Does it matter where your keyword appears in url?

[tygrus]

Someone here once said that if you do not have a keyworded domain (i.e. just a generic name), and just have a keyworded posting, then the closer that keyworded posting is to the domain in the url, the better it is for SEO. Any truth to this?

 

[bobbylove321]

You absolutely MUST have the keywords in the domain, and no extra words or else you will have 10x more challenges.

I created a website 9 months ago with a random domain, and now it is ranking very good for competitive competition (Hip Hop Industry keywords).

I had to build 65,000 backlinks!!! My competitors only have 20k backlinks and they are ranking next to my site, and they have the keywords in their domains.

If I had to do it again I would DEFINITELY have targeted the keywords in my domain.

So if your keyword is "Make Money Online", then you MUST use the domain makemoneyonline.com or makemoneyonline.org or makemoneyonline.net

From experience, I'd say .org ranks better than a .com since it's for "organizations" and not "commercial" purposes.

 

[thinkinghat]

You absolutely MUST have the keywords in the domain, and no extra words or else you will have 10x more challenges.

I created a website 9 months ago with a random domain, and now it is ranking very good for competitive competition (Hip Hop Industry keywords).

I had to build 65,000 backlinks!!! My competitors only have 20k backlinks and they are ranking next to my site, and they have the keywords in their domains.

If I had to do it again I would DEFINITELY have targeted the keywords in my domain.

So if your keyword is "Make Money Online", then you MUST use the domain makemoneyonline.com or makemoneyonline.org or makemoneyonline.net

From experience, I'd say .org ranks better than a .com since it's for "organizations" and not "commercial" purposes.

oh come on,its not "must" to have kw in domain,though its a very good thing.definitely things are comparably simpler than non kw domain,but many other factors also matters.mainly the quality of your links.your competitor might have better link quality than yours.just having kw domain wont make you look "the one" in google's eye.

 

[bobbylove321]

thinkinghat,

I've competed and outranked many well known websites for keywords with 100,000,000+ (100 Million) competition WITHOUT having the keywords in my domain, but it took several months and a lot of work, not to mention 65,000 backlinks!

If I had the keywords in my domain I could have done it within half the time and a third of the backlinks needed.

 

[aftershock2020]

thinkinghat,

I've competed and outranked many well known websites for keywords with 100,000,000+ (100 Million) competition WITHOUT having the keywords in my domain, but it took several months and a lot of work, not to mention 65,000 backlinks!

If I had the keywords in my domain I could have done it within half the time and a third of the backlinks needed.

That's not absolutely the case, bobby. Proof that having good traffic driven keywords and relevant targeted content comes in every form of site imaginable without one keyword in their domain sake. Here are a few examples:

Google, Ebay, Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Yahoo, Bing, Ask, Amazon, Zappos, Target, Wal-Mart, NetFlix, Blockbuster.


Just to name a few there and all of them have primary keywords NOT listed in their domain names at all. They are sites that operate with a short list of ' related ', targeted keywords that are rich in traffic, provide relevant products/services to that traffic and provide the most relevant and productive content for the search engines, which just happens to be user-driven content in most cases; google, ebay, digg, facebook, bing, yahoo, ask, to be specific on those who do from the short list of respected sites above.

The rest are simple product/service sites that promote the more traditional method of ' We've got it when you need it ', brick and morter practices.

None of which required having their keyword in their domain to succeed in seo or in business ranking. Try to keep an openmind about things, as locking yourself into one mindset can block you from seeing that inwhich will show you how to succeed the best in your ventures.

Food for thought.

 

[DebbieSprules]

I like that last post.

I have a top 3 site with no keywords in title. The number 1 spot is a KW based and THAT KW url. But I am only 3rd down!!!!!!!!

If you owned Datingsite.com you still would have a F^&& lot of problems getting to the top. Look at Match.com or other dating sites, they seldom have any keywords in the title and do very well...

 

[aftershock2020]

I like that last post.

I have a top 3 site with no keywords in title. The number 1 spot is a KW based and THAT KW url. But I am only 3rd down!!!!!!!!

If you owned Datingsite.com you still would have a F^&& lot of problems getting to the top. Look at Match.com or other dating sites, they seldom have any keywords in the title and do very well...

Thanks for the kind words, Debbie.

The primary reason is all stated in that last post as to how and why it works. It is all about the keywords have traffic and the site content being relevant and solid enough to provide the visitor and the search engines both what they want. Anyone having trouble with this issue should consider evaluating their current seo practices and open their minds to reaching for a different method. Afterall, the definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing and expect a different resulting outcome.

 

[Bubsgonzola]

You originally asked about the order, if I understand correctly. I have wondered this as well, then. So assuming you have the exact keywords, does it matter if they are in a different order (longtail) and sort of make a "broad" match?

It is also difficult to get the exact keyword domain. I don't think the addition of a simple word like blog at the end would make a big fuss.

 

[tygrus]

bobby, I know the keyworded domain is helpful, but I don't believe its a must have. Lots of article sites rank high and they do not have keyworded domains. But the question is if the keyword shows up way way down the in the url, does that make things even worse.

 

[ipopbb]

You absolutely MUST have the keywords in the domain, and no extra words or else you will have 10x more challenges.

I created a website 9 months ago with a random domain, and now it is ranking very good for competitive competition (Hip Hop Industry keywords).

I had to build 65,000 backlinks!!! My competitors only have 20k backlinks and they are ranking next to my site, and they have the keywords in their domains.

If I had to do it again I would DEFINITELY have targeted the keywords in my domain.

So if your keyword is "Make Money Online", then you MUST use the domain makemoneyonline.com or makemoneyonline.org or makemoneyonline.net

From experience, I'd say .org ranks better than a .com since it's for "organizations" and not "commercial" purposes.

My data and experiences aren't so strict... from best to worse:

Keywords in

1. domain
2. hostname
3. document
4. path
5. parameters
6. anchor text

I do have a small amount of recent data that suggests document has slipped in weight, but I don't know my how much. To my knowledge all have benefit but there are upper bounds for number of times keywords can appear in various entities. For example a page title can have no more than 4 matches in it. Go ahead and try to find one in the top 100 with words like games etc.
URLs have a limit too... I forget what it is... but its in my other thread "More data from the SEO lab". The data also strongly suggests that multiple matches in certain place is no more effective than 1. You can see it all in the charts if you like.

 

[aftershock2020]

You originally asked about the order, if I understand correctly. I have wondered this as well, then. So assuming you have the exact keywords, does it matter if they are in a different order (longtail) and sort of make a "broad" match?

It is also difficult to get the exact keyword domain. I don't think the addition of a simple word like blog at the end would make a big fuss.

Well, here is how it works...

You have two types of keywords.

* general niche market - cars, globes, jewelry, ebay...etc.

These are the primary keywords that cover ALL mentioned of the keyword in the more customized, personalized ' longtail ' keyword, which I call...

* targeted niche market - specifically listing longtail search phrase, such as Car painters in Scotland, unique crystal jewelry dealers...etc.


It ABSOLUTELY matters how you list them. You have to put the specifics first, as the order they are crawled DOES hold leverage as to how they are ranked. Google spiders hold the order as the order of priority to you and what position you want the most rank for, hense why when you have 10 keywords in your tags, the first 3 always pull higher than the next and so on...as the keyword pulling mojo gets spread across the keywords you have in your tag list, only giving so much per kw, based on their position and content relevancy value onsite, which plays into this as a factor as well.

 

[GreyWolf]

...
I had to build 65,000 backlinks!!! My competitors only have 20k backlinks and they are ranking next to my site, and they have the keywords in their domains.
...

I'd bet there's many other factors different between your sites than just having keywords in the domain name. I'd even bet the keyword in their domain name is the least relevant reason for them ranking higher.

• They may have better onsite seo for a lot more factors than just the domain name.
  
  They also might have better offsite seo.
  Out of that 200k backlinks -
• They may have a much higher rate of relevant sites they're backlinking from.
• They may have a better ratio between the various types of sites they get backlinks from.
• They may have had a better order in which their backlinks appeared to google.
• They may be maintaining a much higher vistor rate for an extended length of time.
• They may have a much lower bounce rate for the visitors they get.
  
• Age of the domain can be an issue.
  
  And, that's just naming some of the factors that could be involved in making your 600k backlinks less effective than their 20k.

Unless I was setting up some microniche sites based on longtail keywords that I didn't even care about anyway, I think way too much emphasis is placed on having keywords in the name. It's definately a consideration, but the fact is; someone that knows what to do could rank a site called 1924newyorkyankees.com to be the top site for 'how to make money', and do it with even less backlinks than that site with the 20k.


I pick most of my domain names with brandability in mind, sometimes that means they include some keywords and sometimes they don't.

 

[ultimategamechain]

having your keyword in your domain is just one factor affecting your SE ranking. One of the factors meaning you can still work on other things where you can outwit your competitors. But personally I think its better if I got my keywords on my domain. Less work needed on other areas.

 

[chockomonkey]

wouldn't you put together your keyword hierarchy as such?:

unrelated.com (keyword1, keyword4, keyword7)
unrelated.com/keyword1 (keyword1, keyword2, keyword3)
unrelated.com/keyword4 (keyword4, keyword5, keyword6)
unrelated.com/keyword7 (keyword7, keyword8, keyword9)

implemented with the silo structure, coudln't this potentially give you 2 listings, as well as make sure that your keywords are in the url?

 

[ipopbb]

having your keyword in your domain is just one factor affecting your SE ranking. One of the factors meaning you can still work on other things where you can outwit your competitors. But personally I think its better if I got my keywords on my domain. Less work needed on other areas.

This can be quite powerful if you combine it with using full URLs for everything in your source. It ups your number of matches greatly which is part of seo.com's method for being number 1 for SEO.

 

[ipopbb]

wouldn't you put together your keyword hierarchy as such?:

unrelated.com (keyword1, keyword4, keyword7)
unrelated.com/keyword1 (keyword1, keyword2, keyword3)
unrelated.com/keyword4 (keyword4, keyword5, keyword6)
unrelated.com/keyword7 (keyword7, keyword8, keyword9)

implemented with the silo structure, coudln't this potentially give you 2 listings, as well as make sure that your keywords are in the url?

Yes... perfectly good approach. I do this quite a bit.

 

[aftershock2020]

Yes... perfectly good approach. I do this quite a bit.

Nothing wrong with that approach at all. It is still solid and works very well. I use silo constructs all the time to target specific pages, however, the thing is that it still falls under content relevancy of the keyword and the onsite page content. The order they are in still effect the pulling power and spider bot focus.

 

[tygrus]

I guess I am referring more to very huge sites, like article sites, that have categories.

for instance: unrelated.com/topcategory/subcategory/(keyword1)

 

[chockomonkey]

I guess I am referring more to very huge sites, like article sites, that have categories.

for instance: unrelated.com/topcategory/subcategory/(keyword1)

Well, that's what i was saying though... in my example, keyword1, keyword4, and keyword7 are all categories.

 

[tygrus]

but is something like: 'unrelated.com/topcategory/subcategory/(posting keyword1)' worse for SEO than 'unrelated.com/(posting keyword1)', or doesn't it make any difference?