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domains What Should You Do With Extra Domain Names?

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Lox

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Today’s Ask An SEO comes from Elisa from Hyde Park, who asks:

I have a client who owns about 20 domains with keywords closely related to his product. They are currently all forwarding to his one website.
Should he keep these names? Is there any advantage to doing this or even owning them. Is there something we should be doing with them?
I know of no strategies for using more than one domain, yet many people own several just so no one else will own it. What should we be doing with all these extra domain names?
Recently, Google’s John Mueller stated that “keywords in domain names are overrated.”

Yet, we still have people whose entire business model is to buy keyword-rich domains, build a simple site that ranks, and then sell or rent the domain to an unsuspecting small business.

And the bigger problem?

According to some well-respected SEO experts – and me – the search engine results pages appear to contradict Mr. Mueller’s edict, particularly in specific, competitive verticals.

read more SEJ
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
LOX they simply do gravitate to keyword domains because people still search keywords and G shows them in the results. It's not rocket science!
 
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"According to some well-respected SEO experts – and me – the search engine results pages appear to contradict Mr. Mueller’s edict, particularly in specific, competitive verticals."

No proof provided on the above statement........

It is common knowledge that content is super important - search intent is key and answering those questions in the most in in depth and knowledgeable way will propel you up the rankings

You also need to consider technical SEO - site speed, alt tags, headers, meta description etc etc etc etc

Also.....good quality relevant backlinks

So if you have loads of domains just pointing to your main site, they are doing Jack s**t unless they bring a decent amount of organic traffic and are relevant to the main site - otherwise your bounce rate will be crap which is a negative SEO signal in itself.....

Having lot's of domains and putting good quality content on all and creating some kind of PBN is costly, time consuming and risky......

Plus you need the time to build out your Social Profile, which has some small SEO signals which in itself takes time.....

Buying /regging loads of domains is mainly a defensive play for big/medium companies......

It's a bloody nightmare......but fun
 
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I'd give them back to the Registry :)
 
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:unsure:
Recently, Google’s John Mueller stated that “keywords in domain names are overrated.”
It's corporate politics. He's saying don't use your key word domain name on some crappy or semi-crappy web site in order to try and trick Google, because he knows key word domain names have a much better chance of ranking up than non key word domain names. If people running crappy web sites get onto top positions on Google then searching visitors have a bad experience and might not use Google as much. When that happens Google earns less money from people clicking Google ads. This guy's job is to stop that happening. Corporate politics.
Yet, we still have people whose entire business model is to buy keyword-rich domains, build a simple site that ranks, and then sell or rent the domain to an unsuspecting small business.
Crappy content plus keyword domain doesn't work any more. You need to have at least semi-crappy or slightly good content because Google has systems in place to weed out pure spam. Domain name with key words on it's own isn't enough. Good content websites require real unique angles. Not regurgitating other websites.
And the bigger problem?

According to some well-respected SEO experts – and me – the search engine results pages appear to contradict Mr. Mueller’s edict, particularly in specific, competitive verticals.
Agree with you. But then he's not an S.E.O. professional, he's a public relations professional. His job is to make you focus on content, not your domain name. He'd prefer some ground-breaking website with one-of-a-kind content and it fast loads on your phone. You can do that on a domain name with no keywords. BUT IT WILL TAKE A LOT LONGER TO RANK ON GOOGLE. Also @Lox from Elisa's point-of-view if she uses key words in the domain there's absolutely no requirement for her to waste time building up a brand and all the crap you have to go through on social media. Think about it, if there are no keywords in her domain name then she has to make people aware of what the brand is and does. Flip that over, a domain name with self-explanatory key words doesn't need to do that.
Much better to get out there yourself and have a good poke around the camp fire with your poking stick. Really, you don't need to be reading crappy S.E.O. blogs when you can test it yourself and get up-to-date answers first-hand. By the time you read about S.E.O. on a blog it's usually out-dated any way.
 
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Keyword domains are under rated not over rated. Years ago keyword domains were king of the hill. Then Google lowered the SEO benefit of having a keyword in domain, and their appeal dropped dramatically. Now Google looks significantly at search intent and keyword domains have a WAY higher CTR. People searching Houston immigration lawyer are way more likely to click HoustonImmigrationLawyer.com than CohenSmithLaw.com which is a massive SEO benefit.
 
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LOX they simply do gravitate to keyword domains because people still search keywords and G shows them in the results. It's not rocket science!
200% agree wih Mike / Google always change robots, big update was on May 2022“broad core update” , but in general all the same. Most users even haven't noticed that =)

Also I was doing SEO for one company, pages ranks well, even on new domain!
 
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