SEO TIPS: Keyworded Domain Names

If you ask most webmasters, they will tell you that they consider themselves lucky if they manage to obtain keyword domain names, as all the keyword domains in general have been grabbed already. This means that unless you have a very, very niche oriented industry or a new concept that you are marketing, finding a keyword domain names is really difficult. Even when they can be found, the expense can be enormous.

There are plenty of companies and individuals that are more than willing to pay a lot of money to get these domain names. Is it worth paying huge prices for such domain names, and do you really need to have keyword domain names?  Not all SEO professionals will agree, but many SEO experts believe that keyword domain names are weighted – at a minimum – when it comes to search engine placements. History does seem to bear that out – or it could be that people spending  lot of money on those domains don’t skimp when it comes to SEO. A number of SEO experts also feel that one of the search engine ranking factors has to do with the domain name.

Here are some of the things we can say we are sure of. We know that Google gives importance to the age of the domain – there is not even up for debate. Google also grades on keywords in the text, tags, and captions that appear on a site. Based on this, it does make a lot of sense that Google might give importance to domain names as well – it does seem logical. Exactly how, however, is still something of a speculation. Quite a few webmasters have tried to make use of keyword domain names and even spend thousands of dollars getting keyword domain names.

Here’s the skinny on it – you probably won’t lose anything by selecting keyword domain names, as there are other advantages associated with such domain names. One of the greatest advantages of getting keyword domain names occurs when people link to your website, as they will most probably be using keywords to link to your main pages. If the keywords and domain name matches, it can bring additional credit to your website – since highly contextual links to your website are always helpful. Google absolutely loves this!

Keyword domain names are also helpful. SEOs already know that Google and other search engines look for keywords in strategic places. It’s logical to think that search engines will consider keywords in the URLs and domain names as an important aspect to find relevant websites for a given search as part of their algorithm. There are also a number of people who link to websites using just the URL of the website rather than using anchor text. Keyword domains will stand to gain in this regard, because in the link itself your keyword will be present. It may not be the best way to have your link out there, but it sure isn’t the worst.

This  does not mean that non-keyword domains do not rank well, because many do, but that it appears keyword domains have better rate of success on the whole. However, spending thousands on a highly keyworded domain name should only be done if you are confident it will aid you enough to recoup the cost and you can really afford it.