I've been researching a little more about SEO metrics and Google AdWords Keyword Planner and found some things that might interest everyone who shared here their ideas about EMD (Exact Domain Match) and PMD (Partial Domain Match) names.
- Google seems to penalise a little domains with hyphens (moz.com/search-ranking-factors)
- 3-4 words max for .com EMD’s (moz.com/blog/the-exact-match-domain-playbook-a-guide-and-best-practices-for-emds)
- Google seems to penalise a little domains with longer names (moz.com/search-ranking-factors)
- It is recommended that the keywords don't have much competition.
This can be checked with Google AdWords (low or medium competitive keywords at most), but it is also recommended the use of another tool to check the keyword difficulty as well, such as Moz Pro (they have a 30 day trial) - EMD and PMD websites have lost some impact in the last couple of years (moz.com/blog/searchmetrics-ranking-factors-2014).
- EMD and PMD websites are under a more rigorous Google scrutiny.
Therefore the keywords effect is only relevant if Google considers the website content worthwhile (of good quality).
Here are just a few examples of EMD websites with a poor performance:
Searching for wellington terrace apartment gives on 1st the website wellington-terrace.com (despite the hyphen) and on 21st the EMD wellingtonterraceapartment.com.
Searching for holiday lisbon apartment the EMD holidaylisbonapartment.com does not even show up in Google search (holiday and apartment are highly competitive keywords).
However, I decided to give more importance to a branded name over the use of something as generic and decided for tagusterrace.com, in order to maintain a good connection with past customers (with the word tagus), but most importantly, in order to provide a stronger and confident image.
I would like to know your opinion on this decision and whether tagusterrace sounds good to you, especially to those who are fluent in English.