There's a keyword phrase I want to target and I want to have a domain name that is optimized for it. But the word ends in "ing". So it's not so catchy. If the keyword I was targeting for is for example "seo linking". But I would like to have just "seo link" in my domain. Would it be better to have the "ing" or is it the same? Thanks
Not for Google. Each word is treated differently. Like "cup" and "cups". On Google a single word is a target for a searcher and plural and singular words are looked at differently by the algorithm . It would be the same with your example. The "ing" extension would possibly get a different group of searches, so Google would treat it differently if the word did not have the extension. Now Yahoo and MSN (Bing), on the other hand don't make the same distinction. A search term is a search term to them, so you you might not rank well in Google, but it may be a different story with the other two.
Exact name domains are not always best as google now wants people to project there brand rather than just keyword stuffing a domain name, for the sake of getting a keyword in there..
If your brand name ends with ing, use it in your domain. As mentioned above, keyword stuffing isn't effective at all, it would do more harm than good, and EMD's are far less than what they were. I found it a lot easier optimizing for a unique brand than anything else that has competition.
