I have a quick question. When it comes to search engine traffic, does the domain actually matter? What about the TLD? For example, if I wanted to start a game website, and I had a chance of something like games4all.com versus something cool sounding like darkvision.com, would the search engine ranking really matter? When it comes to google ranking, does it search for the keyword in the domain? If I started a gaming website with a cool domain, and I optimized well, and had some nice content, would there be a chance of it being ranked highly? Thanks!

The domain names matter because when people start putting links in forums and blogs if they dont use the Anchor text then if you have rich domain name with keywords then you automatically have the rich anchor text where as not so targeted keyword domain name would have to focus on Anchor text mainly. TLD is not a factor in this regard but can help in Local search to some extent.

Sure. If you have web site that sales cars it rather be greatcardeals or someting like that instead of your_company_name_that_has_nothing_to_do_with_this _business

Search engines cound the domain name when estimate the web site relevancy.

Regards
D.

If you do a search on Google, you'd find your search terms highlighted in the urls of the search results. Yes, your domain name does matter. To what extent...who knows? I guess it depends the search engines.

I have sites with nondescript domain names that rank well in the SERPs. I've found that the age of a domain name matters more than if it contains your keyword or not. If your domain does not describe your site, you can always create a subdomain or directory that does.

Search engines cound the domain name when estimate the web site relevancy.

I dont agree with this. They dont count the domain names by any means. They count the backlinks to a domain.

I have noticed that page titles matter more than anything...also having your url contain keywords is a good idea...What I mean is make the name of your files and your folders relevant as well....

I've noticed that the domain names haven't had an impact on page ranks. I make heavy use of subdomains, so I'm able to work the concept into most address'. That said, I value having a domain to point to specific locations within a site. Helps steer people away from book-marking the wrong spot. I've done well enough with subdomains to not have invested in more top level domains. Plus I also don't pay anything extra doing things this way. Finally, I am basically branding most of the individual sections within my main site which I like-if only for the ego value.

IMO, if you have keyword rich domain name then it can help to improve the visibility and rankings of your site on the search engines. When you include the url on web page's copy, keyword rich domain name improves the keyword density. By using the most important Keyword in domain name increases more value in your link popularity campaign. I think you should register domain name that sounds good and looks more sensible.

I do not beleave the domain name matters.. I have JUST NOW.. posted a example of this not being the case. Useing search engine MSN.

My Small Site, VS a Major Competitor.
See Post
http://www.webmaster-talk.com/showthread.php?t=39439

For what im on about...

I think domain name is the first attention from where you can get high traffic so it should include top keywords and it should have great sense too as it is creating your business brand name. You should also use small names that are easy to remember and spell too and you can also use hyphenated domain names as google consider it as space. So I think while choosing domain name you must have to consider some SEO factors too.

Domain name selection does not help much for SEO .Googe home work and sturectured is very much required for SEO.

If things was so easy than almost everyone would have done that by buying domains at $7 .There is no short cut for SEO