Google targets low quality exact-match domains

Finally Google have rolled out a small algorithm change to help conquer low quality websites with exact-match domains ranking high within the search results.

Previously websites could cruise along ranking highly with very little effort as long as they had exact-match domains.

For those of you who don’t know, an exact-match domain name is a URL that is exactly the same as the keyword or phrase you are trying to optimise for. For example if you are trying to rank for “Estate Agents in Chepstow” the domain name would be www.estateagentsinchepstow.com.

These types of domain names in many cases were unfairly ranked high within Google’s search results.

Matt Cutts, the head of Google webspam team announced on Twitter that Google would be rolling out this algorithm change. The change has come as no surprise as Matt Cutts had mentioned a few years ago that Google will be looking into why exact-match domains rank so well when they actually shouldn’t.

Over the next few days you may see slight changes in the search results where some sites that once ranked well based on their exact match domain will lose ranking due to this change.

Keep in mind that this doesn’t mean sites with keywords within their URL’s will automatically been ranked down as the change aims to target only low quality sites which are riding on the basis of exact matching.�

By Luke Stanley
SEO Consultant