EMD, how much are we talking about?

[Reyone]

Hello BHWers,

My question today is regarding EMDs. As far as i've read, big G is not in the mood for EMDs, meaning that if you are ranking for a kw and you have the kw as your title, you'll have it harder to rank or something.

Could someone verify if this is true?

I also want to ask, when you say Exact Match Domain, how much of an exact match are we talking about? For example, if we are ranking the kw FIREWORK, would the domain FIREWORKER.com be considered as an EMD for containing the kw within the name?

Thanks in advance!

 

[politico]

I've heard some people say that they are still ranking strong with EMDs, I have a EMD that got hit pretty hard and won't rank anymore. And I've also got a partial EMD that I'm having a hard time with

As far as I know, EMD means the exact keyword as the domain name. Partial EMD would be a keyword with extra words/letters. Just my thoughts

 

[Oukast]

Could someone verify if this is true?

No, it's not any harder to rank EMD than any other domain (ccTLD's put aside). And because you have not grasped the basic principle behind EMD "penalty", let me clear it for you: Google used to give extra boost in rankings if the keyword matched the domain name (thus the name Exact Match Domain), but that - while still a bit controversial - is not the thing anymore.

Yet, EMD's are still popular, as they should be, because they're very straight to the point and brandable. But not any requirement to rank #1 for a keyword, and definitely not making it any harder to rank.

Anyone saying that their EMD sites got hit hard, are just saying they didn't make good enough sites, and that crappy content was slashed by some black/white cyberspace animal.

 

[Reyone]

No, it's not any harder to rank EMD than any other domain (ccTLD's put aside). And because you have not grasped the basic principle behind EMD "penalty", let me clear it for you: Google used to give extra boost in rankings if the keyword matched the domain name (thus the name Exact Match Domain), but that - while still a bit controversial - is not the thing anymore.

Yet, EMD's are still popular, as they should be, because they're very straight to the point and brandable. But not any requirement to rank #1 for a keyword, and definitely not making it any harder to rank.

Anyone saying that their EMD sites got hit hard, are just saying they didn't make good enough sites, and that crappy content was slashed by some black/white cyberspace animal.

I think your explanation could not get any better =)
Thanks a lot!

 

[The SEO]

No, it's not any harder to rank EMD than any other domain (ccTLD's put aside). And because you have not grasped the basic principle behind EMD "penalty", let me clear it for you: Google used to give extra boost in rankings if the keyword matched the domain name (thus the name Exact Match Domain), but that - while still a bit controversial - is not the thing anymore.

Yet, EMD's are still popular, as they should be, because they're very straight to the point and brandable. But not any requirement to rank #1 for a keyword, and definitely not making it any harder to rank.

Anyone saying that their EMD sites got hit hard, are just saying they didn't make good enough sites, and that crappy content was slashed by some black/white cyberspace animal.

Great!!!
Thanks a lot for this wonderful reply...

 

[davids355]

Personally I wouldn't bother buying an EMD any more.

My tactic now is building a more authoritative site around the niche / keyword I'm targeting, also targeting more subpages rather than homepage.

This is working much better for me at the moment.

 

[SnowWar]

I also heard people talking about it and I think this is not a bluff.

 

[qrazy]

Earlier until the G's update EMDs had the advantage of ranking it easy in SERP. But after the update this advantage is minimized/neutralized but doesn't mean that it's hard to rank EMDs as long as you have good content and authority links.

 

[Oukast]

Personally I wouldn't bother buying an EMD any more.

Each on their own - there's no right or wrong way here, but having that black and white outlook is not really good. EMD might still in many cases be the best option especially visitor-wise, but I'd also go for something else if the only way to get "EMD" would be adding dashes or similar stuff.