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Why your domain name sucks

Posted by Michael Martinez on June 26, 2007 in SEO Theory, Seo Myths

There is currently another discussion on the LED Digest about domain name construction. This topic comes up often in various online marketing discussion groups. It’s not really an SEO issue but the question is almost always phrased as an SEO question:”Should I include hyphens or underscores in my domain name?”

A similar question was also just asked (again) at Highrankings’ forum. Like I said: it comes up often.

Domain Parks - The Black Holes of the Web A lot of the good domain names have been scarfed up by domain parkers, who now regularly buy domain names at auctions. Domain parking has become the Black Hole Phenomenon of domain name space. Once these guys get a good domain name, they won’t give it up unless someone pays them a lot of money.

Trademarks and Domain Names And don’t even hope you can get them on trademark infringement. Part of the proof that someone is infringing on your trademark is that you were using the trademark before they were. Some domain name parkers have won many trademark infringement suits because business operators thought all they had to do was claim infringement.

A good trademark attorney knows that the same name can be trademarked in different industries as long as there is no chance of consumer confusion. A good trademark attorney also knows that prior use of a trademark by the community invalidates your claim. Fandom, Inc. found that out the hard way, when they came along and tried to enforce a trademark over a term (”fandom”) that had been in general, widespread use among science fiction fans and the media for about 50 years.

Picking domain names in the hope of protecting trademarks is becoming more challenging. Unless you have as much money as, say, Bill Gates, you might as well forget it. That doesn’t mean you cannot build a trademark case. It just means that if you’re hoping to seize trademark name space on the Internet, the odds of your succeeding are not what they were ten years ago.

How to Pick Domain Names Domain names should be chosen because of how easy they are to remember and type in. Although I once thought it would be best to include hyphens in a domain name, I really prefer to NOT include them. I took SEO-THEORY.COM because SEOTHEORY.COM was taken (by an entity that isn’t even using the name).

XENITE.ORG Syndrome - Mistaken Domain Identity Maybe I should have avoided XENITE.ORG syndrome and taken something else. I don’t know, yet. XENITE.ORG syndrome is what happens when you brand a very reasonably good domain name and people ignore the brand. I cannot begin to count the number of times people have said XENITE.COM instead of XENITE.ORG. I took the dot-ORG name back in 1997 because that was what I was supposed to do. It was a non-commercial domain, set up mainly for my individual use.

The dot-COM and dot-NET guys have been riding my coat-tails ever since.

How to link to SEO Theory So if you link to SEO THEORY, please make sure you link to SEO-THEORY.COM (as today there is nothing happening at SEOTHEORY.COM). I took the domain name because it was easy to remember, not just because I felt it would help with the SEO part (in fact, I knew by the time I took the domain name that there might be a problem with the SEO part).

SEO Myth: Use keywords in domain names There is an SEO myth going around that your keywords should be in your domain name. This myth has persisted for years because many people have realized a slight boost in relevance (and therefore in search results) by using keywords in domain names. Spammers have long known that it’s not the domain name but the URL that counts. In fact, Matt Cutts even confirmed that keywords in the URL help with Google.

Your domain name is not really important when it comes to search engine optimization. I can get Xenite.Org to rank for SEO Theory (note: this search result may change over time but Xenite has been in the top ten since I posted that announcement). What does Xenite.Org have to do with search engine optimization theory? Okay, that’s not a fair question. But the domain name is not magical. I just happen to understand what works.

It’s the keywords-in-the-URL, not keywords-in-the-domain.

Hyphens are interesting things in the search engine world. They are underused and poorly understood by many people. Most SEOs have probably never spent any time playing with hyphens in a search box. I regularly use hyphens in queries. Do you know why?

If you want a really cool domain name and the good version is taken, you have some options. One is to use domain names. Hence, I picked out seo.xenite.org for my personal SEO Services URL (by the way — I am not taking on personal clients right now — please contact 1st Query to reach me with SEO inquiries).

Another option is to use directory names. Hence, I used seo-theory.com/papers for our SEO Theory White Papers directory where you can download several white papers in .PDF format.

Another option is to simply ignore the keywords-in-the-url theory. Or you can use a hyphen to append your keywords to a distinctive suffix or prefix (I would recommend you use a short suffix or prefix). Just keep in mind that the more similar your domain name is to a well-branded domain name, the more difficult it becomes for you to actually brand your own domain name.

The FILO Effect It takes Google a long time (years, actually) to get rid of an old URL that has been replaced by a new one. Yes, you can do 301 redirects but when you’re competing with the old URL you don’t have that option. The original SEO Theory URL on blogspot is still active. I have deleted the content from the sub-domain and posted a forwarding notice. Nonetheless, because people linked to old posts there Google still thinks that sub-domain is more relevant than this one (which has more content and more inbound links).

Don’t assume that equates to “age matters in Google’s algorithm”. It’s more like, “First In, Last Out”. That is, there is a Sticky Effect in Google’s algorithm that has more to do with simply being in the lists first. It’s not about age, it’s about order of arrival. Neither seo-theory.blogspot.com nor seo-theory.com are 1 year old yet, but both rank well for “seo theory”. Xenite and the Blogspot page have ranked well since I started the blog.

“Ah, but those are old domain names” everyone says. I say, phooey. I get plenty of new domain names to rank quickly for their keywords. It’s the order of acquisition that matters most. Not the age. First In, Last Out. Remember that.

Why does order of acquisition matter more than age? I have no idea. It may be intentional on Google’s part, it may be unintentional. My money is on unintentional. I can easily point to thousands of examples (except for the fact that typing them all in would not be so easy) that I have studied through the years.

Your domain name sucks because … But enough about that. The point of this discussion is that your domain name sucks because you blindly chase after SEO myths. What is most bemusing about all this is that nearly every major voice in the SEO community has repeatedly shot down the “keywords-in-domain-name” myth. I cannot think of anyone who hasn’t advised people to stop worrying about keywords in domain names.

So why do people keep obsessing over domain name keywording? Where do these ideas come from, unless people just browse forum discussions and only read the subject lines. It’s not like they start out their posts with, “I apologize if this has been asked before but I’ve been searching the forum and have not seen where it has, so would you please tell me if is true?”

Last words …Or maybe it is. In any event, if you understand that domain name doesn’t matter, you’re miles ahead of the competition. If you play with hyphens in your search queries, you’re miles ahead of the SEO community. If you understand what First In, Last Out means, you’re miles ahead of the search engines.

At least until they fix that annoying little problem. Relevance has nothing to do with who stakes out the turf first. It has to do with what the content says. But then, I’ve complained about domain name spam since at least 2001 and haven’t seen any movement there, so I guess we’re stuck with First In, Last Out for the next 5-6 years at least.