Brandable Domains Better than EMD?

Hey guys,

I just wanted to get an "updated" answer to this question. If someone made a quality website with an EMD vs If someone made a quality website with brandable domain, which one will do better in terms on SEO?

I searched around but didn't see an updated answer. Most of the stuff were in 2012.

Exact Match Domains (EMD) are now a days looked upon as spammy including to visitors and Google. The reason is because it is targeting ONE keyword to manipulate the rankings whereas a brand-able domain may be more difficult to rank; however, it has the potential to stay for the long-term.

Example:

Your keyword "Space Gadgets".

Your domain could be SpaceGadgetGears.com or GadgetWorks.com , etc.

These are brand-able and with enough 500 word relevant articles and anchor / link diversification, you would rank.

PaperToy said:

Exact Match Domains (EMD) are now a days looked upon as spammy including to visitors and Google. The reason is because it is targeting ONE keyword to manipulate the rankings whereas a brand-able domain may be more difficult to rank; however, it has the potential to stay for the long-term.

Example:

Your keyword "Space Gadgets".

Your domain could be SpaceGadgetGears.com or GadgetWorks.com , etc.

These are brand-able and with enough 500 word relevant articles and anchor / link diversification, you would rank.

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Yeah, that's why I prefer branded domains nowadays. It also looks professional and you can even turn your niche site into something more of an authority site. I'd use EMD's for churn and burn sites, or websites whose image (online rep, etc. etc.) you don't care about. Just my $0.02

Branded are always better than EMD. You can be much more aggressive with your link building. NoHatSEO just wrote a good post about this. http://www.nohatseo.com/blog/the-complete-guide-to-google-on-page-optimization-in-2014/

It depends on the type of site you're building and why you're building it. Either can be better. Either can be the same. Either can be worse.

EMD is much better ...many brandable names and journeys gone with the wind after few months,or year

If you really want to know for yourself, test them both.

Of course there's lots of variables but if you create sites that should rank equally well without regard to the domain name, and then put one on an EMD and one on a brand, and eliminate as many variables as possible, you still won't have an answer.

After all...that's only two sites!

If you plan to build a site for long term and authority in your niche, then i would recommend you buy brand domain name.

It depends on your niche and content. I would build both and redirect to the winner after testing is concluded.

For some low competitive keywords EMD working great for me

I am hearing mixed signals right now. I think it will be better to go with a brand able domain now since if anything goes wrong the domain can be used for other things.

rockme12 said:

I am hearing mixed signals right now. I think it will be better to go with a brand able domain now since if anything goes wrong the domain can be used for other things.

Click to expand...

OK, here's the deal:

EMD can be great, if it's VERY specific to your niche. E.g. if you were to be selling dog food, then dogfood.com would be golden. Then of course, if you were targeting a longtail term like 'x brand dog food in x city', then getting an EMD just for that one COULD look spammy, yes. But IF it looks spammy or not depends on how you handle the site. I.e. if you actually make it into a useful, informative, engaging site that pertains to that exact topic, keep it updated etc, in other words make it a REAL site, then you could do well with it.

Brand domains can be harder to rank, initially. In terms of SEO, all other things being equal, an EMD beats a brand domain any day of the week. However, you CAN rank brand domains for a variety of keywords, if you give it some time. As I said, it may take longer, but over time it does turn into a brand. That being said, in order for it to actually turn into a brand, you need to keep it updated and provide useful content that makes people come back. If you only wanna slap on a few articles and rank for 'accident lawyers' then you're probably shit out of luck. That site will never turn into a brand and it will likely never rank for anything, other than the longest of long, long, long tail keywords.

What it comes down to is what your intention is, with the site. Do you wanna rank and bank, fast? Then EMD is the way to go. Do you wanna create an engaging, useful, informative, long-lasting site? Then a brand domain is the way to go.

What about a site for a real estate agent -

Would cityRealEstate(.)com or city(state abbreviation)RealEstate(.)com still be as good as it once was, or is too risky to use because of it being viewed as spammy? What would you suggest as a brandable type name?

This is one of those "well it depends" question.

If you are looking to make some sort of crappy disposable site for the short-run, then use an EMD.

If you are looking to build an authority site or are in it for the long haul, go with a brandable domain.

I'm also go with Brandable domain, but if you need bank fast then EMD if you wanna bank hard then Brandable.

how about EMD vs expiring domain? this would be a more interesting question