As far as I can tell there doesn’t seem to be any difference between any of the .uk second level domains.

Not sure if I misunderstood the questions, but there isn’t much value to double match domains, e.g. skiphireskiphire.co.uk.

My question would be, if Google et. al. kick exact match domains into touch, what will people do instead? Probably more paid links.

Thanks for the comment

I love exact match domains – almost all of my earnings are coming from sites built on 2 word exact match domains, and a high percentage of those are .org and .net, purely because they are cheaper than the .com’s and are given the same bonus.

Most of my exact match domains are allowing me to compete in fields I would not be able to otherwise.

Also one point worth noting – even although .eu, .biz, .info etc do not get an exact match bonus, they still get one indirectly as they influence the anchor texts when people link to you.

I’ve tested exact match domains extensively, I don’t think your test with searchengineoptimisation.eu is a good one because there is no bonus for .eu, imo.

Domain extensions that get the bonus:

.com
.net
.org
.co.uk
.org.uk
.ltd.uk (I think, I have not fully tested this one)

And of course any other country level domain, in that countries Google.

However, I should have been clearer… I’m not talking about Mortgage.com (and I repeat – you’ve made a great case for even owning such a domain)… I’m talking about cheapermortgageingreaterlondon.com ranking above a site with good content about a cheaper mortgage in greater london, if you get my drift.

Compared to many other expenses, acquiring a really strong domain name can actually work out pretty cheap.

Unlike SEO consulting for example, which is generally billed on an ongoing basis for months or years, or PPC advertising which of course has to be ongoing (as the traffic disappears the second you stop paying for clicks) you only have to pay ONCE for a premium domain name – the renewal fee for a domain that cost a thousand pounds (or a hundred thousand) is still just the same few pounds a year that any other domain name would cost.

So for a one-time capital expense you’re purchasing an asset that can help in your marketing and advertising efforts forever, as well as boosting your business’s perceived credibility (imagine being the only business in a field of 200 companies all selling XYZ.co.uk to actually own XYZ.co.uk – how much does that boost your likelihood of closing a sale with customers who’ve never heard of you – or your competitors – before?)

And coming back to the 1+1 equals more than 2 side of things, you’re actually building an asset that can increase the overall value of your business a lot more than it just cost you to acquire the domain name, depending on how central your web presence is to your overall business strategy.

You can have the worst site in the world, but if you put it on “mortgage.co.uk” you deserve to get a pretty strong boost for “mortgage” given the inherent value – and implicitly the inherent difficulty – of obtaining the domain name in the first place! (example domain, not one of mine)

It’s the equivalent of opening a shop on the corner of very two busy streets in the best part of town – you can have a pretty lousy shop and still expect a lot of attention from passing foot traffic, because of the LOCATION.

Open a much better shop in a quiet side street where the rents are 1/100th of the prime location and nobody’s going to give you a second glance. You’re going to have to start pumping money into marketing/advertising just to drum up some custom.

Of course, combine a great site with a great domain name, and 1+1 is going to equal a LOT more than 2!

Were not changing names just because of the SEO implications (spelling the damn url to people on the phone is enough to drive you mad) but also the lam is no longer with the jarrett.

Were thinking “low cost professional web design UK limited” would be a great company name, anyone know if the .com is free?

I do agree an exact match domain is a good quality signal, but that quality signal should not outweigh other signals in my opinion. i see some exact match domains rank above much superior sites just because of the domain (and some crap links). I have often and long thought Google should have some measures in place to combat this.

Why?

Simple: they’re literally the only marketing move that can’t be cloned by a spammer or by a competitor.

Over time, more and more companies that are serious about their web presence are acquiring exact match, generic domain names and moving their websites over to them, or establishing a parallel marketing presence on the new domain.

They are doing so by purchasing the domains on the secondary domain market, from domain investors and other original owners who had the foresight to get in early (like current property buyers are buying very valuable property that – once upon a time – was bought for a song by the first landowners).

Think about it: any other aspect of your business presence, online at least, can be cloned by a competitor:
- You write 10 pages of content. They write 10 pages.
- You get 10 backlinks. They get 10 backlinks.
- You blog. They blog.
- You tweet. They tweet
- and so on, and so on, seemingly forever

But what’s the one thing that only one company can do? Own a given domain name! After all, each domain name is unique.

As more and more companies get clued in about the unique marketing value of an exact match generic, the search engines are going to see a stronger and stronger mix of sites hosted on exact match domains, and that’s going to become an ever-clearer “signal of quality”, an indication that (all other things being equal, or thereabouts) it’s algorithmically worth taking that particular website more seriously than other similar sites that are on random, brandable domains.

Exact match domains will take their place on the shelf next to other “quality signals” such as incoming links from trusted/authority sites, citations, site age, etc. in the universe of factors that the search engines use to rank sites in their results.

Can’t see it personally but never say never. As long as the SE’s use the URL (domain or page) it will affect something.

Totally agree though that it is very annoying when spammy sites get the best position but hopefully google will place even more emphasis on quality content in the future so the cream will still rise

I’ve always known this but year on year I’ve thought the search engines would reduce their value… every year.

Maybe next year eh? lol

You do need to be careful if the domain name is also a registered trade mark but if not and generic then there should be no problem. For more competitive terms exact match domains from my testing will not guarantee a page one ranking so you will still have work to do.