Doman Name Question

[iramency]

Please bear with me but I have question. How much weight does the name of your domain give to your SEO or SERP rankings. Should this matter or is this nothing to do with your content. Here is what I mean, just an example question:

Example One:
Would a blog about barbecue fare better or worse if they had the word "barbecue" somewhere in their domain name . I notice lots of bbq people just use their company name but get SERP based on content.

Or let's say an artist, may use their name but talk about art all the time but still rank high in art, would it be feasible to get a domain redirect of an art site or just not worth the time?

So confused

 

[jcourtenay]

I'm not too sure, I think Yahoo takes this into account, but somehow I think Google take a look at the bigger picture before ranking a domain in the search results.

 

[M.Y]

many factors are used to determine ranking. the main ones include quality and quantity backlinks, relevant, fresh, and unique content. the domain name is also taken into consideration as it helps search engines determine the category of the site. however it is also possible to rank well with a non-descriptive domain.

the other benefit is that if a domain name matches a search query, the visitor is more likely to visit your site rather than a 'company name' they have not heard of.

 

[Domainace]

This is liking walking into a vegetarian convention and asking if a non-meat diet is healthier. Everybody here is biased, and you'd be better off asking this at an SEO forum.
That said, yes, domains do help your rankings in all search engines, including Google. How much they help depends on a lot of factors. With less competitive keywords, a matching domain can put you right at the top with almost no content or backlinks. I also believe that keywords help you move up faster than you would otherwise.
With very competitive keywords, the advantage of domains is more about memorability, an increased likelihood of being clicked, and authority/branding.

A keyword domain is not a requirement. It's just one of several tools you use to help your search rankings.

To use your example of an artist...let's say he paints watercolors of orchids sometimes. If he registered OrchidPaintings.com, according to GAKT, he would have a shot at attracting the 320 people each month who search for this exact term. Redirection wouldn't be the best route. A small website dedicated to his orchid paintings would be better, with a link to his main sales site.

Alternatively, he could just set up a subdomain for orchid paintings on his main site. That would work, too. Though I think it would be slightly less powerful than the domain in search rankings.

The question is, it worth it to get a domain that might put you at number one, as opposed to a subdomain that might fall a little short? That depends on how much he makes from selling a painting. If he makes $5K per sale, the even one extra sale would make the domain a good buy in most cases.

All this stuff changes all the time, but the domain does provide an SEO advantage. And often it's just that small extra edge that makes all the difference.

 

[thepurplecow]

Domains are a factor but SEO has much more weight overall. Consider almost any example of big companies which rank well in search engines but don't have the word they rank for in the domain. 'Cell phones' for example (even though mobile phones is the correct term :P) - one of the top ranking sites is www.letstalk.com; neither the word 'cell' nor the word 'phone' appears in the domain name.

That said, having a domain which contains the keyword for which you want to rank will give you a head-start.

 

[enlytend]

This is liking walking into a vegetarian convention and asking if a non-meat diet is healthier.

LOL!

(Taking off the domainer hat, putting on my SEO hat

It is still a powerful ranking factor, but it seems to be losing some influence. My own observations are that keyword domains aren't working quite the same magic these days (on a new site) that they did even a year or two ago.

This goes along with industry observatons, and bears out comments from a Google spokesperson a while back that they were planning to "dial back" on the power of domain names as a ranking factor. For details, check out the correlated data on the SEOMoz 2011 ranking factors page.

That said, it's only one of hundreds of ranking factors so there are a lot of other things that can compensate for a keywordless domain.