Are You missing out on your Google Ranking?

Are You missing out on 20% of your Google Ranking? The Gurus of the search engines experts often disagree on what factors are truly important for Google, Yahoo and MSN. A great question among them deals with whether the domain name of a website has any bearing on search engine positioning and rank. Are keyword filled domains good? How about dashes in domains? Does it matter at all? Should you grab BettysCloset.com if Betty's Closet is the name of your used clothing store or is there a better one?

How can the truth be known? Yahoo, Google and MSN certainly aren't giving away their secrets to the SEO companies! Search Engine algorithms may not even be known to any one person at the large search engines, so as to reduce the possibility of leaking this important information.

Even though we might not ever find out the exact formula that the BIG 3 search engines use, there IS a way that we can predict with good enough certainty what Google doesn't want you to know. That way is called statistical analysis, and the truth can be seen in the numbers. Domains containing keywords definitely come up higher in the search engines!

It isn't as revealing as when the Wizard of Oz bellows, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" However, we most definitely can see the curtain moving, and decide for ourselves that something is making it move. What that data is telling us, believe it or not, is that fully 20 percent of a website's search engine positioning is based on the URL and domain of the site!

Although we can't determine causality of WHY things occur using this method, we can deinitely say that they DO occur. Domain names with keywords in them do rank higher than domains without keywords, so who do you want to be with? The group that ranks higher? Or the group that ranks lower? Of course, you want to be in the group that is successful.

But the most interesting part of the statistical analysis of domain names is that it doesn't stop there! Want to know whether there is a better chance of ranking high with dashed domains? How about whether using words such as "web" or "online" in the domain give you a better chance of a high ranking? Do the extensions .html, .htm, .shtml, .php, etc. perform better or worse than another? OK, so we know that having the keyword in the domain increase ranking for that keyword in the search engine. But does the POSITION of the keyword in the domain affect your chance of a high ranking? If you have a two word keyword, does the ORDER of the words make any difference in ranking?

The answer to all of these questions is surprisingly, YES, all of these factors do show a significant trend towards ranking in the search engines! Not only these, but many more factors can be used to increase your chance of success. Of course, there are so many that it becomes extremely difficult to track all of them, and to use them successfully.

Now, thanks to a new piece of software invented by the statistics expert who pioneered this method, there is a real practical way to answer these questions. The software scores, at the touch of a button, a list of domain names you are considering. It automatically tallys the positive and negative correlations to a specific keyword, and instantly gives you the score of the potential URL ranking for all of them. When you look at the list of scores, you can easily choose the best!

When I started using this software, I immediately realized that not only could I score my own domains, but of course I could score my competitors' domains as well! This way, I would know going into the market what chance I had to overtake the top spots in the search engines.

What I found most interesting was that although having your main keyword as the ONLY word in your domain (cars.com, for example) was extremely good for search engine ranking, it was certainly not the only excellent choice! Let me show you a real world situation.

I am building a new site about the violin. Of course, violins.com, violinist.com, etc. are all taken, as were about 15 of my top choices. However, after scoring over 30 names, I actually came up with a domain that scored higher than all but 2 of the existing domains, and it scored very close to those also!

Without this software, there is absolutely no way I could have felt secure with what became my final choice. Now I have gone forward with development of the website knowing that I am in a very solid competitive position from step 1!

Conclusion

Statistical analysis shows that 20 percent of the factors that search engines use to rank websites are right there in the domain and URL.

The choice of a domain name cannot make any website shoot to the number 1 position on Google or Yahoo. There are a number of factors that go into ranking websites, and a great content site is most important for long term success on the web. But to make the mistake of overlooking the easiest 20 percent boost in ranking you can get is just foolish!

With new software that uses a vast amount of statistical analysis, you can get a better idea of your chances of competing against an increasingly competitive web environment.

With the software and knowledge to go along with it, it costs less than many ebooks! Now for that kind of value, who wouldn't want a head start on the competion?

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