Importance of Keywords in Domain Name: Google’s Answer

Matt Cutts recently posted a video in which he discusses the importance of having your target keywords in your domain name.

I know that a lot of people find this to be important in the world of SEO, so it’s interesting to hear what Matt has to say.

Some of my thoughts?

I’ve never really been completely convinced that a keyword domain is super-duper-important. Case in point would be my web site about saltwater aquariums.

Aquarist-Refuge.com – that’s the domain name for that web site, but it ranks very well for the keywords “saltwater aquarium” and “saltwater aquariums”. This is not at all because of the domain name. The domain name doesn’t even have the keyword “aquarium” in it.

However, with proper on-site SEO and other efforts, it ranks well for those keywords.

That is why I’m personally not very convinced that a keyword domain is all that important. I do however believe that it holds weight and if you want to use a keyword domain it can help to rank more quickly. It took a certain amount of time and effort to get that site ranked well for “saltwater aquariums”, and I am entirely convinced that if my domain was “saltwateraquariums.com” that I wouldn’t have had to work as hard.

That being said, I do like keyword domains. I seem to be able to get a site to rank with less effort if I can get a domain that has the target keywords in it. However, none of those domain names are terribly inspiring or brandable.

Either way, Matt is basically saying here that Google is looking to put less weight on keyword domains. He doesn’t say they are going to have no weight, he just says they are going to dial it down a bit. Sounds fine to me.

I might not have to worry about finding keyword domains as much as I used to in the past if I wanted to rank well and rank soon for a particular keyword. But that is speculation, only time will tell.