Promoting a dropshipping business: the domain factor

Arabesco Sideral managers continue to consider the topic of online shop promotion. This article is about whether the domain name affects the promotion of the site and what you need to pay attention to when choosing it.

There is no unambiguous answer to the question of how the domain name affects the promotion of the site. One thing is clear - the domain is a ranking factor. However, compared to other factors, the degree of its influence on SEO is small.

History and age

The domain has several properties that, according to some SEO-specialists, can affect the promotion, and according to others - may not affect at all.

The first factor is history. It can be both positive and negative. If the site fell under the sanctions of search engines, its domain name ‘for life’ is registered in their ‘black lists’. If the site for a long period of time successfully promoted, but then was abandoned, the ‘karma’ at the domain - good.

As for the age of the domain, in 2017, when asked ‘Does the age of a domain name affect promotion?’ John Mueller, a representative of Google, gave a short and clear answer: ‘No’.

Keyword presence

Usually SEO specialists don't really expect a keyword in a domain to help in promotion, but some of them put it there if possible. Domains with direct occurrences of keys are called EMD (Exact Match Domain). Back in 2012, Google released a ranking algorithm update regarding EMDs. This algorithm reduces the influence of a keyword in a domain to a minimum. Well-known SEO experts, such as Michael Heyman of Yoast, advise adding a keyword to a domain only if it is relevant.

As noted by Arabesco Sideral Unipessoal Lda, there can be more harm than good from adding keys to a domain:

1. Try to use in the domain key of 3 or more words - the site will go under the filter ‘Overoptimisation’.

2. A serious business uses a brand name in the domain name. Keys in the domain were relevant at the dawn of the Internet and SEO. Now for a serious company to take a domain with a key - means a big risk. There is a possibility that search engine robots will mark your site as a ‘doorway’ (this is a tool of ‘black’ SEO, a site created to redirect users to another Internet resource. It is useless from the user's point of view, who often doesn't even have a chance to consider its page. The text content is often meaningless, consists of scraps of sentences with a huge number of keywords). In this case, high positions in the search results you will not achieve.

3. If you chose a domain with a key, and after some time the type of activity of the company will change, it will simply lose relevance.

Be memorable

Arabesco Sideral Portugal experts have concluded that domain name to a certain extent still affects clickability in search engine results and memorability in advertising. Search engines may not care, but people are more comfortable and pleasant to use short and clear words rather than meaningless sets of letters and numbers. Remember, simple and clear domains are easy to remember, which any business is only to the benefit.