question SEO: Does Google Prefer Shorter Domains?

On URL Length: "As for url lengths. An url is not a domain."

Care to see how the domain name affects URL length?

Which is shorter?

https://domainname.com
https://longdomainname.com


http://taxi.com/path
http://xxxtaxi.com/path


https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/networking/urls/definition.html
https://www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/domain_name.html




On: "You keep referring to that infographic but you cannot use that as a source. It's outdated, Google adjusted their algorithm big time over the years."


As per backlinko: "I recently updated this entire list for 2019 " > https://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors


As per Google:

Best Practices
Use words in URLs

URLs with words that are relevant to your site's content and structure are friendlier for visitors navigating your site.

Avoid:

• Using lengthy URLs with unnecessary parameters and session IDs.
• Choosing generic page names like "page1.html".
• Using excessive keywords like "baseball-cards-baseball-cards-baseballcards.htm".

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7451184?hl=en


May I ask for your source please on "Google's adjusted algorithm" so we can ascertain that the said infographic lists Google ranking factors that are no longer applicable?

@NameDeck
Great post. You made some very good points, including about quality of content, which I agree with you 100%. A good domain on a site with bad content has no chance of high ranking. That being said, can we agree that a 20-character .biz domain will never outrank a 6 character .com domain on similar sites? I think we've established that this is linked to both human psychology (memory, trust, etc) and the knock-on effect of Google knowing CTR, and subsequently time on site, bounce, page views, etc, and adjusting results accordingly. For these reasons, I think domain length and TLD is indirectly an algorithmic ranking factor on Google.

@Anne L
Thanks for the link to updated SEO ranking factors, it has some very useful information.

I think premium domains would have an advantage in seo, because spammers wouldn't use such domains. Google learns from statistics, and if you use 3dw6eawr.tk would Google trust it: probably not.

Sales and url length does not have anything to do with SEO.

SasirekaS said:

Google has a simple answer: It does not differentiate based on what domain extension is used. However, Google prefers shorter and relevant web addresses over longer ones.Although search engines have no problem crawling or indexing either variant, for SEO-based reasons it's better to use static URLs rather than dynamic ones. The thing is, static URLs contain your keywords and are more user-friendly since one can figure out what the page is about just by looking at the static URL's name.

Click to expand...

Request: define and give examples of static vs dynamic. Thank you.

MTB said:

Thanks for your comment @comati - I do understand SEO, but it appears that for example shorter .com domains generally rank higher than longer .com domains. That could just be because they're more memorable and therefore more popular. I was just wondering if there's some specific part of Google's search algorithm that looks at domain length and TLD. It appears not.

Click to expand...

Even if the shorter domain was preferred by Google, things like content, popularity, backlinks, etc matter so much more that it wouldn't make much difference in practice. e.g. if xxxtaxis has better content and is more popular it would rank above taxis. If taxis had the better content then that would rank higher. The only way it would make a difference if the content, popularity, etc where pretty much identical, and that would be so rare that it's not really worth thinking about.

Paul 11 said:

Request: define and give examples of static vs dynamic. Thank you.

Click to expand...

This is from 2008, but Google sums it up perfectly:
https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2008/09/dynamic-urls-vs-static-urls.html

There are two algorithms in play here.

The Google algorithm which by itself does not (or is not supposed to ) differentiate between extensions and domain length.

And then there is the algorithm in people's brains which Does differentiate between extensions and domain length.

If all three domains in the OP's example show up on the first page of the results based only on doing great SEO and without any prejudice or bias to the extension or domain length by Google then the one that people find as having the most relevant, attractive, trustworthy, and to the point domain and URL is going to get clicked on and as they click more and more on a certain domain and URL that will make that domain and URL more credible in Google's eyes and thus increase its ranking.

In many cases people might prefer clicking on a famous brand or company over a category defining domain in that field, and so well known brands will get clicked on more even if they don't have the main keyword in their domain or even if they just use a three letter domain, but for the lesser known brands and companies it helps to have the main keyword included in the domain to give them some relevancy even if it makes the domain a little longer.

Disclaimer: This is just my personal understanding and perspective of this situation, I might be wrong in some of my assumptions.

There are many factors on seo google parameter, short domain useful for great branding , but aged domain with ton of trusted backlink is more valuable on google . One of the best step : buy short domain in .com and build strongest backlink , build good content , and never ending to promote everywhere , every time and follow all google guidelines

Relevancy is very important in SEO! But these days, you have to concentrate more on brand promotion than anything else....

You may see that big brand enters into the market, advertise on TV and other advertising mediums and their ranking gets higher.... the notable thing is they don't do much off-page SEO for brand.com/the-log-product-name-keyword/ but the inner pages also rank higher.

Coming to your question, xtaxis.com ranks high if the 'x' is a keyword that you aim for ranking!

Google has consistently said that they don't favor one particular domain over another and that you should just focus on quality content. We know this is not necessarily true and that they do factor domain criteria into search rank.

If I launched a brand new soda review website with the exact same content and marketing, which do you think would do better?

POP.com - a domain potentially worth $xxx,xxx

BestSodaReviews.com - a keyword heavy domain

SodaPop.xyz - a domain bought when it was on sale for 99 cents

hmm seo involves way more than the domain of any length size or quality.