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KristineS
08-13-2008, 12:17 PM
Just got the following article in one of my e-mail newsletters.

15 Tips for Effective Web Design (http://www.marketingvox.com/how-to-15-tips-for-effective-web-design-040387/?camp=newsletter&src=mv&type=textlink)

I agree with most of these tips. Do you?

billbenson
08-13-2008, 05:51 PM
I don't necessarily agree with this one:


14. Use a simple domain name.

Use a short domain name that ideally doesn't clash with rivals' and avoid using hyphens. The simpler your domain, the easier it will be for visitors to remember.

There are pro's and con's. Short brandable domains are better for branding. Getting keywords in the url helps and G can figure it out more easily if the are separated by a hyphen. That being said, I wonder if you have a url HPprinters.com and a title of "HP Printers" if G doesn't put 2 and 2 together.

You can always do a 301 from the brandable to the hyphenated version as well, particularly if they are similar.

vangogh
08-13-2008, 07:09 PM
I generally agree. I don't think meta keywords are important, but I don't see any harm in them either.

I do think a short memorable name is usually your best option. If you can get a keyword in there it's great. The hard part with domain advice is it's hard to get a short and memorable name without spending a lot of money anymore so the advice needs to adjust to the reality some.

Bill I don't think it's a huge deal to separate keywords in a domain with a hyphen. I think it does help Google see the different words better even though I know they're capable of finding the individual words without the dashes. Where is seems to play a bog role is in exact matches on the domain.

So for example with 'keyword1 keyword2' the site keyword1keyword2.com would likely get a boost for the exact match. I think it would be given more importance over keyword1-keyword2.com based on domain alone.

billbenson
08-13-2008, 08:33 PM
I tend to agree VG. I think it was something that helped the search engines in the past, but I suspect they figure it out pretty well today. I don't see it hurting from a seo standpoint though. I have a site that is key-phrase.com and 90% of my traffic comes from a search for some derivative of "key phrase even though the individual pages are optimized for something else. In my case its kind of like having Hewlett-Packard.com. Pages might be hewlett-packard.com/printers.html etc. If someone searches for "hewlett packard printer" it works really well. Would hewlettPackard.com/printer.html get the same results? No idea.

vangogh
08-13-2008, 11:26 PM
I don't see it hurting either and if I can find a domain with my main keyword I'll usually go for it. Ideally I want a short memorable name that includes a keyword. Typically if I'm starting a search for a domain name I'll look for a keyphrase and see if I can find a two or three word domain that includes the phrase.