"What's So Great About Long Domain Names?"
by Azam Corry
You have no doubt been bombarded with emails from all manner of
marketing 'gurus', including most of the big names, telling you
to hurry up and get in on the "once in a lifetime" marketing
opportunity of owning a long domain name of up to 65 characters.
Apparently the main attraction is that you can now stuff your
domain name with relevant keywords for your site, and by doing
so, increase your site's ranking in the search engines.
The way most are talking, you'd be forgiven for thinking that
owning a long keyword-rich domain is the key to bringing heavy
traffic to your site!
Here is one such example:
"Register domain names that are rich in keywords and drastically
increase your search engine rankings! Search engines just eat up
the domain names that describe the website and are loaded with
keywords!"
However, none are offering any proof of this, just a 'helpful'
link to their 'preferred' registrar. Almost without exception,
not the cheapest, but one that pays a nice commission (for cheap
try http://www.000domains.com at $13.50 a year).
I personally think the value of such domain names highly
questionable, especially for the average webmaster/mistress.
There is no proof that search engines place significant weight on
keywords occurring in domain names. It's only speculation that
they look at the URL at all. Some search engines specialists feel
that they do, others think not (more likely some search enginess
do and some don't).
Even if the search engine does actually check the URL for
keywords, it is not very important exactly where in the URL they
occur. Almost the same effect can be obtained by creating
sub-domains incorporating your keywords i.e.
http://keyword.MyDomain.com or by using keywords in your
directory and file names as I often do. For example:
http://www.nowsell.com/site_promotion/search-engine-submit.html
A long domain name stuffed with keywords as search engine
'fodder' is most unattractive as your main domain and breaks all
the rules for a good, memorable domain name.
This means it will only be useful used in conjunction with a
doorway page. However, the majority of the major search enginess
are placing increasing emphasis on link popularity in one form or
another. As a result, I suspect that doorway pages will become
less and less effective as a marketing tool (it's hard to create
good link popularity for many doorway pages on different
domains).
In addition, many search engines's are very unhappy with the
massive amount of spam they have been receiving through the
misuse of doorways. What is to say they won't decide that all
doorway pages are spam in the near future? Or continue further
along the path of combining 'human' index data with their results
to improve quality? So much for the $$$$ you just spent on ugly
keyword-dense domain names!
If using keywords in the URL had a major effect on rankings (as
opposed to a possible minor effect), it would already be a very
popular technique even with short domains (just fewer keywords).
This is not so. In addition, in a single keyword search, the site
returned at the top of the search results would usually contain
your search term in it's domain name. As it is, this only happens
occasionally.
There is no single 'trick', 'secret' or whatever to gaining good
search engine ranking. It's a complex process, taking many
factors into consideration. In addition, search engines are
modifying their algorithms so often at present, that what works
today may no longer do so tomorrow.
Keyword rich domains may improve your rankings in some search
engines, but not by much. The cost of buying a load of domain
names would be money better spent on the services of a quality
search engines specialist that charges based on results.
This is not to say the availability of longer domain names is of
no importance. Previously you may not have been able to use your
desired name because it was over 23 characters. Or you may wish
to dedicate a domain to a particular product the name of which
exceeds the old limit. You might even be able to think up some
good ones for possible resale in the future at a substantial
profit!
However, short and catchy domain names are better. They are far
more memorable. They are easy to type directly into the browser,
and there is less possibility of the user making a mistake when
doing so. Just compare amazon.com, or even amazonbooks.com, with
amazon-books-music-video-store.com!
Although it doesn't hold up in the Amazon case (you don't want to
spend millions to be remembered!), you should also try and find a
name that relates to the business you're in, or your company
name.
Oh, and don't believe anyone that tells you there are no good
short domains left. You just need to be more creative these days!
© 1999-2000 Azam Corry "Do it Better. Do it Faster. Do it Right!"
Online since 1998, Azam Corry can help you succeed. No-Bull
Marketing Help, Tools & Resources: http://NowSell.com/?LDomNam
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