Exact Match domains and SEO very interesting

[James]

Hi all,

I see a few people on this forum seem to rely highly on exact match domains, I mean the Australian market is very slow in comparison to the US market, basically alot of websites are reporting on this trend and I have been testing this within about 20 verticals in the US for exact match domains, I see that currently the exact match domain power is slowly been phased out..I think what people need to do is focus on many different areas of SEO and not just rely on the exact match factors of the domain.

Check out this post -

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/exact-match-domains-are-far-too-powerful-is-their-time-limited


So yeah possibly it is time to re thing strategies? Or will you be keeping your old strategy.

 

[DavidL]

Nice find, James. Always good info from SEOmoz.

One thing he doesn't go into is CTR. Exact match domains deliver a big uptick in CTR which is very important for ranking. Would Google dampen their importance on CTR to address this? Or would they just put a dampner across all exact match domains to compensate?

Personally I don't think they need to act. Almost be definition, exacty match domains are likely to provide content that is extremely relevant to the searcher.

 

[James]

Nice find, James. Always good info from SEOmoz.

One thing he doesn't go into is CTR. Exact match domains deliver a big uptick in CTR which is very important for ranking. Would Google dampen their importance on CTR to address this? Or would they just put a dampner across all exact match domains to compensate?

Personally I don't think they need to act. Almost be definition, exacty match domains are likely to provide content that is extremely relevant to the searcher.

CTR is a important factor for Paid search yes, but for organic search I think it is just one of the 200+ SEO metrics you need to look at..

Sure I think CTR and bounce rate in analytic do prop up on Googles radar if you site is doing crazy bounce rates then they know something is going on.

But yeah SEO Moz is great I have had a few of my publications posted on their blog in the past =)

 

[Chris.C]

Interestingly, some of the more experienced, ear-to-the-ground SEO types indicated that they'd heard (or believed) that Google would soon be taking action against exact match domains. One person, who wasn't at the event, but whom I trust a great deal (and will remain anonymous) indicated they thought the next 6 months would bring about this shift.

Run for the exits people...

 

[James]

Run for the exits people...

Like I said this may take some time to hit the Australian market...Months, years maybe? Don't mind just thought it was an interesting article worth sharing on this forum =) I have 100s to articles like this =)

It is like Google product search, hits several markets overseas and no fixed date for an AU release.

 

[WG2010]

Interesting article but nothing of concern if you're running a trusted and established site which most exact match domains are due to their age.

 

[Chris.C]

Oh don't get me wrong - I wasn't panicking. My strategy doesn't rely solely on exact match. Most of the time these days I don't even look at exact matches of a keyword when looking to buy a domain, I value domains based on phrase match more, because being in the development game phrase match lets me know what other keyword phrases I can chase using SEO.

The exact match bonus is nice leg up when starting a site (ie it's always nice to see a bit of traffic trickle through as soon as you throw something up) but like all good systems, the inefficiencies are weeded out with time, so this is bad news for long tail domainers in the long run.

But hey, it just gives us all more incentive to make hay while the sun is still shining.

*puts on his hat and sunnies and gets back to work*

 

[DomainNames]

I'll stick to my 1 and 2 word generics anyday over longer purely seo based names

I cant remember the last time I went to a site like australianaccountingjobs.com.au etc instead of just jobs.com.au or sydneyaustraliarealestate.com.au instead of just realestate.com.au Also a biog hard to advertise and brand the longer names isnt it?

If its just seo and you cant get the better names then go for it and register the longer ones.. If you can afford it always buy the shorter better ones if you later want to sell them or the business you built that name on.

 

[snoopy]

CTR is a important factor for Paid search yes, but for organic search I think it is just one of the 200+ SEO metrics you need to look at..

CTR is more than a metric for determining a ranking, it is traffic. I think what netfleet is mainly talking about is having a domain in the organic listings that is likely to encourage people to click because the site looks to exactly satisfy what they are looking for.

 

[snoopy]

There is some great graphs/data in the report for anyone looking for material to help sell domains.

 

[James]

CTR is more than a metric for determining a ranking, it is traffic. I think what netfleet is mainly talking about is having a domain in the organic listings that is likely to encourage people to click because the site looks to exactly satisfy what they are looking for.

How can Google even determine if a company is not using Webmaster tools and is not using Google analytic.

For example is using Omniture and other programs, because most big brands dont even use Google Analytic, I have worked on several big brands yet they all rank well.....dont get me wrong CTR is a factor but it has not been confirmed by Google as yet the only search engine to confirm CTR as a ranking factor is Bing so CTR is still up in the air it is only based on SEO's best judgment.

 

[DavidL]

How can Google even determine if a company is not using Webmaster tools and is not using Google analytic.

For example is using Omniture and other programs, because most big brands dont even use Google Analytic, I have worked on several big brands yet they all rank well.....dont get me wrong CTR is a factor but it has not been confirmed by Google as yet the only search engine to confirm CTR as a ranking factor is Bing so CTR is still up in the air it is only based on SEO's best judgment.

As with all ranking factors it's very hard to say definitively. However I am almost certain that CTR does play a major role in Googles ranking algo. This is based on two main things:

1) it would make sense to do so. You deliver results to users that they are more likely to click on (and CTR is the most important factor in Adwords Quality Score - the paid equivalent of the organic ranking algo)
2) my own experience. I have some exact match domains that seem to take a while to get to the top 10 or top 5 then seem to get a quick boost to the number 1 spot.

 

[FirstPageResults]

How can Google even determine if a company is not using Webmaster tools and is not using Google analytic.

Why would they need either of those tools to track CTR data on their own SERPs?

They know how many times the search term is queried, where a site ranks.. how many impressions it gets for the keyword/s and they know how many referrals they are sending to the site.

 

[James]

Why would they need either of those tools to track CTR data on their own SERPs?

They know how many times the search term is queried, where a site ranks.. how many impressions it gets for the keyword/s and they know how many referrals they are sending to the site.

But any one can influence CTR on organic by using a good Call to action, what I am referring to is if you are using analytic and you have a crazy high bounce rate?

 

[soj]

Bounce rates are pretty useless. Yes you do want people going to more than just one page of your website, but just because they only looked at the page they landed on doesn't mean the content wasn't relevant. Google is all about relevance, not about how likely a person is to click on other pages of a site.

 

[James]

To be honest we could go on for ever about this, I agree CTR is probably a factor but it is not that high in my book, the main point of this thread is to discuss exact match domains and SEO.

 

[DavidL]

Bounce rates are pretty useless. Yes you do want people going to more than just one page of your website, but just because they only looked at the page they landed on doesn't mean the content wasn't relevant...

Very true - I have a particular page that has a really high bounce rate but I think that's because it delivers the information people want so they don't go any further- they tend to stay on that page for a long time.

I expect Google considers bounce rates (both in organic search and Adwords QS) in conjunction with time spent on the page:

Bounce rate 90% average time on page 5 secs = Bad
Bounce rate 90% average time on page 50 secs = Good

 

[snoopy]

Bounce rate 90% average time on page 5 secs = Bad
Bounce rate 90% average time on page 50 secs = Good

I don't follow this, if the bounce rate is 90% because they are getting what they want so what is the relevance of the time spent on page metric? Google won't have any data for the 90% so it will get report as 0 seconds will it not? The time spent on page metric will be data for the other 10% who visited more than one page.

 

[snoopy]

To be honest we could go on for ever about this, I agree CTR is probably a factor but it is not that high in my book, the main point of this thread is to discuss exact match domains and SEO.

You seem to focusing on CTR as a measure google might use. Personally I 'm saying it is important in terms of people clicking through (as opposed to google using it for ranking). In my view it is key point in favour of exact match domains because I think exact match domains receive higher ctr's from web surfers.

 

[DavidL]

I don't follow this, if the bounce rate is 90% because they are getting what they want so what is the relevance of the time spent on page metric? Google won't have any data for the 90% so it will get report as 0 seconds will it not? The time spent on page metric will be data for the other 10% who visited more than one page.

A page's bounce rate of 90% means 90% of people entered and then exited the website without going to another page, right?

What I am saying that if they hit back within 5 seconds, it's unlikely they've gotten any satisfaction from that page.

If they stay on the page for 2 minutes and then hit back, you'd figure they found something worthwhile before moving on to something else.

The example page I was thinking about is this one-

http://www.privatefleet.com.au/links-and-resources/crash-tests-car-safety/car-stamp-duty/

Rather wordy but people stay on that page for quite a while before leaving the site - presumably reading the info and playing with the calculator.

So, it's likely Google recognises this and gives the page a tick