[johnnyWebAffiliate]

I know there are big sites, amazon and so on that no one would have associated with a store a long time ago, but of course, now they are brand names.

If I have a subdomain say with:

cellphones.mydomain.com

is that helpful in seo (if I'm really selling cellphones)? Does the keyword in the subdomain name help in PR?

Thanks.

[MINDsprinter]

I'd say yes. Everything I've read says google looks at keywords in the url like anything else, which means even mydomain.com/cellphones would be helpful too.

[cafeman]

If by PR you mean Page Rank then no. But yes, it helps to use keywords in your URLs. Just don't overdo it.

[johnnyWebAffiliate]

Originally Posted by cafeman

If by PR you mean Page Rank then no. But yes, it helps to use keywords in your URLs. Just don't overdo it.

What do you mean by "helps" then? Thanks.

[Leader]

He most likely means it'll "help" with your ranking in the SERPS...

[Alan Hamilton]

It is also my understanding that keywords used in url's can help if done right.

[MINDsprinter]

Yeah, they definitely can. A lot of designers often forget that url names, file names, title tags, and headline tags (h1 or h2) are important SEO techniques.

[cafeman]

Originally Posted by johnnyWebAffiliate

What do you mean by "helps" then? Thanks.

Sorry, I should have said more. PR (Page Rank) will come from links in to a page. It wouldn't make any difference to the Page Rank of a page if the URL was category.domain.com/related-keyword/specific-product.html or www.domain.com/1234.html if everything else is equal.

No, what having the keywords in the URL achieves are at least 3 fold.

1) The SEs (Search Engines) will weight the first URL better for your category/keywords in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) for those keyword searches
2) If people link to you using the URL in the anchor text (which often happens) like this: <a href="http://category.domain.com/related-keyword/specific-product.html">category.domain.com/related-keyword/specific-product.html</a> then look at all those keywords there that are easily parsed and recognised. It is well known that keywords within the anchor text go towards your page ranking for those keywords (or how else would google bombing work getting GWB's page to rank for miserable failure etc.)
3) it literally helps people to click through in the natural SERPs (just as it does with PPC). If the searcher has searched for "category keyword product" and sees all those highlighted in your URL as well as no doubt in your title and the snippet (if you have optimised the page correctly too) then the searcher is more likely to click.

SEO is a big topic, but there's some of my thoughts to be getting on with.

MINDsprinter touches on on-page factors such as the title tag and header tags... these are all on page factors that must not be ignored.

Perhaps for further reading on this you could check out these two posts by Matt Cutts who confirms what we already knew about URLs and on page optimisation:-

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/change...linux-firefox/
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-ad...ers-will-love/

[Alan Hamilton]

Good stuff Cafe - thanks for contributing the links.

[WRYoung]

I would recommend using mysite.com/keyword/ instead of keyword.mysite.com

There are differing views on the outcome in the search engines for sub domains. Some believe that Google treats a sub domain as a seperate site from the main site, hence not sharing some of the core advantages of the main site, while everyone tends to agree that mysite.com/keyword/ is looked at as part of the main site.

[johnnyWebAffiliate]

what about domain names with hyphens? Would a search engine parse:

cellphones-for-sale.com

for SEO, better than

cellphonesforsale.com? (all other things being equal.) Do the delimiters allow the search engine to pickup keywords better?

I remember reading once that on the desktop search that Google picks up ADocumentWithMyKeyword when searching because of the case, but not adocumentwithmykeyword. Where one was searching for a given keyword only the PascalCased would be picked up. Makes me thing a hyphenated name, while not necessarily the best for users to type in or remember, may have SEO benefits, not much probably, but some.

[cafeman]

Originally Posted by WRYoung

I would recommend using mysite.com/keyword/ instead of keyword.mysite.com

There are differing views on the outcome in the search engines for sub domains. Some believe that Google treats a sub domain as a seperate site from the main site, hence not sharing some of the core advantages of the main site, while everyone tends to agree that mysite.com/keyword/ is looked at as part of the main site.

Yes Google certainly treats it like a separate site, but this can be an advantage. It means it's possible to take multiple organic listings on the same page.

Personally I go for www.domain.tld/category/keywords/

However in the past I have had to use subdomains when using physically different hosting locations for services. This has had the effect of allowing me to show up more than once within the SERPs, and you didn't hear me crying about that!

Jonny, I personally avoid hyphens in domain names. I prefer branding and the billboard/telephone test. If you can tell someone your domain once and they can then go to a browser and type it in straight away it's passed. Hyphens worked like crazy way back when, but seem to work less well now, especially the holdem-poker-consolidated-loans-mortgage-porn.tld style ones. The only real advantage I can see of using them is if you own the non-hyphenated and want to protect your brand.

[glittered]

yahoo love keywords in domains i know that for a fact, even with the "-" ;0

[compubahn]

As a domainer AND affiliate marketer, I think keyword domains are extremely valuable. There are, however, several things to consider.

I am not a fan of hyphenated names. They may have their advantages for SEO and be available for registration fee (there is a reason for that), but tend to lose returning or word-of-mouth traffic to the non hyphenated version (assuming one exists). Often they also tend to look like this-name-cost-eight-bucks.com, which makes you wonder how well they will actually convert. Image is important. Though I will admit I may be biased as a domainer/marketer first & consumer second.

G has been able to parse keywords in non-hyphenated names for some time now. I would try to get a non-hypenated keyword name if possible.

Some non-hypenated .coms get enough direct navigation traffic to make a grown man cry. This is reflected in their trading prices, though. Hand registering a "traffic" name is not a likely option as this point.

Using the cell phone example, cellphones.com would be the first choice. Alas it is taken & the seller wants 2 million for the name or just isn't selling (I wouldn't). I would then check overture for keyword phrases that people are using when searching for cell phones so that I might get some type-in traffic in addition to any organic or paid traffic.

You will probably find all of the keywordcellphone.com's are taken as well. D@mn domainers thought of that already too! From there the choices are to:

1) buy a keyword name from whomever saw a market & registered it before you did

2) register a short "add on name" i.e. uscellphones.com or cellphonesplus.com

3) buy the keyword name in an alternate extension like .net, .info, or .us. This will probably still cost some money, but only a small fraction of the .com version.

At this point, I would rather spend a few hundred to a few thousand on a good, authoritative, name in .com, .net, .info, or .us than invest any time in a hypenated name & then wonder if the conversion results could have been better.

IMO, a good name can earn more for you in increased conversions & traffic than it cost to acquire... a sound investment if you hope to grow. Who would you buy from... this-name-only-cost-eight-bucks.com or keyword.us ?

It should be noted that non .com names will not get much type in traffic, but neither will hyphenated names or keyword names with an extra word tacked on i.e. cellphonesplus.com

In regard to subdomains (keyword.domain.com vs domain.com/keyword), I would choose the domain.com/keyword structure every time. It is just much easier to administer particularly for database driven sites. Some CMS's are able to run multiple subdomains off of the same database - but I can't see it as being worth the effort in most cases.

Eric

[manpasand]

I am agree with some of fellow members about subdomain issue. Actually SE treated subdomain is a different site. I would recommed to use www.domain.com/keyword.html

As far as hyphen '-' concern I 100% agree with "compubahn". If you desperate to use any domain then it should be not more than TWO hypens '-'. More hypens can cause of domain name spamming by SE.