San Francisco, California – October 30, 2014 – SEO intelligence software company CanIRank today announced the results of an in-depth study into the impact of keyword domain names on organic search rankings. The research provides hard evidence that companies could save significant sums – sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars – by investing in keyword domains despite recent moves by Google to reduce their influence.
After studying more than 10,000 URLs, CanIRank's research found that websites using keyword domain names rank higher than brandable domains and are able to attain top rankings more easily. Websites that contained a matching keyword in their domain name earned a top 10 Google ranking with an average of 35,000 fewer links from other sites, half as much content and keyword usage, and nearly 70 percent lower website strength than those without a matching domain.
Keyword domains have historically played a large role in search engine rankings, but as early as 2011, Google began to talk about dialing down their influence. In 2012, Google announced an algorithm change that it said would reduce low-quality 'exact-match' domains in search results. However, there’s been little evidence regarding the specific impacts these changes have had.
“CanIRank’s competitive analysis software provides unique insight into the influence of over 200 different factors on search engine rankings, and we used that information to help gain a better understanding of how keyword domains perform differently than brandable domains,” said Matt Bentley, founder of CanIRank. “While previous studies have simply looked for a correlation between keyword domains and high rankings, this approach lets us see exactly why keyword domains rank more easily and allows us quantify their benefits to an SEO campaign.”
Additional results of CanIRank’s research show that high-ranking keyword domains:
- Consistently score higher than brand domains in factors related to Website Relevancy, which measures the quality of thematic content on a site, and Website External Relevancy, which measures the use of relevant keywords that link to a site;
- Score about the same on Page Relevancy and Page External Relevancy, which measure similar factors for a specific page as opposed to an entire site; and
- Score much lower on Page Strength and Website Strength, showing that keyword domains rank highly despite having fewer quality links pointing to them.
“One of the most interesting findings from our research is that keyword domains are more likely to rank higher because of their inherent properties, not just because Google does or doesn’t give them a boost,” continued Bentley. “For example, people are more likely to use relevant keywords as anchor text when they link to a keyword domain, which holds a lot of weight.”
Knowing that keyword domain names attract more keyword rich anchor text and require fewer external links to rank highly enables companies – for the first time – to calculate the potential return on investment (ROI) of purchasing a keyword domain.
For example, OrganicBabyFoods.com is a keyword domain containing likely search terms that’s currently priced at $2,650 on Sedo.com, the leading marketplace for premium domain names. Using the data in CanIRank's competitive analysis, marketing and search professionals can get an idea of what it would take to rank for the keyword “Organic Baby Foods” and calculate whether the boost provided by the exact match domain justifies the up-front investment. In this instance, if it would it cost more than $2,650 to build several thousand quality links to a brandable website and earn at least some keyword-relevant anchor text, spending that money on a keyword domain instead would provide a lower total cost. In addition, this method would also reduce exposure to future penalties that Google could impose for aggressive link building.
“Longer domains with two or three words typically offer the best balance between purchase price and SEO opportunity,” added Bentley.
Examples of domains with these properties that are currently listed for sale include AustinDivorceAttorney.com, listed at $2,500, LakesideVacations.com listed at $1,495 and SMSMarketing.com listed at $10,000.
CanIRank’s complete research data, including an explanation of each factor measured, can be found at: http://www.canirank.com/blog/keyword-domains.
About CanIRank
CanIRank is the industry's first SEO Intelligence tool. In just 60 seconds, CanIRank's software builds a complete picture of the competitive landscape, along with data-driven insights and actionable opportunities for the most productive SEOs, marketers, and agencies. Its powerful technology is the result of over two years of research and development, driven by one goal: to help you spend less time collecting and analyzing data, and more time actually getting things done. For more information, visit www.CanIRank.com.