Branding in a post EMD/Panda world?

[Gavin.Atkinson]

How do non-business websites think about exact match domain names and branding after EMD and Panda? What is an EMD and what is a "brand" when there's no business or commercial brand involved? And does it impact your SEO outcomes?

I have a Thailand travel blog which is a personal crusade of mine. I like Thailand, I love travelling there and I like sharing my experiences and knowledge. I don't have a business name, so when I started the blog I just used the best phrase I could find that was available as a domain name - at the time it was "bangkoktravelthailand.com". Late in 2011 I thought this sounded a bit spammy, so I found a new domain name "traveltipsthailand.com" and 301'd across to that.

All went well and traffic grew consistently thanks to good writing and some basic SEO, until in late September 2012 the site got 'whacked' by Google - possibly due to EMD, but I think more likely due to Panda and some accidental poor quality backlinks (I posted a reply on another travel site, pointing back to my site, but it ended up becoming 100s of low value backlinks because of the way that site managed it's "latest comments" widget).

Since then I've been trying very hard to rebuild my traffic, but it's a tough gig. I am now averaging better than I was in Sept 2012, but nowhere near where I was on trend to be by now. I have a small social media profile (800 Twitter followers plus Google+, Facebook and Pinterest) and I am slowly building some supporting pages on prominent Web 2.0 sites and seeking out quality guest post opportunities.

But I still worry about the domain name. Does Google see it as an EMD? I don't use the domain name words at all in my page titles (I use xxx | Thailand travel blog) and I try not to use it in anchors either (I tend to use "Thailand travel blog" or my own name. But I still have a few old backlinks that say "Travel Tips Thailand" and I use that phrase as my brand when talking about the website.

So how should sites like mine think about "brand" and "EMD"? Is it an issue or not? Is my domain name holding my site back? I have others I can use like "1travelthailand.com" and "thailand-travel-blog.com" but I'm just sitting on them, not sure where to go. I also have "asiantraveltips.com" and a long term view of rolling this site up with other blogs I'm slowly developing about China, Cambodia and Vietnam. But again, not sure where to go any more.

Anyone care to share their thoughts?

[MichaelC-15022]

Sawais dee kap

I'm a big fan of Thailand too....great scuba diving, great people, awesome food.

Honestly I wouldn't sweat your domain name.  In fact, despite all the talk about lessening the importance of EMD in ranking, I'm still seeing TONS of sites get massive boosts in ranking purely because of exact and partial match domains.

I would not expect to see a domain name like yours draw any sort of ranking penalty.

By the way...nice site, lots of great, useful content (I presume it's original?).  Email me privately at michael@visualitineraries.com if you're interested in doing a guest post on my site about Thailand.