When choosing a domain name for your website, SEO might be on your mind, but the most important factor is creating a domain that aligns with your brand and business goals.
A great domain name should be easy for your audience to remember, reflect what you offer and, ideally, help search engines recognize your relevance.
This article will walk you through the essentials of selecting an SEO-friendly domain – whether it’s brand new or already established – and cover tips on branding, TLD choices and common pitfalls to avoid.
New domains
Key considerations:
Initial indexing and TLDs.
Avoid hyphens and keyword stuffing.
Steer clear of excessive branding.
The “say and type” test (most important).
No domain name is inherently better than another; it’s how you use and brand it that makes it SEO-friendly. That said, some domains may carry more credibility or be easier to work with and rank, often depending on the TLD (top-level domain) you choose.
Initial indexing and TLD selection
Some TLDs, such as .edu and .gov, inherently carry trust factors.
These TLDs can only be registered by accredited educational institutions or government organizations, which gives them automatic credibility that resonates even with non-digital marketers.
As a result, websites using these TLDs may find it easier to establish authority and attract quality backlinks from the outset.
The belief that .edu links are valuable stems from the idea that there is strict control over who can buy these TLDs and where they can link.
However, this is just a rumor, as these links can be easily exploited through scholarship link scams and by purchasing links from students and faculty.
If you’re a local business outside the U.S., get the country’s TLD and use the proper schema for the area served. This may help you start to rank in your country more easily than a .co, for example.
And there’s an inherent trust with .org domains for organizations and being “trusted” sources of content as they’re supporting a cause and focused on a niche or industry. But that doesn’t mean you should count out the branded ones or tech endings (i.e., .net).
Over the years multiple SEOs and domain brokers have run tests on this, like Bill Hartzer did in 2020.
I’ve run my own tests, and overall, it comes down to getting the domain the right type of exposure. Although the .com is ultimately ideal, don’t panic if you cannot get it.
Avoid hyphens and the number ‘1’
Including a keyword in your domain can be helpful, but it is unnecessary.
Using hyphens to incorporate multiple keywords can lead to a poor user experience, making it difficult for users to remember and return to your site.
A domain name with multiple words separated by hyphens can appear unprofessional.
Build a brand closely associated with your products, services or content. This will help your domain rank for the right keywords through quality content, technical SEO and off-page strategies like building quality backlinks.
One outdated tactic that occasionally resurfaces is starting a name with the number “1.”
In the early days of SEO, directories were organized alphabetically, so having a name that began with “1” or “A” ensured it appeared at the top.
However, those days are long gone. Instead, focus on creating a brandable name rather than relying on gimmicks or outdated strategies.
Steer clear of excessive branding
Some TLDs may not catch on, become abused or expire for various reasons. If you’re using these TLDs for branding, there’s a risk that your domain could disappear one day, requiring a full migration before it’s too late.
For example, .oz was once used for Australia before the introduction of .com.au. A fan site for movies could have creatively used WizardOf.Oz, which fits the storyline.
While .oz hasn’t been entirely phased out, it has been replaced by .oz.au, which can result in losing your branding and backlinks once any 301 redirects expire.
Here’s a full list of IANA TLDs you can review. You’ll see some of the biggest brands in the world have successfully bought their brand as a TLD, although many don’t use it.
The ‘say and type’ test
The most important factor when purchasing a domain for SEO is ensuring that it is easy for your target audience to spell and type.
To test this, gather a random sample of 10 people, quickly mention the domain as if it were part of a conversation, and then ask them to write it down or spell it out loud. This will help you gauge how easily potential visitors can remember and input your domain.
If at least 7 out of 10 people can spell your domain correctly, it’s likely a good choice. If not, consider finding a different variation.
Years ago, I had a couple of domains that I thought were fantastic, and I built them out and made them profitable. Unfortunately, one was a plural version of a couple of words, and the other was in the past tense rather than the present.
Once both domains gained traction, I discovered that someone had purchased the better versions, which ended up receiving the backlinks instead of mine. This experience led me to develop the “7 in 10” test.
When I asked people at a coffee shop to spell the domains while waiting in line, they overlooked the plural and past tense forms, which negatively impacted my marketing efforts.
I eventually overcame this challenge, but it required significantly more work, including numerous requests to update links and citations to the correct domain.
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Existing domains
Key considerations:
Does the purpose of the old domain match your current intentions?
Check the previous backlinks.
Analyze traffic by page.
Investigate any past penalties.
Was the domain ever hacked?
Are there any public relations problems?
Decide whether to keep it standalone or merge it.
There is a mix of good and bad information about using purchased established domains for SEO. It depends on who you ask, what the author does for a living, why they created the article and who they wrote it for.
This section is based on my experiences helping publishers, brands and clients that acquire other companies and need to figure out if we should let their domain die, incorporate it into the parent company or keep it standalone.
Does it match your now?
Go to the Way Back Machine and see if the old domain matches what you want to do with it now.
If the old site was a churn and burn, a niche site about a topic or something that is not what you plan on doing, you’ll want to see if the domain has been cleared of its past topics in the search engines.
If the domain has dropped out of the top 100 positions on tools like Semrush, SEO Clarity, Ahrefs or Moz for at least a couple of years, you’re likely in the clear.
You want to avoid the hassle of changing the entities that search engines – and some social media algorithms – associate with the previous domain, as this can add extra work and delay your path to success.
Check for previous backlinks
One of the most common reasons people purchase a domain for SEO is because it has backlinks.
The idea is that you can leverage the “authority” built by those backlinks and apply it to your new domain through a redirect.
While this can work with quality backlinks, it carries the risk of getting caught, which could negatively impact your core domain and business.
If you’re looking to restore a domain because you believe it has potential – rather than just redirecting it to another site – then you’ll need to take a different approach.
In this case, you should reach out to the websites that provided valuable backlinks and ask them to link to your new content to demonstrate your relevance.