What do you think about exact domains?

[Frankkk]

Hi BHW friends,

I would like to talk about EMD or Exact Match Domain and serps as for example, "hotel in Madrid". If the domain was called "hotelinmadrid.com" this is better for SEO?

I had several experiences about this and, in my opinion, google no longer gives importance to the keys in the domain but I would like to know what is your experience, your opinion etc...

Thank you,

 

[cursedbrain]

That is correct. EMD's don't work anymore. However, they don't hurt your rankings either, so having an EMD is much better as people can remember the name easier.

 

[MisterF]

I use EMDs quite often and I love it when people tell you not to do so.

It's as easy to rank a relevant EMD as it is a generic / brand name, in my opinion.
Don't be afraid to use EMDs.

 

[scnonah]

I use EMDs quite often and I love it when people tell you not to do so.

It's as easy to rank a relevant EMD as it is a generic / brand name, in my opinion.
Don't be afraid to use EMDs.

I agree, I bought an EMD last week and it was in top 30 with zero SEO done in just a few days.

 

[whiteblackseo]

I'd rather use a brand domain so I can go big, as EMDs are usually only used for small niche sites.

 

[Nargil]

Not fan of EMDs, especially newbies should be fairly careful with those for 2 reasons:

1. Most EMDs were already registered and used as affiliate sites in the past. Meaning, that they could very well be manually penalized. Seen this happen to way to many people.
2. You can overoptimize yourself with anchors and densities. You already have your main keyword in URL on every single page basically, which is nothing to be too happy about.

Bottom line, the benefits of EMDs are close to none and risks involved are pretty high. Going with expired domain for example would be much more effective.

 

[bartosimpsonio]

They're working great after the "Fred" update.

I'm amazed at how far back Google rolled their rules this time : EMD's with exact match anchors are working.

How long before the first "miserable failure" Google bombs resurface?

 

[W9go]

i like EMDs as well .... they are good if yu take care not to overoptimism them.

 

[stevesolo]

google no longer gives importance to the keys in the domain but I would like to know what is your experience

Exact match domains are no longer useful as once they were. Instead of targeting EMDs, you can go for Partial match domains.

 

[DKolen]

I`d say it won`t impress Google, but there`s nothing harmful about it either, so you can go for it. However, I would personally go with the branded domain still, especially if it`s catchy, as this can be more beneficial in the long run (for brand awareness in the first place). The keywords would look better in URLs and titles, as for me.

 

[seo_seo_seo]

I have 5 sites with EMDs and they are all live and active and work pretty well.

 

[validseo]

Here is some data that is fresh as of this morning... Looking at the top 100 results for the search term "dui lawyer los angeles". I picked this term because the competition is fierce and CPC is usually in the $50-$200 per click range so any improvement even on pages 2+ can mean big dollars to these websites.

First thing to note is google considers all of the follow relevant matches. We know this because google makes them bold in the SERPs to call them out as relevant matches to your search terms:

• angeles
• attorney
• attorneyduilosangeles
• attorneylosangeles
• attorneys
• drunk driving
• drunk driving attorneys
• drunk-driving
• drunkdriving
• drunkdrivinglawyer
• dui
• dui attorney
• dui attorney los angeles
• dui attorneys
• dui lawyer
• dui lawyer los angeles
• dui lawyers
• dui los angeles
• duiattorneys
• duiattorney
• duilawyer
• duilawyerlosangeles
• duilawyerslosangeles
• dwi
• dwi attorneys
• dwi lawyer
• dwi lawyers
• law
• lawyer
• lawyer los angeles
• lawyers
• los
• los angeles
• los angeles dui
• los angeles dui attorney
• los angeles dui attorneys
• los angeles dui law
• los angeles dui lawyer
• los angeles dui lawyers
• losangeles
• losangelesduiattorney
• losangelesduilawyer

Exact matches still appear to work and at a minimum Google isn't punishing them. What seems to correlate stronger is just matches in general (see list above). Here are the top host names in the SERPs:

Here are the graphs for the URL and domain related things:

A lot of other things correlated too!

 

[escobart]

I like to buy emd domain for small niche site. For long term its better to focus on catchy domain for branding

 

[MikeyMikey13]

They're working great after the "Fred" update.

I'm amazed at how far back Google rolled their rules this time : EMD's with exact match anchors are working.

How long before the first "miserable failure" Google bombs resurface?

With EMD, do you use brand/url too? Most my links to my EMD's are Exact-match.com or exact-match - I haven't even bothered actually adding the exact match anchor yet with some

 

[bartosimpsonio]

With EMD, do you use brand/url too? Most my links to my EMD's are Exact-match.com or exact-match - I haven't even bothered actually adding the exact match anchor yet with some

Well Google does penalize exact anchor abuse...but from these current serps a lot of valuable kw's top spots are ranked by exactly bombing the exact match anchor....so maybe this update ain't finished yet and there are still filters to come.

 

[ThopHayt]

Not fan of EMDs, especially newbies should be fairly careful with those for 2 reasons:

1. Most EMDs were already registered and used as affiliate sites in the past. Meaning, that they could very well be manually penalized. Seen this happen to way to many people.
2. You can overoptimize yourself with anchors and densities. You already have your main keyword in URL on every single page basically, which is nothing to be too happy about.

Bottom line, the benefits of EMDs are close to none and risks involved are pretty high. Going with expired domain for example would be much more effective.

This is good advice. Always look at the history of an EMD with the WayBackMachine and check the links. People went nuts with EMD's a few years back and many of them have spammy histories or have been link spammed.

Outside that, I personally DO like the name recognition of an EMD if the name makes sense. Just check it good.

-ThopHayt

 

[darulez]

boah, I hate this "correlation shit"...

honestly. building a brand? no EMD.
everything else? no EMD.

all EMDs of my past piss me off.
and so will you, if you use them in future.

else, read posts from @Nargil . he wrote enough about this.

and I am sure phpbuilt wrot more than I am lazy myself to about the issues you WILL face with overopti.

 

[SMM_shop]

I like to buy emd domain for small niche site. For long term its better to focus on catchy domain for branding

I agree. I have several sites with EMD.
If you have small niche site, EMD is better for SEO.
But if you want to make big sites you need to use short domain.

 

[bignose]

EMD still work. But not to the same degree as 5 years ago. And probably not for brand money sites.

 

[Deleted member 813988]

I love EMD's and got some great results on some of them.