A statement by John Muller addressing the Webmaster’s thread states that keyword-rich domains don’t help with high web rank. A common misconception in web owners asserts that having a keyword in the domain means betting ranking sites.
However, John Mueller advised SEOs and website owners not to fall for the myth clarifying the query through Ask Google Webmasters. The Google initiative is for people who want to clear their doubts with experts like Google’s John Mueller.
The question about keyword-based domain extensions or top-level domains seems to confuse many web owners around the world. People believe that a domain such as ‘besthockeytips.com’ would rank them higher in searches for ‘best hockey tips. However, in reality, such domains for chosen keywords seldom appear to be ranking high in the results.
The original question in concern was ‘Does a .jobs domain improve ranking in Google for jobs? ‘. The questioner wanted to know if a top-level domain would help with ranking when a keyword is used in the domain.
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Why Having A Keyword In Your TDL Doesn’t Matter
Addressing the concern, Mueller cleared the matter for both TDLs and the simple use of keywords in domain names. He began by answering why a .job domain wouldn’t work as great as anyone would believe it too. He said,
“This is a really common question that comes up for the new top-level domains. In short, no. You don’t get a special bonus like that from having a keyword in your top-level domain.
Anecdotally you can see that by searching naturally for anything that interests you. I’d venture a guess that the top results don’t have those keywords as a domain ending. Often it’s not even in the URL at all. That’s by design.”
As the answer implies, top-level domains with keywords simply do not make it to the top results. The internet does not allow for this unfair advantage which otherwise people with keywords in TDLs would have.
Keyword Rich Domains Do Not Press An Advantage
Consequently, a keyword-rich domain name is not much of an evaluating factor for relevance to the words in the search bar. As expected, the algorithm is much more thorough in sifting the web to bring the best to top-ranking searches. Hence, Mueller clarifies,
“Just because a website has a keyword in its domain name doesn’t mean that it’s more relevant than others for that keyword. In short, you don’t need to put keywords in the domain name.”
There might be the ‘one in hundred’ cases where a website is seen with a keyword in the domain doing well. But, this is more of an exception than the norm. Even if some factors seem to evaluate a keyword-rich domain as a high-ranking website, it contradicts Google’s actually working.
Hence, Google firmly states that a keyword in your TDL or domain does not work in the way expected. If anything, having a keyword in the domain name would be a disadvantage. As businesses grow and evolve out of a niche, a niched-down keyword domain would weigh down the website.
As put by Mueller, “From a practical point of view, it’s worth also keeping in mind that businesses evolve over time, and moving domains is hard. So it often makes sense to pick a domain name that you can use for the long run and not necessarily one that just matches what you’re offering today.
For example, if you focus on making awesome blue widgets and build your website on BestBlueWidgets.com, what do you do when you start offering red widgets?”
A practical piece of advice is to have a domain that relates to your niche but would continue to be relevant to scale up your business.