Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Exact Domain Match does it help or distract?
-
Does owning / buying an exact domain match help or not necessary?
For example our main website ranks for nearly 14,800 Keywords but one KW we are trying to get in the top spot for we are currently at the bottom of page #1. We do see an exact domain match available so we purchased it but i don't know if it would actually help us or distract us.
I was thinking we could create an article about the keyword on that exact domain then do some on page seo and back linking. But would that be more of a distraction VS. just focusing on getting more high quality back links to the main website we have ranked on Page 1 at the bottom?
Any ideas or benefits to use an exact domain match to help boost also?
-
We see this quite often; sometimes, an exact match domain will rank much higher than websites that seem to have better organic SEO.
-
I don’t think it will do much. Unless you’re current domain is really no doing well.
It would need constant content to rank well.
-
The keyword is Multiple Listing Service. The domain we purchased is multiplelistingservice.com do you think we should write one article based around the keywords Multiple Listing Service then have internal links that point back to our main website that is already ranked for this KW?
or will that not do much? As multiplelistingservice.com is a new domain with no domain authority or links so even though its an exact match its not going to pass along much Link Juice .
-
They matter a little bit but only for that one keyword if you have a great brand it is much better for you to use that brand name. Recently it seems Google is giving less and less attention to exact match domains I would not rush out and buy one.
Will be creating a doorway page and even if it ranks number one you'll have to put a lot of good content into it not just by the domain
-
I haven't looked at the age of the domain or if it was used. I have a feeling it is a fresh domain that wasn't used for anything.
But I'm trying to weigh out if we should create content, an article on that domain based around that exact keyword then do backlinking OR if we should just get more anchored text back links to our main page. or if we have any other options to use an exact domain match to help us rank either that domain or our main domain for the KW ya know?
-
Hi,
Exact keyword match in case of domain is always a good thing, however I wouldn't personally be able to predict if steps mentioned by you will help you rank for this KW for one particular reason. The reason is links - their quality and numbers. Also, what's the domain age? Did you check "Wayback machine"? If you didn't then have a look what was domain previously used for. Exact match is not everything now with more and more experts stating that you have to have good mixture of exact keyword match and url's. Hope that helps.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why did my Domain Authority drop?
I had an ok domain authority. We focused on building backlinks for our website and it shows that we received a significant number of backlinks. However, today, our DA fell significantly. I don't understand why that happened. Can someone please help me with this situation? Thank you.
Link Building | | MizbaCMU1 -
Does an external link to an image file on my site help my SEO?
I found a few websites that are displaying images from my site. Curiously, they have also linked these images to the source image file on my website. I found these because Moz showed these sites in my list of backlinks. I assume that means it impacts my Domain Authority. But does this actually help me in search engines since it's not linking to a page on my site?
Link Building | | AlexLenhoff0 -
1000's Backlinks from ONE Root Domain - Positive or negative?
One of my website's link is placed over a comment. This website has a "recent comments" section in the footer which is hence appearing on all the websites pages. All tools including - Google Search Console, Majestic and MOZ are showing 45000+ links from that root domain. Questions: Are these links harmful to my rankings? Should I get all those links disavowed? Should I disavow the root domain or leave the link that lies on the home page? What if there are up to 10 links coming from a domain? is that harmful too? Apart from disavowing, is there any other option to get this fixed? If at all this counts as an issue... Thanks in advance!!
Link Building | | Ishrat-Khan0 -
I just uncovered a massive 500+ domain PBN linking to competitors
As the title, some competitors I've been watching are using a PBN they (or their agency) have built. I'm looking to get some discussion on how you approach situations like this - do you just report all of the domains to Google and pray they do something? There are 4 sites I'm looking at, all competing in the same niche with very similar websites (different branding and content, but essentially the same pages). I thought all were related, but after Excel-ing all the domains to see which overlap I've found that there's several sets; PBN 1 covers 117 domains that link to competitors A, B & C. Signaling to me that these are owned by the same person. PBN 2 links together B & C with 30 domains, PBN 3 is just C with 40 domains. PBN 4 is just B with 105 domains. PBN 5 is just A with 10 domains. PBN 6 is D by itself with more than 340 domains. Signaling to me that this one probably isn't owned by the same person. It looks like new domains are added to these PBNs every week and this has been going on for quite some time. Now, I'm fully against use of PBNs that don't use authentic websites that provide value, and I can't find any of these sites that aren't just a basic WP template with a single-word text logo followed by spun content. This is a goldmine, because according to Ahrefs these sites are pulling in well over 500,000 monthly visitors between them, and these links make up the majority of each site's link profile. If these networks were to crumble, that would open up a big opportunity for more authentic sites to rank well. How would you recommend to tackle this? Do I find example URLs and write reports for each of the 500+ domains or are there better ways of working through this?
Link Building | | Leads.Bz0 -
Total Exact Match Anchor Text Percentage or a Few High Quality Exact Match Backlinks, which is better?
Hello, I was wondering if anyone could help me. I am trying to rank a web page for a competitive regional search term. Upon inspecting all the competitors’ backlinks they appear to using an overly high exact match anchor text to rank on the first page for this keyword. Somewhere in the region of 15 – 55% exact match anchor text. So the question is what does big G provide a heavier weighting for, A.) The total percentage of exact match anchor text for all your backlinks, until it reaches the point of over optimization. A higher percentage up to about 60% will help you rank in the top 3. Meaning I should change a 1,000+ backlinks on multiple domains to the exact match anchor text. B.) Or just a few backlinks with the exact match anchor text but from really high quality domains with a ‘Majestic SEO’ Trust and Citation Flow above 40. Any help would be appreciated, exact match anchor text is meant not to work but it still does.
Link Building | | tomfifteen0 -
What tools/techniques you use to check if a domain has been penalized?
If we think to buy expired or otherwise dropped domains, what tools or techniques you would recommend to check if there has bad SEO history? We could of course, check with Google itself if the site is indexed and ranks, but I am asking if there is a particular tool out there that would provide more information if a website had been shady. Thanks so much, guys! Lily
Link Building | | wspwsp0 -
Does linking to a subdomain give link juice to the main domain?
I have a few domains that I'm going to use for link building, will the link juice from the sub domains transfer to the main domain?
Link Building | | Vsky0 -
Do links from my own subdomain to my main domain carry any value?
I currently have a Wordpress blog set up on a subdomain i.e blog@ etc. I wanted to know whether the links from the blog to my main site carry any value.
Link Building | | Store210