Written by Jason Barrett. Posted under Domaining
Here is a question for you. If you were to buy a local-based domain name, in what order would you want the words? Would you put the city/state before the keyword or after? So for example, is NewYorkTaxi.com preferrable to TaxiNewYork.com?
My findings are that most domainers are putting the city qualifier before the keyword. I see this when performing domain research and tend to see this more in the search engine results. With that said, I still think the reverse order is pertinent and here is why. Many people know what they are looking for and type that in first. Then when that doesn’t return the result they want, they simply tack their physical location on the back end of their existing query or domain name.
I am in the process of running A/B tests on this scenario in order to see what is happening in the real world. I will be sure to keep you posted. In the meantime, what do you think?
Frank Michlick on 11 Oct 2007 at 1:51 pm #
Generally I also follow the CityDescription.com pattern. I’ve generally found that the other way around does not get as much traffic. However there are certain niches where that does not apply.
I found it helps me the best to say it out loud and try to see how I would search for the terms. It’s certainly a safe bet to take both combinations - makes it more valuable too if you are planning on selling the domain at a later time.
Most local domains are still quite low in traffic, but I’m sure it’s going to be a good upwards trend. Plus those names make great sellers via a network such as Fabulous DDN.
Hope this helps,
/Frank
Jason Barrett on 11 Oct 2007 at 11:14 pm #
Frank,
Thanks for your feedback. As I mentioned in the post, I tend to agree with the CityDescription.com format too. Also as I mentioned, I am going to be testing both scenarios, so it will be interesting to see if it plays out as expected.
Jason