Myths and Realities in Domain Name SEO

[Keynes]

Myth #1:
All domains are viewed equally in the eyes of search engines.
Reality #1:
Search algorithms take many domain-related factors into account including the registration date / age, historical use, nature of keyword in the URL. So, while any domain could, in theory, rank highly for a given keyword - certain extensions have the advantage of age, while exact keyword matches have an advantage in targeting.

Myth #2
Hyphens are always great for SEO.
Reality #2
Hyphens can be beneficial when marking a natural break in a keyword-based domain. For example, Domain-Name.com would be a natural use that is viewed as "Domain Name" by search algorithms whereas Buy--Food.com would be useless for SEO since it optimizes for "Buy -Food" which is a nonexistant search in practice.

Myth #3
Adding content to a parked page will always help search rankings
Reality #3
Adding original content to a parked page may help to improve your domain in the eyes of search engines, but copied/borrowed content from Wikipedia, etc. will only get you listed in the supplemental index, diluting the impact. When you add content, make sure your content is unique, is relevant to the domain in question and you have your other SEO bases covered such as optimized meta titles, H1 tags, etc. Keep in mind that search algorithms place a lot of weight on the "quality of the neighborhood" your domain is in, including the quality of inbound and outbound links (you're inherently limited here.)

 

[ssamriga]

#2 and #3 yes, but I don't agree about the 1st one.
You can't just say "search algoritms"- these are different for google, yahoo and all other search engines.
what is relevant to google may not be to yahoo.

So where is your reliable source of information about which search engine takes into account domain age and historical use?

 

[Keynes]

You can't just say "search algoritms"- these are different for google, yahoo and all other search engines. what is relevant to google may not be to yahoo.

So where is your reliable source of information about which search engine takes into account domain age and historical use?

The are commonalities across the engines, just as there are differences. If you would like to discuss the idiosyncrasies of optimizing for a given engine, I would be happy to, but this is a basic generalist guide. In terms of the specifics I am deriving these conclusions from data gathered while working in SEO. It is established that a) the search engines "trust" aged domains more than new ones, although you can limit this somewhat by registering a name for multiple years and b) domains that are linked to blacklists, have been previously sandboxed, etc. require work to build up their perceptions within the engines.

External sources:
http://www.jimboykin.com/playing-with-googles-domain-age-factor/
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#cat3

qed.

 

[shockie]

just to add onto #1, domain extension can also help with local searches. :tu:

 

[Peter]

other things that Google and some other search engines take into consideration are the IP and the extension of the domain.

A .co.uk on a UK IP will do better in local searches than a .com on a US IP for example.

 

[weblord]

do you mean if i have a .ph (Philippines domain) that domain will rank well on google.com.ph instead of google.com ?

just to add onto #1, domain extension can also help with local searches. :tu:

 

[raredn.com]

do you mean if i have a .ph (Philippines domain) that domain will rank well on google.com.ph instead of google.com ?

Hallelujah!!!!

Finally!!! The Reality of Foreign Extensions!!! yes, that is right if you have a .ph domain name it will get totally buried under .coms .orgs etc, when people search on google.com Yahoo and the rest

Same goes for .TV and .In and all those other country extensions, they will all get totally and utterly buried in a drowning pit trying to compete for seo with .com .org and .info etc in American search engines!

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[Peter]

do you mean if i have a .ph (Philippines domain) that domain will rank well on google.com.ph instead of google.com ?

Yes indeed that is correct. Google have in fact told people this themselves.

Take a look at THIS official Google blog post. They touch on it quickly near the start. For ease the following is the quote:-

In our understanding of web content, Google considers both the IP address and the top-level domain (e.g. .com, .co.uk). Because we attempt to serve geographically relevant content, we factor domains that have a regional significance. For example, ".co.uk " domains are likely very relevant for user queries originating from the UK. In the absence of a significant top-level domain, we often use the web server's IP address as an added hint in our understanding of content.