EMD's and Hyphenated Domains

[shags38]

No doubt most are aware of the recent purge on EMD's by Google. All sorts of gloom and doom was spouted at the time albeit careful reading of Matt Cutts comments said they targeted 'poor quality' sites with EMD's. In other words the spammy one pagers and the like.

I myself had only recently launched 3 EMD websites at the time and because the content was ok they rocketed to the top of their respective SERP pages. Both are eCommerce sites and none have any inbound links which in my humble opinion indicates the strength of authority juice that Google allocates to EMD's and how little links affect SERP's. All 3 domains have survived the recent Panda upgrade adding further validation.

Additionally 'Hyphenated EMD's' carry just as much weight as non-hyphenated EMD's. I make this point to encourage comment particularly from those who do not favor hyphenated domains.

cheers and Merry Christmas,
Shags

 

[Blue Wren]

No doubt most are aware of the recent purge on EMD's by Google. All sorts of gloom and doom was spouted at the time albeit careful reading of Matt Cutts comments said they targeted 'poor quality' sites with EMD's. In other words the spammy one pagers and the like.

I myself had only recently launched 3 EMD websites at the time and because the content was ok they rocketed to the top of their respective SERP pages. Both are eCommerce sites and none have any inbound links which in my humble opinion indicates the strength of authority juice that Google allocates to EMD's and how little links affect SERP's. All 3 domains have survived the recent Panda upgrade adding further validation.

Nice bit of info that; thank you for sharing your experience.

Additionally 'Hyphenated EMD's' carry just as much weight as non-hyphenated EMD's. I make this point to encourage comment particularly from those who do not favor hyphenated domains.

cheers and Merry Christmas,
Shags

How have you come to this conclusion?

 

[snoopy]

I myself had only recently launched 3 EMD websites at the time and because the content was ok they rocketed to the top of their respective SERP pages.

Doesn't mean much of itself unless there is competition on the terms, how many searches a month, what are advertisers paying?

Additionally 'Hyphenated EMD's' carry just as much weight as non-hyphenated EMD's. I make this point to encourage comment particularly from those who do not favor hyphenated domains.

cheers and Merry Christmas,
Shags

The 1984 Toyota Corona is the fastest car in the world. I make this point to encourage comment. The above is an opinion that many (most?) would disagree on and nobody other than Google can actually prove anyway.

 

[shags38]

How have you come to this conclusion?

Essentially from reading results pages - I spend between 1-2 hours every day checking SERP's for my sites and randomly looking at other searches.

I use SEOMOZ SERP's add on in Firefox - shows data about sites in results, primarily DA and Inbound Links. Interestingly many sites, very many in fact, in the first few pages of results have very few inbound links - check it out. One EMD in a particular product niche I happen also to be in hasn't had any updates to the site in over 2 years, is a very poor site overall (obviously enough unique content for it not to be classed as spammy) and since the Panda and Penguin algos it sits at number 1 in SERP's - no links, just EMD.

There are many examples of this that I have seen, many reported also in Webmaster forums.

Perusing search results is the best educator of all in my opinion - it will either confirm opinions in forums from so-called experts or quickly dispel them.

cheers,
Shags

 

[shags38]

Doesn't mean much of itself unless there is competition on the terms, how many searches a month, what are advertisers paying?

Interesting comment Snoopy - so volume of searches and value of CPC have a bearing on an EMD? What is the lower limit of each before they are acceptable, I'd be interested to know. One factor I sometimes use is when typing in a Google search and the term you are looking for comes up in the suggestions list - maybe Google has had enough search queries for this term to bother putting it in their suggestions list - I wonder what lower limits they use and whether those limits meet your criteria

The 1984 Toyota Corona is the fastest car in the world. I make this point to encourage comment. The above is an opinion that many (most?) would disagree on and nobody other than Google can actually prove anyway.

It can be proven if you take the time to peruse search results - pick any search terms, take a cross section and use the results to educate you, not others opinions. Search results if monitored effectively tell you what Google requires, thinks, does etc - afterall search results pages are the net result of ALL their algorithms. Try it and see the light switch on.

Merry Christmas Snoopy,
Shags

p.s. your complaint line is not working - have you paid your bill?

 

[shags38]

Blue Wren and Snoopy - please read this post which is validation from Google of my comments above.

https://www.dntrade.com.au/hyphenated-domains-and-effect-serps-t6925.html?p=50509#post50509

cheers,
shags

 

[James]

I think thin content EDM's were hit pretty hard, but if you build a big site which has unique content and is SEO friendly their is no reason why i cant do well if its and EDM or not.

I did an article about it recently: http://jamesnorquay.com/reasons-quality-exact-match-domains-still-working-seo/

 

[shags38]

I think thin content EDM's were hit pretty hard, but if you build a big site which has unique content and is SEO friendly their is no reason why i cant do well if its and EDM or not.

I did an article about it recently: http://jamesnorquay.com/reasons-quality-exact-match-domains-still-working-seo/

What do you call a big site James? - and with EMD's in particular why a big site? - or did you mean more than a single page. Google to my knowledge doesn't make reference to the size of a domain when talking about a quality site.

Any comment on an EMD that has dashes in the domain?

 

[findtim]

i'm having no problems with my EMD's, out of 60+ in 1 sector only 1 domain got dropped but now its back to ranking number one.

they have about 5 pages of content and much is duplicate.

no hyphens

tim