15
Feb 06
Feb 06
by Andy Hagans Research with 21 Comments
Well I wasn’t expecting something useful to come of the infamous v7n contest (aside from an annoying WSJ article), but I decided to do a quick n dirty analysis of the SERPs. Repeat: Quick. N. Dirty. No pretty spreadsheets or proprietary scripts like Todd or Greg could do. You know, just a glance from an "art not science" guy.
My cursory glance of the SERPs told me a couple things:
1. Links still matter in Google. (I know, I should win SEO-researcher-of-the-year)
but also
2. The "keyword in domain, exact match" factor counts for way more than you would expect.
Yeah. In the top 30 results, I found six exact keyword match* (exact = hyphens OK, but not other added characters) domains (and three were in the top ten):
- http://www.v7ndotcomelursrebmem.com/
- http://www.v7ndotcomelursrebmem.net/
- http://www.v7ndotcomelursrebmem.co.uk/
- http://www.v7ndotcom-elursrebmem.cc/ (sweet site btw)
- http://www.v7ndotcomelursrebmem.nu/
- http://www.v7ndotcomelursrebmem.ws/
(note that if you do the search now, you may get different results, blame everflux)
Now, I’m no statistician, but I’m gonna go ahead and propose that 6 out of 30 is disproportionately high (and certainly statistically significant). There’s a lot of monkeys participating in this thing (Google shows 2,780,000 results), and there aren’t very many TLDs (comparatively). If the exact match domain aspect were removed here, I am guessing maybe 2 or 3 of these would be ranking in the top 30.
I think the exact-match-keyword-in-domain-ranking-boost thing may be one of the things Google is doing to counteract the irrevelancy which is sometimes caused by the Sandbox (sorry, Mike).
For instance, NewSiteWithABrandName.com may be two months old, and only have 3 inbound links, one of which is somewhat trusted, the other two are junk. Is NewSiteWithABrandName.com going to rank for it’s mildly competitive money phrase, "money phrase"? Not for a year or two or three. But it should still rank on a search for "NewSiteWithABrandName" (users are going to be p.o.’d if a press release announcing the site shows up #1 instead). So, Google gives NewSiteWithABrandName.com (and NewSiteWithABrandName.net, etc.) a healthy boost on a search for "NewSiteWithABrandName". As far as I know, this wasn’t happening (at least, this strongly) four or five months ago.
Alright readers, the "comments" widget below is where you pick apart my theory.
21 comments - add your's now
TOPICS
ON TWITTER
- After a two year hiatus, we are bringing the Link Building Blog back from the grave. 2009-08-26
- More updates...
ARCHIVES
- September 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- November 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- October 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- January 2006
- December 2005
- November 2005
- October 2005
- September 2005
- August 2005
- July 2005
- June 2005
- May 2005
Hiya Andy,
v7ndotcomelursrebmem.tld is not an exact match. As far as Google is concerned, it might as well be chinesecheckers.com
That is, the words are not seperated by a hyphen so the keywords are not visible to Google.
Cheers
Something tells me that with 1000s of PhDs, Google may have figured that one out by now. I stand by my calling it an exact match.
v7ndotcomelursrebmem.tld is not an exact match. As far as Google is concerned, it might as well be chinesecheckers.com
Please.
Google has been identifing exact matches in domains without hyphens for close to two years now.
(Notice how the words in the domain are bolded even without a hyphen?)
well… I tend to both disagree and agree
I think google notices the exact match, but I don’t think it grants priority for an exact match unless otherwise it is of the last resorts for SERPS.
I for one have remained in the top 10 so far and my DN for my contest page only has one of the kw’s.
Assuming the Google Gods have the power to differentiate keywords in domains with no hyphens, they probably can do the same for anchor text in links pointing to the site…
If this is true, and given that most links pointing to a site are it’s domain name – this raises a good arguement for KW saturated domains:
So is it this…?:
“But it should still rank on a search for “NewSiteWithABrandName” (users are going to be p.o.’d if a press release announcing the site shows up #1 instead). So, Google gives NewSiteWithABrandName.com (and NewSiteWithABrandName.net, etc.) a healthy boost on a search for “NewSiteWithABrandName”. As far as I know, this wasn’t happening (at least, this strongly) four or five months ago.”
Or is it that most anchor text in links pointing to the main domain are inherently keyword saturated, and thusly would give more juice for the ‘exact match’ search? Essentially a built-in ‘Google-Bomb’…
A neat test is my site – it’s less than 1yr. old, I have minimal links – but rank very well – but only #3 against the biggies for an exact match search. Am I #3 because #1 and #2 have more exact match anchor text links than me?
Just a thought…
Here’s an interesting fact that I think is relevant to the question about weight placed on URL matches. Vongo, a newly released online movie site from the Starz network does not appear in the first 10 results of a search on its name in Google as of February 17, 2006.
Interesting, but I think there are a few things that could explain the high number of exact matches. The most likely, in my opinion, is that the people who were the most serious about and got the earliest start in the competition got the exact match domains.
If you’re sitting there, waiting for the keywords to be announced, with a script ready to grab the keyword domains, it’s likely that you are taking this contest pretty seriously =)
My only resevervations is the competition may just become a link war, this would the just make a mockerey of SEO.
I have visited your site and find usefull, waiting for your comments as well as when you got my mail.
i have visited your site and foun useful comments on V7ndotcom Elursrebmem, i have also mine , please visist my site and pass on your comments . thanx
http://www.howseoworks.com/v7ndotcom-elursrebmem
Thanks for your insightful comments, guys!
http://www.howseoworks.com/v7ndotcom-elursrebmem
I am pleased to visit your site and find it,s contents and detail very much useful. [v7ndotcom elursrebmem] I have also tried from mine side for this contest. please visit mine link you will also find some very useful information.
http://www.howseoworks.com/v7ndotcom-elursrebmem
Thankx
Kashif Mirza
Thanks for your insightful comment Kashif!
It does get a little annoying sometimes…But yeah, Greg’s comment about domain/URL words in bold has weight.
Marc
Nope.
http://www.internet-marketing-blog.com/2006/03/10/parsing-keywords-in-urls/
site:www.vw-lover.com v7ndotcomelursrebmem – results.
site:www.vw-lover.com v7ndotcom elursrebmem – no results.
Cheers
Andy.
On my side it looks like your observations are valid. I have done the same observations, and belive the keyword-stuffed sites are crappy in the sense of remembering them, but they do wonders in the serps.
Now, if it only was possible to redirect without getting cought, the net would be overflowed with an endless flow of new and oh so empty domain names
Thank you for all the helpful information about the relationship between kw and url. I put my money on the bet that kw that match the url will help with placement and am still waiting on the results. BipolarTreatment usually comes up on the second page after only a few months and modest link building. Does anyone have any suggestions for us, we are really trying to help as many people as possible and that takes being on the first page for these keywords. Thanks,
Ryan
I can vouch for your theory of exact match domains. I started a site at daunteculpepper.net and it shows up #7 in Google for “Daunte Culpepper” even though I’ve hardly built any links at all. I only have 31 links total according to marketleap.com and only 4 Google links.
Hi , im still trying to figure out what v7n is but im sure i’ll find out soon
Ive setup a new site recently and seeing where i can get with it http://www.sparksflying.com
I find it extremely interesting to visit blogs like this to find out how the other half lives..
Seo and this whole Internet Marketing lark is not for the faint hearted
Thanks and keep up the good work !
Sparks Flying!
I can also agree with you exact match keyword domain theory. My domain is http://www.couponclub.com and it ranks on the first page in google, live, and yahoo for the keywords “coupon club” and it only has a few links.
I think that, what you need is age+exact keyword match domain in order to rank in google and the search engines. My shows as being registered in 1998 on the whois, and it dates back to 1996, as can bee seen in the way back machine.
This is the reason for my rankings, because it is not my links.
Great post, and very true.
Coupon Club,
I think you’re missing the most important factor in determining search engine rankings. It’s called anchor text. The keywords that people use to link to your site. For example, here: http://www.vrsdirect.com/shpcpn.html
See how they are using “coupon club” as the anchor text? That’s why you would rank for those words. Not because of any parsing, because at this time Google does not parse keywords in URLs when they are run together.