offer trust more than anything and is by far the best way to go if you plan on building a long lasting online business...
"Budget Car Rental" is a real brand, but then its also a money making term. Google has clearly recognised the term as a brand which is great and if your client can do the same, then no harm done.
It gets manipulative when your brand is "ABC car rental" and your website is "Budget car rental.com"
The only reason exact match domains are still ranking I presume is because Google is still tied up in identifying which are brands, and which are there solely for ranking benefits. Google's not stupid and things are changing fast.
I guess the best way to explain it to your client is to say:
For short term ranks with no guaranteeing on future success, then choose a URL with the sole objective of manipulating Google into ranking you well.
Or
Choose a brand name and built trust that will last for years to come.
If they choose to go the manipulative route, then at least you have done all you can to educate them leaving you with a clean conscious for when they regret the decision made.
Just my 2c worth...
Greg
-
Let me add that they will also buy the LLC to match the domain...
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
-
Do any sub-domains act as Private Blog Networks?
Hi All, We can see now that Google rolled 2 unconfirmed algo updates this month and they are penalising spam links and sites which use Private blog networks; as said by some SEO experts. Do any sub-domains act as PBNs because of too much linking...like linking website pages from every page of sub-domains?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz0 -
To buy or not to buy? Domains with history..
I am involved in setting up a new business which as of yet is to decide on a brand name.. As the availability of domain name in local tld (and ideally .com) is of so much importance, the brand naming process is inextricably linked to this. Therefore, upon finding a suggested name was available to register (without premium) there was a degree of satisfaction. However on looking at archive.org it was discovered that the .co.uk had been a sex/marital aid store back in 2004 and more recently in 2014 a travel blog / affiliate. Q is; Is the past history of what is a site with possible black hat links a reason to avoid registration? Or, does time cure all? And, is there a way in which domain health can be reliably confirmed? Thanks in advance for your input..
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seanmccauley0 -
Moving website and domain name without 301 Redirect or rel=canonical
I do not wish to draw attention to my company, so I am using code names. For the sake of this discussion, we are a new car dealership representing Brand X Cars. The manufacturer of Brand X Cars pushes its dealers toward a website hosting company called CarWebsites in order to maintain a level of quality and control with each dealer. However, we have found the platform to be too restricting, and are switching to our own WordPress site. Unfortunately Brand X is claiming ownership of our original domain, BrandXCarDealer.net, so we have switched to BrandXCarDealer.com (which we prefer anyways). Now both websites are running, and there is duplicate content of everything. Brand X is not cooperative and will not 301 redirect to the new site, and we do not have access to the of the website for a rel=canonical. Brand X is also dragging its feet on shutting down BrandXCarDealer.net. We do still have access to change the content of the pages on the BrandXCarDealer.net site, but that is pretty much as far as our control goes. So my question is, is there anything we can do, without using a 301 redirect or rel=canonical, to tell Google to pay attention to the new BrandXCarDealer.com rather than the old BrandXCarDealer.net? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | VanMaster0 -
Buy exact match domain and 301 worth it?
So there is this exact match domain that gets about 500 visitors a day. it has trust flow 17 and citation flow of 23 which is just a little lower than our own website. The website talks about one of our keywords and rank on second page in SERPs. I am not interested in buying and running that website, but rather just to liquidate all the pages with 301s into our existing domain and onto relevant pages. So the 301s would be to relevant pages. The question is, would this strategy be worth it in todays SEO world and Google updates?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | TVape0 -
Partial Match Penalty Site - Move Portion & Redirect To New Site
So I have a site that currently has a partial match penalty from google, I have been working to get it removed...Bad SEO basically my site was submitted to a bunch of bad blog networks..Hopefully it gets lifted soon as we remove and disavow links. That said I was planning on moving a portion of my site to a new site since its not really the focus of the site anymore however still pays the bills. I have also have been building it more of a network of sites..So If I do that and 301 redirect the pages I moved, will the penalty carry? On the current site I planned on using Rel no follow to any links that I may change in the header/menus etc.. Some of these pages I believe have the penalty while others dont. I really just dont want to screw anything else up more then it is? My biggest fear is that its perceived as a blackhat method or something like that? Any thoughts?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dueces0 -
Why are "outdated" or "frowned upon" tactics still dominating?
Hey, my first post here. I recently picked up a new client in real estate for a highly competitive market. One trend I'm noticing with all the top sites they are doing old tactics such as:
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Jay328
-Paid Directories
-Terrible/Spam Directories
-Overuse of exact text keywords for example: City name + real estate
-Blogroll/link exchange
-Tons of meta key words
-B.S. press releases blog commenting with kw as name Out of all the competition there is only one guy who is following the rules of today. One thing I'm noticing is that nobody is doing legit guest blogging, has great social presence, has awesome on page, etc. It's pretty frustrating as I'm trying to follow the rules and seeing these guys kill it by doing "bad seo". Anybody else find themselves in this situation? I know I'm probably beating a dead horse but I needed to vent about this 😉2 -
Multiple domains different content same keywords
what would you advice on my case: It is bad for google if i have the four domains. I dont link between them as i dont want no association, or loss in rakings in branded page. Is bad if i link between them or the non branded to them branded domain. Is bad if i have all on my webmaster tools, i just have the branded My google page is all about the new non penalized domain. altough google gave a unique domain +propdental to the one that he manually penalized. (doesn't make sense) So. What are the thinks that i should not do with my domain to follow and respect google guidelines. As i want a white hat and do not do something that is wrong without knowledge
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | maestrosonrisas0