New TLD .solution .company with exact keyword match - will it be a viable proposition for SEO

[BLIT]

I noticed some option for new TLD like .company & .solution

My exact match keyword domain is all but taken on the traditional domains (com/org/net/info).

Is there an SEO benefits or disadvantage to use the .solution or .company with the exact keyword match?

Thanks in advance

[BLIT]

I'd like to thank you all for the input. As it happens, it seems the last google update has completely changed the rankings for most of the EMD we were tracking. So either they really had crappy "other" optimization techniques, or google changes the importance of EMD.

Here's what I can take from this conversation:

1. EMD with good quality content and a descent back link will most probably rank higher then a domain without EMD in the domain name, but with similar/same content & backlink structure.

2. EMD with descent content and good backlink structure are probable a good place to have a link to the money site, but certainly not an option to replace the money site domain (which was never the intention)

Thank you all for your input.

[artdivision]

Hi Jane,

I can argue this article with more than 100 examples & proofs but that will be off-topic. All I can say is: Don;t have that much faith in what Google or Search Engine Land says, instead run your own tests.

What is low quality EMD? Who defines low quality?

Once you realise that the answers to the above 2 questions are subjective (mainly based on individual POV of what "quality" is) then you realise that google must have some sort metrics that judge that and those aint similar to mine or yours. Once you realise how they do it or what those metrics are, you will be one step closer in making your clients' rankings happy.

So as you already pointed out correctly, the debate is ongoing...since 2006

[RobertFisher]

Thanks, let's stay in touch.

Robert

[artdivision]

Robert you are absolutely right and you nailed it really, only my boss knows me that well. Got carried away by my passion.

I keep this "But, if I have a site that is producing revenue for a client of $100K per year and 50% profit, I would never suggest they buy a $10K EMD and that will change their outcomes (I really doubt you would either). " and you are right, I wouldn't 100%.

One case is different to the other! +1

[JaneCopland]

Hi Alfredo,

Some interesting discussion here. Coming back to the root of the question, Matt's response of "Google has a lot of experience in returning relevant web pages, regardless of the top-level domain (TLD)" is very important. It cancels out a lot of the question about the new TLDs.

I would definitely not class this as one of the statements he makes in order to spin a line for Google either - this should be taken as their stance, in my view.

So with that said, the question is largely down to EMDs.

Google targeted low quality EMDs a couple of years ago: http://searchengineland.com/low-quality-exact-match-domains-are-googles-next-target-134889. Low quality is the key point here; this doesn't really address whether a high quality site called SciFiBooks.company (or .com) has inherently more chance of ranking for [scifi books] than a very similar website (in terms of backlinks and content quality) with a different name. Debate about that is ongoing, as you can see here.

[RobertFisher]

I must agree with the yourdomain.com/new-age-sediment-recovery-systems-by-mice

Long tails would be a bit of overkill

Best

[GPainter]

Hi Robert,

It depends your example is fine as its somewhat broad but what I'm not keen on is www.exsample.com/really-long-tail-keyword

it's not natural looking at least your example is more acceptable. So when I say it I'm more referring to an unnatural reference that's long and horrible looking compared to say a more general term like bug-spray or books.com/scifi etc.

Hope that clears it up a bit better.

[RobertFisher]

Chris,

When you qualify with "not that I condone it," I don't understand why you would not? Using the example of AllSpray, there is nothing wrong with using the keyword in the URL. So, AllSpray.com/bug-spray 
If I am doing the page for AllSpray this is my likely URL.

Best

[RobertFisher]

Yiannis,

From reading what you have written, you are likely an accomplished SEO. I think, for this discussion we cannot be laser focused on examples where an EMD works well. We both can also show people EMD sites that do not rank well. My issue is with those who are less experienced that come to Moz; it is easy for them to latch onto something and believe it is an end all in SEO. You and I both know that people have been saying for years EMD's have lost their strength in SEO and, like in my first example, if I can use one I will. But, if I have a site that is producing revenue for a client of $100K per year and 50% profit, I would never suggest they buy a $10K EMD and that will change their outcomes (I really doubt you would either). But, we have to be very clear with others that they have to measure the whole and not get locked into EMD's, link-building, anchor text, Schema, etc. as "the answer."

For you and I, we do the additional research naturally; others get locked into an issue, say "X," and "prove" to themselves that "X" is what caused the improvement and rush out to make other sites have "X." We have to look at these issues when answering questions in my opinion. An example is how many people say: the other site has poor content, spun content, etc. That is their opinion in looking at a competitor. When you and I look at competitive sites, there is nothing emotional in it as the sites are for clients. That allows us to be more detached and more thorough.

Best, thanks for your well thought out answers,

Robert

[RobertFisher]

Alfredo,

You state "experience show me otherwise," and I can appreciate that. Then you state, "A competitor bought the domain, placed new content which was a spun version of their money site and within a week he jumped to number one and stayed there for over 12 months."

From this information you are drawing this conclusion:  If you have an EMD, even one with poor content, EMD's are so powerful the site with poor content will be able to outrank sites with great content, well done structured markup, killer on page SEO. I simply disagree. My disagreement is based on my experience.

Before you can draw a conclusion that having the EMD is what caused the site to rank so well for 12 months, you have to test all the other factors that influence the site's ranking.

If you can share the site that is ranking so well with spun content and the one that isn't, we can likely point out many differences in the sites. You have to look at everything in SEO or it is too easy to jump to the wrong conclusion in my opinion. But, if it is true that EMD does it, simply buy a .company, redirect your site with appropriate 301 rules and let us know 2 weeks from now when it is number one. I have no problem admitting when I am wrong and I am here to learn.

Best,

Robert

EDIT: Let me add: If the domain had been up for 18 months, was down for 4 weeks and went up a week after, it would have had some inherent domain authority that must be factored in.

[GPainter]

Not that I condone it I've seen some people get away with  www.example.com/the-search-term

[GPainter]

if you ignore the extension (.company / .com etc.) the new tlds work the same as .com SEO wise however users may treat them different which is the main problem with them so that's the change the user not the search engine.

DJ123 brought up an excellent point as well that a user may mistype your domain if going direct and you could loos traffic but it it's not a direct money site this may not be a problem.

I also just wanted to give Robert Fisher a nod for an excellent reply too!

[BLIT]

Yes Chris, that helps.

The exact match keyword is more like scifibooks, as opposed to your two example.

that's what people will search for when they want to buy the exact match keyword. It's a service opposed to a product. The best covnersations we get are from "scifi books" searches. And if we put a good site on the .company or .solution domain, and use similar approach for conversion, we should be able to convert them, just like we do on the money site.

I guess the main question is: will exact match keyword with a new "unknown" tld have the same SEO benefits as an exact match keyword with a .com tld?

[BLIT]

Robert,

I tend to agree with you, but experience show me otherwise.

the actual site on ExactKeywordMatch.com had very little valuable content about 18 months ago, yet it ranked in top 4 places, few links (less than a dozen) and perhaps 4 web pages with content. Not a hugely competitive keyword like weight loss, but certainly not a niche market. The ranking was definitely because of the exact match.

When the site became unresponsive (went offline) for over 4 weeks, I contacted the owner and wanted to purchase it. The requested price was $10,000, which was way out of our budget. Although I explained to the customer the MANY benefits he could get from the purchase, they were not in a position to do so.

A competitor bought the domain, placed new content which was a spun version of their money site and within a week he jumped to number one and stayed there for over 12 months.

I haven't done any real analysis on that site since, but when i noticed the new TLDs i figured, maybe I can try it with this new ones. For the exact keyword match, the competitor now dominates the top 6 spots on google page 1, with their various domains.

Surely there will be benefit for a highly optimized website with a targeted exact match domain name?

[artdivision]

Agree with Robert that it is not a good SEO approach, however disagree on the 1% factor. EMDs (especially .com and .net) still DO work but it comes down to keyword competitiveness and keyword research. Its an awful approach but the easiest way to rank products with low competition hence you see them everywhere when it comes to location marketing (for example pest control XYZ) or Micro Niche sites (bestknifeguide.com etc). I ranked 2 web sites with EMD this year as part of my annual SEO tests which help me understand Google better and to my surprirse they do the job just fine. People will say "yes but not for long" but I;ve been hearing "not for long" for lots of techniques similar to EMD since 2006 so in general I lost my faith a bit when it comes to articles from people who replicate all day what Matt Cutts says. To me the biggest advantage of an EMD is that you can do anchor text link building by simply using the domain name, keeping yourself away from penalties since the url serves as an exact anchor.

Apologies if the article I shared was not clear but in sort NO there is no SEO benefit in using the new domain over a .com EMD nor a disadvantage. At the moment 40-60% is related to your link building so it doesnt really matter if the industry you are going after is hard compettitive industry.  However if you do want to do it and buy the exactkeyword.company domain and want to redirect it allow me to suggest to set an iframe to the new domain than redirect. it works better with rankings at the moment and I can prove it as I set an iframe and a micro niche page of the same product with the same content and EMD on both and the iframe destroyed the proper page by 20+ rankings.

[RobertFisher]

Alfredo,

I work with a lot of client sites. If a new client came in today (All Spray, Inc.) and they sold bug spray and stated I have four domains and they want to know which they should go with:

BugSpray.info, BugsGetSprayed.com, BugSpray.company, AllSprays.com

Assuming it currently had no site (There is no point in taking a developed site and changing it to an exact match domain name IMO if it is a reasonably good site.), I would say go with BugSpray.info. Why, it is the best choice IMO for EMD out of the two above.

There is a very old saying in Texas, don't get caught up in picking fly s__t out of pepper. EMD is not going to change your overall weight by 1%. Are you really wanting to worry over a 1% factor? Have you looked to see what else the other sites are doing that cause them to have the ranking they have? Look past the obvious and the easy. There is a reason we wear out this quote in SEO: Correlation doesn't equal causation. You are likely looking at several/many EMD's in your space that are ranked and then assuming what you need is an EMD. It is just not a good way to approach SEO.

Best, 
Robert

[DJ123]

You are correct, the majority of users do not know what a TLD is or probably even care.

I suppose that it depends on what kind of customers that you have, but my experience with my customer base is that they would probably not click on something that looked out of the norm to them because they might think it is a scam or something that they have heard about on the news.

Also, I am thinking of it in terms of your customer remembering your site address into the future.  Let's say they click on your site because you rank high, look at the info and then bounce.  How many of them are going to remember the TLD if they want to come back to the site via direct entry into the navi bar?  There will be a certain % (I think it would be high) who would type in yourdomain.com instead of yourdomain.company

I have seen this many times with close matches to domain names - people come to the site, look at it, then bounce.  They come back 2 weeks later via a direct entry into the navi bar, except they enter a slight variation of the actual domain name because (I suspect) they remember that they visited a site they liked, but cannot totally remember the exact address so they do their best.  That is why generally if possible, we grab close variant domain names and forward them to the main domain with GA parameters for tracking.  It always amazes me at how much traffic we get monthly from people entering in the close, but not exact, domain name in the navi bar.

[GPainter]

The new TLD's have no more advantage or disadvantage than a .com / .net etc. as mentioned the problem may be a CTR due to its name but that's minor at best..

The problem is: you didn't mention your keyword match which varies on niches but look at it from a user point of view example:

www.buyscifibookscheap.com

vs

www.kimsbooks.com

(Made these up so no reference here)

although one is exact match it looks spammy and a user might "trust" Kims books more if you see my point so whilst yes the exact may give you a minor boost overall it very easy to overcome with a good brand.

Hope that helps and i'm clear.

[BLIT]

DJ, I hear you.

From my experience (and maybe someone can correct me), the majority of users don't understand the meaning of TLD. They search google for a keyword, and will click the first few links on the first page. in fact, most will not go past the first result, if it gave them the answer they are looking for.

Since this is done to provide information, and will be used exclusively online, I don't see the difference between .com or .company for most of the users.

Considering some of the users i meet with, type facebook.com into the google search bar and proceed to click on the facebook link, i'm assuming it's pretty negligible from the online perspective.

[BLIT]

Hi Chris,

I read what Matt had to say. I wasn't thinking/expecting that the new ExactKeywordMatch.company will rank better than ExactKeywordMatch.com or ExactKeywordMatch.net

The question refers to: will ExactKeywordMatch.newTLD give me an SEO benefit or disadvantage me somehow.

Assuming I was going to create a new website that explains all about my "ExactKeywordMatch" under the domain ExactKeywordMatch.company and have it linked to my money domain. Will that be a good step to take?

[DJ123]

I think you have to also think about how many people know about a .company TLD.

Most people outside of the IT world only know or are comfortable with a .com, .net and .org

Personally I would wait to see the market's acceptance of a certain domain before going too far down the road into it.

[BLIT]

Thanks Yiannis,

Good article, but not that clear at the moment.

[GPainter]

Matt Cutts said -

"I read a post by someone offering new top-level domain (TLDs). They made this claim: "Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent? Quite simply, yes it will."

Sorry, but that's just not true, and as an engineer in the search quality team at Google, I feel the need to debunk this misconception. Google has a lot of experience in returning relevant web pages, regardless of the top-level domain (TLD). Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don't expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn't bet on that happening in the long-term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that's your choice, but you shouldn't register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you'll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings."

In short get it if it benefits your company or make it easier but don't worry about and benefits from SEO above or below a .com especially in a few years I would expect new tlds to be as normal as .com etc.

Now having said that obvious exact match search terms to tend to help but if you're competing against another one you need to have a stronger brand.

[artdivision]

Hi Alfredo,

Here is in detail a post I wrote about this topic. Hope it helps

http://www.artdivision.co.uk/new-gtlds-seo