omain names as I have been buying and selling domain names for over 8 years. For as long as I can remember domain names and SEO have pretty much gone hand in hand with SEO, as does web development with SEO. I found and interesting discussion a Sydney based web developer and Domain name seller by the name of Scott Nugent had engaged in. Basically Nugent had been calling up numerous end users who were Digital Marketing Managers to say that he has some domains for sale related to their business. A quote from Nugent below about his calls:
Out of the 8 I called, 3 of them all said the same thing: “I’ve been told exact match domains have zero value these days because Google penalizes you so I wouldn’t be interested”.
Now to further this quote from the end users, I also saw a very well known SEO company in the australian market put out this statement on Linkedin yesterday
Now that Google no longer gives you an SEO boost for exact match domains, what are the best ways to choose your new domain name?
Now these two quotes from various groups of individuals in the online marketing world has kind of baffled me, from some one who has been working in digital market I highly disagree that Exact Match Domains weight in search engines has been totally wiped out, I think a better statement to make is: Exact Match domains are still worth while if you create a quality site from them with good quality content and a decent link profile to match.
I will show below with some live examples of exact match domains still ranking well, whilst these domains are examples of quality exact match domains it is still evident their is a slight boost in these ranks for the EDM, I mean if you have a branded exact match domain people will naturally link to the website using the match link anchor text for the given keyword!
A quick search in the Australian market I can find several examples of EMD (Exact Match Domains Ranking)
1. Do a search for “Car Sales” and see carsales.com.au (current rank 1st position.)
Note from keyword: Whilst Car Sales is a very well known brand running on an EDM, it can be said that Drive has a stronger link profile yet it ranks in second position.
2. Do a search for “Credit Cards” and see creditcards.com.au (Current Rank 3rd position)
Note from keyword: Competitors such as Credit Card Finder rank lower but the important point is that Credit Cards the exact match domain still ranks strongly.
3. Do a search for “Lawyers” and see Lawyers.com.au (Current Rank 2nd position)
Note from keyword: Competitor which is branded and has a strong link profile such as Slater & Gordan is out ranked by the EDM.
4. Do a search for “personal loans” see personalloans.com.au (Current Rank – 1st position)
Note from keyword: Outranks strong competitors, domain authority is lower, competing banks not currently out ranking for the term.
5. Do a search for “loans” and see loans.com.au (Current Rank – 5th position)
Note from keyword: competitors such as yes loans have a stronger link profile yet loans.com.au still ranks higher.
6. Do a search for “Leather Jackets” and see the partial exact match domain leatherjacketshop.com.au (currently in 1st position)
Note from keyword: Competitors such as Viparo have a stronger link profile yet leatherjacketshop.com.au still ranks higher with the partial exact match domain, even looking at Viparo’s link profile you can see they have been targeting leather jackets heavily.
7. Do a search for “Jobs” and see the exact match domain Jobs.com.au (currently in 2nd position)
Note from keyword: From looking at the serps, it is evident that some of the government websites are very strong yet the EDM domain jobs.com.au is still ranking in 2nd position.
Another point to back up Exact Match Domains:
Now from my recent interview with Andre Weyher the Google search employee he provided the following insight into Exact Match Domains:
Choose your domain name wisely, having a good URL can give you a head start in the race. Good domains are still expensive and for a good reason.
Now you can take an educated guess from the statement about and the facts on hand and see that “Good Domains” usually means Exact Match Domains in high competition markets.
Now what can we say about the above research?
– Looking at keywords such as “Loans” and “Personal Loans” and “Jobs” in the Australia market it is evident that the EDM (Exact Match Domains) has some authority still in the ranks, the point is low quality EDM domains have been targeted after the last update. If you have a exact match domain I feel it is still worth investing in it but make sure that you have quality content related to the domain and build a quality link profile behind the domain.
Can Online Marketers please not make silly comments that Exact Match Domains now have no authority or benefit what so ever, it is clearly not true.
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