URL and SEO

[THMCC]

How much weight do search engines give the URL? We're a medical call center provider and medicalcallcenter is part of our URL. Does that help us much?

Thanks!!

[SEOKeith]

The short answer is yes, google have reduced the weight of this (apparently) if i was picking a brand I would probably try to include a partial match for one of the head terms without it looking spammy if possible... (like SEOMoz.org).

Spammy keyword match domains (no1-cheap-car-insurance.com) don't look as pro a branded domain IMO.

Obviously this is only one ranking factor out of many...

Hope that helps,

Keith

[Unity]

I'd go for a branded root domain and when creating the file paths use keywords separated by hyphens, example:

www.medicalcallcenter.com
www.medicalcallcenter.com/medical-call-center
www.medicalcallcenter.com/healthcare-advice
www.medicalcallcenter.com/healthcare-advice/colds-flus

[SEOKeith]

If Wendy has a keyword heavy domain why not just build the links to the home page?! I would avoid repeating the keyword again in the URL if the domain already includes them...

I could understand this strategy if the domain was branded and did not include the target keywords, but that's not the case here.

Keith

[Unity]

The URLs don't have to be keyword heavy, they should be semantically in line with the content of the page and also be relevant, not only will this help as a ranking factor but it also allows for better authored search engine result page snippets (i.e. the keyword's will display in the URL on the SERP snippet), which in turn should help with click through rates.

A search engine isn't going to know that "medicalcallcenter" is "medical call center" so the URL doesn't include the keyword. Therefore adding the keywords to the file paths will get the keyword into the URL.

Agreed, building links to the homepage (and other important pages) would be a good idea.

[SEOKeith]

Hey Davinia,

Check the screenshot attached, as you can see I searched for "medical call center" and in the first organic result it's parsed the domain for that keyword and made the keywords bold in the domain name.

Google's parse domains for for keywords, it's pretty basic stuff... You don't need to have a hypen (dash) in there as a delimiter any more (although this used to help years ago).

I was not simply suggesting building links to the home page will help (which it obviously will if done correctly), what I meant was there is little point building a page that as the same keywords as the domain and then building links to that page.

As the domain in question has the exact match keywords Wendy can use the home page to rank for those keywords without the need for an additional page targeting the keyword "medical call center".

Keith

medecialcallcenter.png

[Unity]

Hey Keith,

I did the same search and the keyword in the URL was not bold. Agreed don't use hyphens in the root domain (I do believe they help in folder paths), but anyway I feel that you and I could go on forever having a fun debate but I think we have made our points and from this Wendy will be able to make an informed decision, or at least our information has helped her to look in certain areas so she can do additional research.

Best regards,
Davinia

[THMCC]

Dear Davinia,

I am unclear on what branded root domain means. We use our name as branded keywords, but I assume that is not the same as branded root domain.

Thanks.

[SEOKeith]

A branded root domain = google.com, nike.com , apple.com etc any domain that uses a brand name and not a dictionary keyword's like "cheap-cars.com" or "cheapcars.com".

SEO's define a root domain as the domain name on it's own with no sub domain etc so google.com not www.google.com

[SEOKeith]

Hey Wendy,

I was just reading an article on exact match domains and thought it might be of use to you http://www.seomoz.org/blog/are-exact-match-domains-in-decline

[THMCC]

Keith,

Thank you for this explanation. I was making it too hard and you just cleared it up for me.

Best,

Wendy

[Realtor101]

A competitor of mine has her name as the domain url and her keywords show on seomoz as "branded" and my same keywords show "Not branded"

Why is this?