Should I buy a keyword rich domain to prevent competitors from buying it

[RG_SEO]

Some people in the company I work for have suggested that we buy a keyword rich domain that matches a new product line that we're planning to release.

I've advised that this in itself is not a good idea, as we'll need to produce high quality content for that site rather than just having it exist for ranking purposes. We already have a section on our main site focussed on this product line, so I don't think having the keyword match domain would really add anything unless we worked out what we'd use this site for.

That said, I was wondering whether it might be worth buying the exact match domain anyway, in order to prevent a competitor from using it?

[RyanPurkey]

If there's been a history of that from other competitors it's a consideration.  Several companies also buy common typo domains--gooogle.com for example--partially as a user friendliness feature, partly as a competitor buffer.  Domains are a low cost, so holding a few is pretty low-risk.

[DavidKonigsberg]

If the product you are launching will be searched for in Google -  I would buy it to protect your new product and redirect it to your new product page. Its worth the cost of registration of 1 year to see if the product will take off or you may want to use the domain in the the future.

[DirkC]

I agree with you that positioning is more about the content than having an exact match url. However, as Ryan indicates, buying the domain is low cost, so I would buy it anyway, if only to redirect it to the main domain.

This could potentially save you a lot of trouble if your boss (or higher) would type in the exact match domain only to see that it would go to one of your competitors. They usually don't know much about SEO, and for some reason a lot of them are convinced that having the exact match domain is the preferred tactic to secure a number one position...

[RG_SEO]

Excellent - thanks for your responses guys, that's a great help!