EMD and dot CO domains

[RyanUK]

This may be a basic question for some. I would like to get opinion of SEO experts on EMD and .co domains.

I understand from what I have read that exact match domains have less value nowadays but they still have some value, that's what I seem to be sensing from experts. So I wanted to know how .co domains are viewed in term of SEO. And can an exact match .co domain have a better opportunity against another domain which is not an EMD if all other things are equal?

[NickSamuel]

Hi Ryan,

Inherently all domain extensions are equal, and Google treats them as such.

So keyword.com vs keyword.co should in theory be on a level playing field, however...

There's quite a few different factors which go into getting a good domain for SEO including:

1. Familarity - Does it look authorative or like a familiar domain?
2. Location - Does it have a .country extension on the end?
3. Industry - Are there conventions within the industry e.g .IO for tech or .agency for digital marketing?
4. Length -  How much keyword stuffing is too much? D
5. Brandability - Will the brand name be easy to remember, and will people want to Google it directly rather than find you in the SERPs?

A combination of these means that due to established conventions and our cultural bias for lack of a better phrase, not all domains are created equal in terms of the ease in which people may feel comfortable clicking and linking to them.

Personally I wouldn't overthink the whole EDM thing too much. Google released an algorithm in 2012 to help neuter the immediate ranking potential of them out the box: https://searchengineland.com/library/google/emd-update

One example I have of this is my personal website which is an EDM of my name. It has been live about 2 weeks and ranks 50th or so for my name, and about 4th if I add "SEO" on the end. Over time I suspect it will rank well, but until you build backlinks and establish authority...an EMD really isn't a silver bullet to ranking!

Basically don't overthink it and simply try to get a partial keyword match and brand all in one.

This would be my advice, and besides you will need to get creative as all the "obvious" domains have probably already been snapped up

Good luck!

Nick