There are various factors to consider when it comes to SEO and domain names. To begin, your domain name might have an influence on your website’s search engine rating. If your domain name incorporates relevant keywords, for example, it may help your website rank better for those keywords. Also, if your domain name is simple to remember and write, it will make it easier for users to discover your website.
It is crucial to realize, however, that a domain name is not a panacea for SEO. While having a meaningful and memorable domain name might be beneficial, it is only one of several variables that search engines take into account when ranking websites. To boost your SEO, you should also work on providing high-quality content, developing a strong backlink profile, optimizing the structure and coding of your website or implement technical SEO best practices, and more.
Before we dive into the chat, check out the top three SEO ranking factors you prioritize in this video:
Does the TLD (top level domain) matter, when it comes to SEO?
1. Yes, the top-level domain (TLD) can have an impact on SEO, although it is not a major ranking factor. TLDs are the extensions that come after the domain name, such as .com, .org, .net, and so on.
Shiva Naidu! #DigiBoy
A1: It depends, of course, who you ask. If you ask Google, they’ll say it doesn’t matter. But I can tell you that it really DOES matter. #serpstat_chat
Bill Hartzer
A1: I don’t think so. Will be interesting to know the other voices here.
Megan Newman | eCommerce
Is there any effect on crawling and indexing when it comes to the TLD in the domain?
A2. Yes at some level like country specific TLDs (ccTLDs) which help to crawl and are indexable like .in , .ca and .au etc
keyur shah | SEO
1. ??? ??’? ???? TLD in a domain name can have some impact on crawling & indexing by search engines. TLDs can indicate the website’s location, which can help search engines determine which region to target with their search results. #serpstat_chat
Shiva Naidu! #DigiBoy
A2: this is a good question. In my research and testing, when I tested the top TLDs against each other, the .XYZ actually was crawled faster than any other TLD. Faster then .com, .net, .org, ,etc. #serpstat_chat
Bill Hartzer
Do the search engines give any additional weight when it comes to having your keyword in your domain name?
A3 huge factor having keywords within than keywords without. If serpstat talked about SERPs then serp or serps could secure a seo score of 100/100 without it drops to 88/100 which is still pretty good. #serpstat_chat
Jaroslaw Pidburskyj – #SEO
a3. Keywords in domain and URLs proved to be low quality signals for relevance. As search engines have gotten “smarter” with regard to actual content on the site, these signals diminish in importance.
Marianne Sweeny
KW in your Domain is not a ranking factor. But – domain name can help give context to the content of the website, which can be beneficial for relevancy when a search engine indexes it.
Megan Newman | eCommerce
Does it matter, for SEO purposes and rankings, if the keyword is in the ending of the domain name?
A4 No, it does not matter for SEO purposes and rankings. Search engines look at the overall quality of a website, rather than just the keyword in the domain name. #serpstat_chat
Megan Newman | eCommerce
A4: No. It is important to choose a domain name that accurately reflects the content and purpose of your website, regardless of the placement of the keyword.
Rahul Marthak
A4 No. Keywords in the domain won’t help to get better rankings it consider as spamming as it doesn’t represent your brand or services. And this type of domain ( keyword centric ) is unlikeable by Google..
keyur shah | SEO
Do the search engines read the keyword in your domain name?
While officially, Google representatives have said “In short, no”, that Google does not value any keywords in your domain name as a direct ranking signal, there are secondary considerations like influencing the “anchor text” your site might receive when others link or mention your site.
a5. Search engines do not “read” so much as match. The crawler sends page content to be transformed into machine readable tokens. These tokens are matched to query terms. There is not data on whether the search engine “transforms” the URL.
Marianne Sweeny
A5 oh yes, humans do, bots do too, isn’t it classed as content to a point.
Jaroslaw Pidburskyj – #SEO
A5: No. Otherwise we would be ranked for brooms
Sweepsify
Do certain TLDs rank better than others?
There is a public perception that websites are always found at .com. This cognitive bias leads to more businesses using .com TLDs, and therefore some more unusual domain TLDs like .xyz get viewed with suspicion, and get fewer links and therefore do not rank as well.
It depends What kind of TLDs you are choosing .com .org etc…
keyur shah | SEO
a6. Sometimes for some people and some queries. Search results are personalized. So, if a searcher favors one domain over another, the search engine will likely present that domain as more relevant than others under certain circumstances.
Marianne Sweeny
A6 Hi jumping in here I would expect that yes some TLD’s will rank higher that have accumulated quality back links.
Debi Norton
Does having a keyword in your domain name help you rank better?
Not directly. Google has disavowed any direct “exact match” benefit, but in certain industries and situations the anchor text and mentions you could received potentially might have a small, measurable benefit.
a7. Not since Panda. EEAT, structured data, internal linking, good information architecture, strong visitor engagement are stronger signals these days. And we have only ourselves to blame. 🙂
Marianne Sweeny
A7 For every SEO who believes it does there are at least as many who believe it does not. I’m hoping we’ll hear from
@bhartzer on what his research showed. #serpstat_chat
Gail Gardner
A7 Yes, that’s why people do their keyword research & invest in keywords within the TLD domain, it makes sense-sense than not so.
Jaroslaw Pidburskyj
Does it matter if I am using a ccTLD (country code TLD) when it comes to SEO?
A8 It does not matter which you have, it’s the SEO that drives visitor traffic, it does help if you have the right ccTLD for where you live and operate from
Jaroslaw Pidburskyj
A8 For some locations it still does but for locations where they speak the same language as another that is has got worse. For example in the UK the SERPs are often getting filled with US English results and it’s annoying I have to add UK into my search.
Simon Cox
A8: Yes for the trust factor. Especially, if the domain is supposed to serve local content. Definitely should match the location of the website’s target audience.
Sweepsify
Should I use a separate domain for each language, does that matter for SEO purposes?
A9: It doesn’t matter. We have developed quite a few sites for clients with multiple languages. What matters is the Meta for language needs to be set properly.
Megan Newman | eCommerce
A9 No. Use a separate country level domain for each country. Often legal reasons are more important than any other for doing this. SEO takes a backstep on this in my book.
Simon Cox
A9: The best practice now is to combine your non-English content and put it on the same website to help build authority of the same site. For example, use a .COM main site and use a folder (e.g., .com/en/ and .com/es/ and .com/fr/ for the specific language versions. Then use hreflang tags on the site. For some locations, though, people expect to see a ccTLD for your site. For example, for Canada I would expect to use a .CA domain. For France, I would use .FR You can still have the main site .COM and have the language content in folders, though. #serpstat_chat
Bill Hartzer
In conclusion, while choosing an appropriate domain name is important for SEO, remember to prioritize other ranking factors like content and backlinks.
Thanks for joining us for this section.