Google has over 200 Page Ranking Factors and SEO domain Name is only one of the major factors that affect your whole website ranking. But how much does it affect the search engine results? When you start a new Blog or website, One of the first and most important decisions is, you have to choose a domain name that should be SEO-friendly Domain

That choice will directly impact on the website’s success in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Marketing (SMM). SEO domain name plays the same role as SEO friendly URL.

Let me explain, how a domain name impacts SEO and SMM.

For years, search engine optimizations and search marketers have often Purchased Domains that contained their targeted keywords to increase click-through ratio (CTRs) and to help gain higher rankings on Google, Yahoo, Yandex, Ask, and other search engines. For example, If your domain is www.cook.com

For example, If your domain is www.cook.com, when someone searches in Google queries about “how to cook chicken” then your domain name takes the advantage of Exact match domain and easily ranks for the “cock” keyword.

Many SEO strategists and companies would purchase exact match domains (EMDs), which are domains that exactly match the keyword phrase they are targeting.

In light of the trend since 2010, many SEOs feel that EMDs and other keyword domains may become even less beneficial in the future. This does not mean that you should necessarily avoid the keyword domains, but it does mean that keywords shouldn’t be the primary factor you consider when choosing a domain.

What is Domain?

Domain name is the name of your website. A group of computers and devices on a network that is administered as a unit with common rules and procedures.

For example,

www.hiechwork.com
www.searchenginejournal.com
moz.com
backlinko.com

What are Sub-domains?

A sub-domain is a “third level” domain name that is part of a larger, top-level domain. In simple words, the new domain reflects the name of your domain at the end of the new domain name.

For example,

www.abc.hitechwork.com
www.abc.searchenginejournal.com
be.moz.com
backlinko.com

Note:- Sub-domains are free to create under any root domain that has webmaster controls.

How Google Treats Exact Match Domain

Let us take an example for better understanding. An exact match domain would be freerecharge.com. or freemobilerecharge.com In other words, a domain is registered that is the exact search term (I want free recharge, free recharge for mobile, mobile recharge, how to get online mobile recharge) for which you would like to be ranked.

This used to be the key to good rankings, but Google found a loophole in the search engine and recognized that people were abusing the system. They made the change in Google’s algorithm. So that is why Google does not give more importance to this rank factor. We believe it does still hold some validity, but as more domains are registered the value of EMDs will continue to diminish.

Tips for Choosing an SEO Domain Name

Here is a list of some important points that should be considered during the time of purchasing a domain name.

• Make Domain Name Memorability
• What About Keywords?
• Avoid Dashes
• Hyphens
• Domain Registration Length
• Choosing A Domain Extension
• Buying & Redirecting Domains
• Avoid Trademarked Domains

Make Domain Name Memorability

Your domain name should be catchy, simple, and easy to remember. Remember that people will need to type in your domain name. You should, therefore, take into account potential misspellings and keep it short to avoid types. This is especially true for websites that rely on word-of-mouth advertising.

What About Keywords?

keyword-rich domains still play a part in the role of search engine marketing. Moz’s survey on Google’s ranking factors says that “domain level keyword usage” accounts for 6.98% of all ranking factors in Google. But it continues to start decreasing as the number of EMDs increases. Here are the different types of keyword-rich domains

Exact Match Domains – EMDs include all words of the phrase you want to rank for.

Partial Match Domains – Includes only some words of your main phrase.

No Match Domains – This does not include keywords. Has less direct SEO benefits from a domain perspective but yields long-term SEO benefits.

Avoid Dashes

Don’t make a dash in the domain name if possible because, when some types your domain name they don’t want to add ” Dashes” in it. These domain names are often impostors of the better domain names and won’t look good. It’s just best to avoid them if possible.

Hyphens

If your domain name has two words (like www.examplesite.com) and want to separate the words with a hyphen (www.example-site.com). But I want to tell you something Google uses a hyphen to correlate the words, so Google considers this a spammy behavior—and more than one hyphen should not be used in an SEO domain name.

Domain Registration Length

Domain length does not play an important role in Google.  Domain registration length matters as an SEO factor is a myth. When asked about domain registration length, Google’s Matt Cutts said,

“To the best of my knowledge, no search engine has ever confirmed that they use the length of registration as a factor in scoring. If a company is asserting that as a fact, that would be troubling. The primary reason to renew a domain would be if it’s your main domain, you plan to keep it for a while, or you’d prefer the convenience of renewing so that you don’t need to stress about your domain expiring.”

Choosing a Domain Extension

• .com – It is the most popular extension. People generally use .com because they want to target all over the world.
• .net and .org – usually purchased if the .com version is taken.
• Country-specific – domain extensions like .us (United States) or .au (Australia) are used when you’re offering products/services only for that specific country. This can improve SEO for that country but limits you from expanding globally. This way you can select your SEO domain name.

Buying & Redirecting Domains

Sometimes companies buying web pages for their links and redirecting them to another site has long been a practice employed by SEOs. But now this option is also changing Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan has posted about buying domains. They suggest that Google largely devalues links from sites once they have expired or when ownership changes.

Be careful purchasing existing domains and websites if you’re planning on redirecting them to your main site. Realize that the links to that website are for that website, not yours, so expecting those links to work in the same way may not work. As a general rule, I advise to only buy a domain name if you’re actually going to build a unique website on it.

Avoid Trademarked Domains

Avoid making the trademarked domain name. For example, facebook.com has a trademark FB, so don’t try to make fb.com because you never beat Facebook. So be sure of the name of the domain.

Configure SEO Domain Name in WordPress

• Click GENERAL under SETTINGS.
• Make sure that you type the correct variation in both the WordPress URL and the Site Address URL.

Note:- What you can do to test that WordPress is correctly configured to use your preferred domain is to open a browser window and try to access a URL with both the http://www and without the www. If everything is ok, both URLs should redirect to your website.

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If you have any suggestions or problems with the SEO domain name please feel free to comment below.