Domain Names: Branding Versus Keywords

TechnoTycoon

TechnoTycoon

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Google's Search Relations team plans to update their SEO Starter Guide, focusing on debunking myths and modernizing advice.

The recommendation is to prioritize branding over keywords when selecting a domain name, reflecting a trend towards brand-centric SEO strategies.

From my personal experience I have seen some websites ranks well in Bing but google completely wiped out EMD from the SERP.

What is your thought on this?
 
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I think you should go with branding today, sure if you can get an emd like Great.com that also has a good branding and emd value on top it is better. Just my opinions.
 
I actually betting for branding names and in the best of cases if possible, can try to have the keyword in the domain name, and make a invented variation from it.
 
I like to pair adjectives with a keyword to create a brand name. Ideally I am looking for an adjective that is a property of the keyword so

Active Coffee

Active has a feeling of energy and people drink coffee for energy.
 
I think having a balance between brand name and keyword might be the best appraoch. Because you still want your domain name to be such that your target customer can get a rough idea of what your website is about from the name.
 
It's all based on branding, user experience and site quality. SEO is getting updated trends every second and you need to adopt to it as per your website needs.
 
Branding always wins over EMD. There are a few topics where branding is not taken into account due to the grayness of the topic, EMD can be used there, but in other topics branding always wins. This has been confirmed in many dozens of tests we've run.

And all because Google has an algorithm that adds exactly the link weight to the brand text on the page. That is, you mention a brand in the text on the site, and this word is counted as a link anchor. That's how Google has an algorithm, but there is no such algorithm for EMD.
 
I hardly see any EMD ranking on top google search results. In fact, if we see top blogs ranking, it is almost 90% chance that it is an authority blog.
 
I have a short 7 letter domain name (branding) and a domain with my first and last name. (personal)
My shorter domain like example Jsmith.com a more branding name, was indexed within five day without doing any things in google webmaster console, have in mind my website is not finished yet with design !

Then I bought a second domain with my name first + last name like johnsmith last year octobre, when I type in my name nothing comes up in google. The first shorter branding domain is still indexed, I'm baffled.

jsmith a more branding type of domain name, johnsmith would be a more personal type of domain name looks more unique.
It looks like google favors shorter branding names ? What's your experience with this situation?
 
Heck my website with a short 7 loetter brand name is not finished yet, has now 4 category pages and when I type my name in google (brand intent search) it shows multiple serp listings I'm baffled. I not have submit my site to the google console now.
For me that's a good sign! And it shows me that google likes short brand name domains.
Now I try to find out how to get a knowlege graph, many people her enot know that all the big sites who dominating google seo uses knowledge graph topics!

Have a nice day and stay strong guys!
 
Both can work well, it all depends on your niche and your goals with this website...some niches may work better with an exact domain match compatible with a specific keyword
 
Spicy Chromosomes said:
Both can work well, it all depends on your niche and your goals with this website...some niches may work better with an exact domain match compatible with a specific keyword
Click to expand...
Sorry for my typing errors ....my fingers are too big. hahahaha....
Yeah it sounds google likes short catchy brand domain names and when it shows now were my site is not finished yet, multiple serp listings that's a good sign for me, I think I be on the right track with that "site structure"
It's fascinating for me to study the site structure of big sites who dominate google.

Their site structure is way beyond the normal wordpress silo model. But not so easy to create it with free wordpress cms.
And when these big sites dominating seo with knowledge graph topics then no wonder, that google sends them traffic to related topics keywords , they conquered with many affiliate niches today. Use not so overrated entities in your website at best in random niches. Bis sites not conqueres service sites or random niches.
 
TechnoTycoon said:
Google's Search Relations team plans to update their SEO Starter Guide, focusing on debunking myths and modernizing advice.

The recommendation is to prioritize branding over keywords when selecting a domain name, reflecting a trend towards brand-centric SEO strategies.

From my personal experience I have seen some websites ranks well in Bing but google completely wiped out EMD from the SERP.

What is your thought on this?
Click to expand...
Google is prioritizing brand authority over exact-match domains (EMDs), making branding more critical, while Bing still values EMDs for relevance.
 
Have a combination of both , domain is something you cannot keep changing. You have to stick with same for long time so give give good efforts in selection.
 
As I said, Google has not focused on its 2025 renewal yet, especially in Maps and Google Search. As I said, Google is no longer focusing on keywords more than it is focusing on branded keywords.
 
Johane said:
As I said, Google has not focused on its 2025 renewal yet, especially in Maps and Google Search. As I said, Google is no longer focusing on keywords more than it is focusing on branded keywords.
Click to expand...
Topical knowledge graph topics are conquered by the big sites/media sites who are dominating google. There is a reason for this! But we can't do a knowledge graph topics search- why? Is it forbidden by google? I think there is an API, with this you can do knowledge graph search (I'm not sure now) google preferr entities........so create your own entities (be a category king/topic king) or use not so oversaturrated entities for seo ranking.,

Happy Weekend dear people !
 
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