How To: Should I buy an Exact Match Domain Name for SEO Reasons?

There has been a bit of a rumble regarding exact match domain (EMD) names as SEO tools in recent times, so let’s squash the rumours once and for all. Should your domain be an exact match and will it benefit your site’s rankings?

From a purely SEO perspective, there is little evidence to point towards the fact that they do, however having an exact match URL is beneficial in other ways. The reason it used to be so “vital” was because of companies’ main keywords (their names) appearing in the URL. According to Marcus Tober, CTO and Founder of Searchmetrics,

“keyword in the domain name’ as an SEO tactic has lost its influence over recent years”

Patrick Altoft, Director of Strategy at Branded 3 also added that “

It all depends on your goals & how well established your business is. It’s very rare that a major brand would be built on an exact match domain and we see very few examples of an EMD doing well in the long term.”

So it would appear that besides for the pure marketing and brand awareness perspective an EMD is a nice to have and by no means essential to ALL businesses. Of course, your mileage may vary, as it does along with all avenues of SEO, but think of an EMD as a good way to let users and search engines know that your brand is trustworthy enough to deserve its name in the URL of your website.