Domain
Names ~ Keywords in URL's
by James D. Brausch
Recently we performed a large statistical analysis of the top
ranking sites and studied the domain names and URLs to see if we
could find any correlation. Over 20,000 listings were examined for
110 separate factors and the results tabulated and statistically
analyzed.
This article discusses the three attributes of domains and URLs that
were found most often among the top ranked sites.
* Does having the keyword (ie: search term) in the domain name
affect ranking?
Yes; This was the factor that was found most consistently among the
top ranking sites. Since this single factor was found so
consistently among the top ranking sites, we strongly recommend that
you choose a domain name which contains your major keyword. Our own
domain doesn't follow this rule, but you can bet that we are
considering moving to a domain which does include our keywords now
that we have reviewed the findings of this study.
* Does having a URL shorter than average affect ranking?
We found consistently that shorter URLs ranked better. This is an
interesting factor since you can largely control the length of your
URLs without moving to a new domain. Were you already considering a
restructure/redesign of your current site? Consider using short
directory names and filenames.
Your domain name is also a factor in the length of your URL. At one
time, many search engine optimization experts were recommending
purchasing very long domain names with lots of keywords separated by
dashes. The results of this study indicate that would be bad advice.
Instead, focus on short domain names which contain your main keyword
and short URLs.
* Does having a "/" at the end of your URL affect ranking?
This is one of the most interesting findings. We actually began by
studying lots of page types (.html, htm, .asp, .shtml, .sht, etc).
Our data kept showing that we were missing a large percentage of the
top ranking pages by just looking at those file types. We were
puzzled at first. Everyone knows that .html is the most common
ending to URLs; right? Wrong!
Actually, we found that most top ranking pages end with a reference
to a directory, not an actual .html file. For instance, we found the
following:
http://www.domain.com/test/ - This was the structure we found most
often among the top ranked sites.
http://www.domain.com/test.html - This structure was more likely to
be found among the lower ranked sites.
We think this is a key find. If you are considering a restructure of
your site, you might want to consider renaming test.html to
index.html and placing it in a subdirectory called "test".
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The author, James D. Brausch, is the Vice President of Marketing
for Target Blaster, Inc., an Internet Marketing firm specializing
in targeted traffic. http://www.TargetBlaster.com
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