Is there keyword search affinity to domain names?

[sky]

I'm wondering, if I have a domain name like "GreenCar.com" (I don't, but let's say I did), would the name in and of itself give it an edge in showing up at the top of search results for "Green Car", or is the rank/positioning solely up to other factors like meta tags, content, backlinks, etc...?

 

[slickjay]

that's a question that I've been wondering for a time now... anybody know the answer?

 

[DotUSDomains]

The keywords in the name helps your rankings, just not enough on it's own to make much differance.

along with many mnay other factors,
i doubt just cause you Have/Had a good name you will rank highly,

greencar.com greencar.us greencar.net either or will have the same rankings, no matter what anyone tells you. the extension does not play a role, unless it's google.ph your tageting, have not tested this myself but pretty sure cctlds have some sort of headstart in there local countries, infact i'm 99.9% sure they do.

simple way to work it out,

go and check some keywords and see what comes top,

9 times out of 10 it wont be the keyword domain.

all about seo skills IMHO!

 

[TestCase]

As the saying goes, "Your mileage may very."

Each search engine has its own algorithm for deciding on positioning. For the most part, the domain name in and of its self will not result in automatic high ranking -- though it might if it is a topic with minimal results. I've had a few parked domains show up in the top 5 within a week of parking, but they were for very specific search terms with relatively small results.

Overall, the domain name can be a deciding factor but it's not necessarily the biggest factor if you are in a highly competitive/high results category.

(Rats! I see DUSD beat me to the punch while I was writing my response...)

 

[tetrapak]

Of course it wouldn't. If the competition is low you would have an easier job and even without proper SEO you could get to high pos, even be first. If it is a high paying niche with lots of competitors, then you can have the dot com, but you need serious development and constantly updating content to be first.

 

[sky]

As the saying goes, "Your mileage may very."

Each search engine has its own algorithm for deciding on positioning. For the most part, the domain name in and of its self will not result in automatic high ranking -- though it might if it is a topic with minimal results. I've had a few parked domains show up in the top 5 within a week of parking, but they were for very specific search terms with relatively small results.

Overall, the domain name can be a deciding factor but it's not necessarily the biggest factor if you are in a highly competitive/high results category.

(Rats! I see DUSD beat me to the punch while I was writing my response...)

OK, so this is the situation I'm in. I reg'd a name yesterday that estibot shows very very good keyword search and ad statistics for and it appraises very highly based on all of that. The product it represents is one that 5+ companies are competing the space for (high tech network gear).

When I search for the keyword specifically a lot of results come up, but they don't look like super-strong keyword specific, they look like amazon or some store like that with a matching page for maybe a product or two.

So I'm wondering, if I make a strong mini-site with a review and I do the SEO right, will the advantage of the domain name it self backed by good content and SEO assure that I can rank well in front of the noise?

Any thoughts on that?

 

[DotUSDomains]

Depends how good your competition is,

if there big companies, it's lickely they have the budget to rank well above you.

But give it a shot, if you have the .com it's my opinion the product is not that old (no offence) just if it was a big product that was out, some major company would have the name IMHO! and you may have a better chance ar ranking at the top.

good luck, either way.

 

[sky]

It's sort of new. The technology has been around for awhile, but this represents the latest step in incremental engineering. For example, if it was disks, it would be like 1TerabyteDrive.com where the previous big seller was 750 Gb Drive or something. Its that sort of thing. It will probably be very relevant for another year or three, and then something bigger in that sort of thing might come along. However there are some physical limitations in the dimensions of the connections that might actually keep this the right size for a long time to come (only so many connections you can make in one rack mount unit).

Does that validate any of your perceptions? And if so, which ones?

 

[TestCase]

Again, "Your mileage may very."

In my opinion, Yahoo & MSN (inc. Live.com) are far more "domain name keyword" friendly when it comes to ranking. Google, not so much...

Plus (again in my opinion), Y & MSN rankings tend to be more responsive to changes you make to your site -- i.e. As you make changes to the various aspects of your site (Content, tags, etc), you will see movement in your site's ranking reflected sooner on these two SE's than you will on Google.

Remember too, just because you might get good rankings on Y & MSN it doesn't mean you will automatically get good rankings on G.

Since you've already bought the domain you have nothing to loose and everything to gain so go ahead give it a try!

Last note, since you've said that product category is "high tech network gear", one other thing to keep in mind in developing your site is whether your target audience is going to be a bit more sophisticated in their understanding/knowledge of the product category than your typical person. If so, you may find that you have to step up your level of writing in order to engage the visitor.

Good luck!

(Again I've been slow in responding so that this is in response to your post #6 and not the one immediately above.)

 

[BitcoinDK]

One thing is how the domain name will rank in search results another thing is what the users end up clicking at.

I read, not long ago here in NamePros, where a fellow NP-member had tested with exactly the same website content and seo (the only thing different was the domain name, one was keyword strong the other more broad/generel), how the domain name itself affected how/what the users/visitors clicked.

The conclusion, if I dont remember wrongly, was that the domain name that were keyword strong was more likely to get a click then if the domain name was broad/generel.

Unfortunatly I cant remember the thread, maybe another np-member can remember the thread Im talking about.

 

[seven]

Here's the answer:

It does make a difference. I think .net, .com, and .org work on the same level. From what I've seen I think the .com has a slight edge. Other extensions, I don't know about. I have a belief they don't.

If little competition, you're more than likely going to rank high in Google (1-8) relatively fast (few weeks). If competitive, you're not going to rank high.

However, if you put relevant information on the page and let it sit, after a few months (2-4) domains have a way of rising to the top (8) even in established competitive fields. Search for the term money blog. The .com for moneyblog now ranks 4th for the term money blog after only 3 months of content existence. I guarantee you that would not be the case if the blog name was stevesmoneyblog.com.

Also, the I've read the process works better if you hold off on putting Adsense or other coded ads.

This all make sense from G's end if you think about it. What site is best in a position to have highly relevant content then the domain owner of the exact term. If the content adds up and you really outdo yourself and get a few inbound links, you're going to do well.

Don't expect anything immediately though. Age is a big decision making factor - not just domain age, but developed website age.

 

[rokoroko]

interesting ,may be even for you , my Dn with "miniwebsite" is second on google on the first google page (at least in my country) when you put this words in google :"Stock Exchange TV" my DN is stockexchange.tv


I have not done any special seo with this , so this ranking is purely due to domain name.


rokoroko

 

[noonoo1]

interesting ,may be even for you , my Dn with "miniwebsite" is second on google on the first google page (at least in my country) when you put this words in google :"Stock Exchange TV" my DN is stockexchange.tv



rokoroko

What are the results if you just search "stock exchange"?

 

[slickjay]

interesting... i would like to believe that domain names do play a role...

 

[rokoroko]

of course only "stock exchange" is a different story , I must check , but sure not on first page , not even on first 20 pages ,but when you consider any keyword with tv and tv is extension then domain kyeword.tv is the winer.

 

[BitcoinDK]

I just found the thread I was talking about:

http://www.namepros.com/industry-news/574009-new-report-shows-using-generic-domains.html

Really good reading.