Proof That Domain Name Helps

milonic · #1 (**permalink**) 04-03-2007, 06:22 AM

Hi Guys,

Searching for information about CSS "float:left" I stumbled upon floatleft.com - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&s...f&q=float+left - that ranked number 3 on the first page; even though this website has absolutely no content at all other than the words float left.

I see quite a lot of web sites rank higher than they should just because of the domain name, proof that both Google suck at the moment and that having a related domain name helps. I guess sub domains help too even though Google is supposed to have closed that hole a while ago.

dburdon · #2 (**permalink**) 04-03-2007, 09:06 AM

Milonic,

I wouldn't regard your observations as proof. I'd take a guess and assume that "float left" is hardly a competitive term. I'm not saying that domains don't have an impact. Just that in competitive categories so many other factors come into play.

Secondly, you must also distinguish between a domain name and a URL. The URL can be made up of folders and extensions as well as the domain. Don't buy a domain name when simply renaming your folders and extensions could have a very similar impact.

incrediblehelp · #3 (**permalink**) 04-03-2007, 06:27 PM

Correct Durbon. Not much proof here. 100s of websites could be linking to floatleft.com and using that in the anchor text, which would give this a high ranking.

Which would have nothing to do with the keyword in the domain or the content on the website.

Google is about backlinks first and foremost.

greeneagle · #4 (**permalink**) 04-04-2007, 12:08 AM

I have had the opportunity to play from both ends, relevant and non-relevant IRLs...and you can bet everything you have, that a relevant IRL is much easier to promote in the SEs....

There is no doubt about it from this corner!!!

Ken

optimalwebsite · #5 (**permalink**) 04-04-2007, 08:04 AM

I can't verify this either way, but I find it much easier to get a link from an associate if the link description and URL are similar. Sometimes they raise their eyebrows if there's nothing in common.

just my two cents

corporateface · #6 (**permalink**) 04-04-2007, 05:43 PM

This is no different from something.com

Go to google and search for something.

#1 something.com

Here is the page source. ...
There are only 2 items to be indexed.

Url = floatleft
Title = float left
Body = float left

I'm curious if this would work, however, for a competitive key word or phrase.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head>
<title>float:left</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="screen" href="style.css"/>
</head>
<body>
<div id="bodywrap">
<h1>float<span class="dec">:</span>left<span class="dec">;</span></h1>

</div>
</body>

</html>

greeneagle · #7 (**permalink**) 04-04-2007, 08:39 PM

Try promoting a misleading surname IRL like huntandhunt.com as a major leading laser machining company as opposed to a hunt club!

IMO - The #1 primary discriminator is a content relevant IRL and relevant content matches with subsequent URLs under that domain.

I have absolutely no doubt about it!

Ken

danners02 · #8 (**permalink**) 04-05-2007, 05:17 AM

Anyone linking to the site will use the phrase "float left" as anchor text which counts for a lot.

andy_art_trigg · #9 (**permalink**) 04-05-2007, 05:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by danners02

Anyone linking to the site will use the phrase "float left" as anchor text which counts for a lot.

But why would anyone link to a site with absolutely no content? Could a SEO or webmaster be trying an experiment I wonder?

c_karsan · #10 (**permalink**) 04-05-2007, 05:51 AM

i hope this is temporary glitch ranking- it does not seem right - take off your webmaster hats and consider as a customer if you were looking to buy a "FLOAT LEFT" (imaginary product time ;)) would you be happy to waste your time on this page... just proof that too much weight put on domain names and linking if this lasts for more than a few weeks.

xtopher · #11 (**permalink**) 04-06-2007, 01:05 AM

Float Left isnt a very competitive search term. My keyword analysis shows around 150 searches for the term in March. Around the same for long tail terms of float left too.

It has Pr1 but only one link into the site.

Its title and meta description is probably getting it ranked #3. The site is only 2 files, one of which is the .css file, so no content either.

Only 767 pages on the Web show up as Float Left in the Title using allintitle:

Domain registered: Record created on 31-Jan-2004.

A lot of other domains containing the term float left are sub directories/pages too.

Its easy to rank for terms that nobody is searching for even if you have no content!

If you search for "robot" http://www.irobotmovie.com/ is ranked 7th on Google. That site is Flash and no content whatsover. It has a PR of 6 just because it has 6,734 links to it.

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