For some reason, I chose purple banana hats to run this test on keywords in domain names. Ok, it wasn’t totally random – there is a method to my madness….lol! I chose this phrase because why in the world would anyone search for this? I can’t even imagine what it is let alone why someone would want one. And that is the precise reason why I chose it to run this test – no one is looking for it and no one is fighting to rank for it…except me…haha!
It’s an ongoing debate whether having your keywords in your domain name can really make that much of a difference. Some folks swear by it and wouldn’t buy a domain any other way – and others think it might maybe matter a little, but not enough to stress over. When you think of all the obscure domain names out there that rank incredibly well for totally unrelated phrases, you have to start to wonder what all this fuss is about.
So, here I am testing it. I had to choose a very low competition and low search volume query space to try and keep this test as clean as possible. Testing things online is not easy. Think about it – In order to test the effect one little factor has on ranking, you have to keep all other factors the same (ie, nothing changes but the one thing you are testing). In this dynamic world we call the internet, this is all but impossible. I need to test where all else is equal to see the effect one factor has on ranking. Therefor, I needed to use a phrase like purple banana hats to even begin to get somewhat trusted results on my testing.