It's been a while since I last covered anything to do with
SEO, this is because I got bored talking about it, and that is simply because I believe Google is getting so much better at doing their job of producing SERPs that SEO is actually becoming too hard to do effectively other than for short term gain.
So, with that in mind I want to touch on something I've seen asked around the various forums and blogs I read. How long should your domain name be?
My opinion on this is based on personal experience and differs from a lot of the 'experts', and the debate is about should bloggers or webmasters go for a short snappy domain, or should they go for something longer that contains one of their major keywords in the domain.
I tend to prefer the latter because it makes it a lot easier to guarantee that your keyword is in every url on your site without having to remember to include the keyword in the permalink, but I'd also argue it doesn't really matter an awful lot if you're committed to using keyword rich permalinks.
Let's take an example of a blogger who blogs about chocolate. In my opinion the following two dummy examples of url have the same weighting in the SERPs, so the actual domain is not that important;
1. www.favoritechocolaterecipes.com/blog
2. www.2funny.com/favoritechololaterecipes
As you can both contain the keyword chocolate, and a quick look at Google's results will show you they don't discriminate based on domain, each of these examples would be listed in their results.
Another argument I see touted in favour of short domains is that it makes it easier for readers to type into the browser address bar. Sure, this is a valid point, but only for some websites. In business, a great many companies would put their website address on a business card or tell clients the address over the phone.
In this instance an easy to type domain is better, although short isn't necessarily better. It is far better that the domain be made up of words that are easy to type because the letters on the keyboard don't require finger gymnastics to type.
The second category of website that I consider when registering a domain is the site that will hardly ever be typed directly because the majority of the site's traffic will be by referrer or bookmark, and in this instance the domain name is I believe completely irrelevant to the actual reader because in many cases they will never notice the domain, but the will notice the anchor text used to link to the domain.
In my online business I don't operate any website where I require my readers to type in the website address. The overwhelming majority of my readers will click a link to find my sites. So for me, the length of domain is completely unimportant. I would be as happy with a keyword rich domain of 20 or more characters as I would be with a 4 or 5 character domain.
Th next time someone tries to tell you your domain isn't short enough or is too difficult to type, just remember what I've said, not every website is found by reading the yellow pages or receiving a business card.
BloggerOfTheWeb said,
Sunday, June 15. 2008 at 00:53 (Reply)
For me, I choose domain name more in terms of ease of remembering, catchy,& relevant to the niche of my blog. As for the length, as long as not very lengthy, it is fine with me
Good example would be my blog "bloggeroftheweb". How do you think?
Toronto SEO said,
Sunday, June 15. 2008 at 04:56 (Reply)
As for a long term business-oriented website, it just makes sense to go with a shorter domain if possible. It doesn't necessarily have to be an LLL.com, but a few keywords at most would be best.
Marie said,
Sunday, June 15. 2008 at 05:16 (Reply)
Costa Rica SEO said,
Sunday, June 15. 2008 at 08:31 (Reply)
The domain name that you choose (and it's keywords) has the biggest effect with MSN, but it isn't all too important with yahoo and google. The reason that you'll see a long keyword rich domain name in the search results usually isn't due to the domain it's self, but the linking to and organization of it's content.
There is also the advantage of links going to your domain using only the domain name will have good keywords. This is a tactic popular with press release submission. Press release sites tend to rank well, but you can't normally put text in your link. Since they link with the domain it's an easy way to build relatively cheap and strong links for a new web site.
Now domain age is important with all search engines. I would say if you have an existing web site you should avoid changing domain names. Your old domain is most likely worth far more than your new one would be. Many of my domains from 2001-2003 rank extremely well for whatever content I put on them. There is also the tactic of using sub-domains on an older domain to take advantage of it's age and adding another keyword and type of content.
Modern Glam said,
Monday, June 16. 2008 at 09:20 (Reply)
Great post, Carl! I think most of us have a vested interest in learning as much about SEO as possible!
nicole
Carl said,
Monday, June 16. 2008 at 10:28 (Reply)
AmeriGlide said,
Tuesday, June 17. 2008 at 08:58 (Reply)
Before search engines people would frequently type a random address into the address bar, so if you didn't have a short common name, you were at a big disadvantage.
Now almost all people go through a search engine. I know some people that type the domain name into the search engine instead of the address bar. For this reason a short domain name is not as important now.
timethief said,
Tuesday, June 17. 2008 at 12:15 (Reply)
Farmhouses in Tuscany said,
Wednesday, July 9. 2008 at 20:54 (Reply)
And futile in a way since a competing business following the same approach ie more-juicy-keywords.com will just add to the clutter of search engine results.
A more memorable name will stand out from the crowd - like a precious gem.
When I was first asked to optimize "lucertola.info" I thought "Oh dear, should have been something like farmhouses-in-tuscany.com .. etc" then I realized for the first time how much better a short domain name is .. full of personality.
Sure you have to work a tad harder on SEO (but not vastly more so); eventually you'll end up with a double-win: high google results (all the same) and a charming and unique domain name - standing out. Less is more.
If you want to add keywords to a URL then a better alternative is this:
domainname.com/keyword-here/
domainname.com/another-keyword-here/
and so on, for your different menu sections.
To illustrate say your domain is called "Megajoy.com" and you sell say ... incenses then you could do something like this:
megajoy.com/indian-incenses/
megajoy.com/chinese-incenses/
megajoy.com/perfumed-candles/
pretty elegant, and Google will treat those directories as keywords of importance.
Mark said,
Friday, August 29. 2008 at 13:38 (Reply)
I was wondering is repeating keywords in the domain will hurt me? Thanks Mark
Carl said,
Friday, August 29. 2008 at 22:31 (Reply)
Doubling up your keywords might be considered spamming the search indexes but anecdotal evidence suggests the big 3 will simply ignore the duplicates, although other SEO 'experts' would probably advise adding other keywords instead of duplicating keywors, for example, learnspanishathome or learnspanishwithspaniards that sort of thing
Carl