I was just giving a possible example with "car insurance". Don't take it so literally, otherwise you miss the big picture. There are many keyword examples one could cite.
But this is the example you chose to facilitate your argument.
Why would I want you to take my word for it? Please don't. I was just explaining what I see. 10 years ago Matt Cutts explained they were going to disallow keyword stuffing. I actually saw that happen. I haven't seen what Mueller said come true. So like I said, 10 different programmers, ten different answers.
In Google's
Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide they make it clear that the subdomain and the directory is accounted for in the SEO, and for different counties a ccTLD can help. But one of the things that's not mentioned is the keywords in the SLD.
It gets even more interesting when you consider the fact that Google wants you to separate words in the directories by hyphens, e.g.
mysite.com/today-i-ran-a-mile (recommended), as opposed to using underscores or joining the words, e.g.
mysite.com/today_i_ran_a_mile or
mysite.com/todayiranamile (not recommended).
So why is this interesting? Because hyphens are generally discouraged in SLD. If I was a search engine programmer I'd ignore to the SLD altogether, but if I had to account for it I'd analyze it the same way I'd analyze the directories, and in that case vegan-foods.com would be more valuable than veganfoods.com for SEO.
Interesting you should use "buy apples" as an example. Google's algorithm will assume you are looking for what the majority of people are looking for, the computer and not the fruit, and will show you results accordingly. I would never register buyapples.com (if I have a fruit store) because of this. However, I would register "buyelectronics.com" knowing Amazon will be in position one. Even if I can get to page 2 and garner 1% of the traffic for "buy electronics" I'd be happy with that.
When I Google [buy apples] my first result is agro-market24.eu. It might have to do with my location, but still.
Now I'm not sure if you're being facetious by saying you'd never register buyapples.com, because that domain is a lot easier to sell than any of the domains in the OP that you valued at $XX - $X,XXX.
First you find a domain that has high exact match SV and then you put up a site with great content that matches the keywords. Pretty straight forward. But you could also already have an electronics site and buy a new domain for it. No one "right" way. Just have to find out what works for you via experimentation.
I understand what you're saying, I just don't think you're correct.
Of course, if your site is buyelectronics.com then your site name is going to be "Buy Electronics," and that phrase (and related phrases) is going to be repeated throughout the site, which is going to be reflected in the SEO. But if you uploaded the exact same site to the domain hsgapfhwif.com I think it would have the same result. In other words, it's the site, not the SLD that matters.
If I had boatrentals.com, I would definitely build it out and try to get it to page two. It has enough exact match SV in order to make it worth it. I would be looking at trying to build a long-term asset with great content and affiliate links, not an overnight fortune. Knowing people will be always ne looking for those keywords gives me impetus to build this asset and keep it...or sell it at a multiple. I know many people don't like this business plan because it takes time. But anything worth it DOES take time. That's just how it is.
How is building a simple Wordpress site and then send out a bunch of requests for affiliate links "time-consuming?" It takes what, 2-3 hours? Either way, it would be worth the investment.
Of course, the way I see it this, in itself, wouldn't be enough to actually garner any traffic. And this falls in line with the behavior of most of these Exact Match Domain owners.