Question. I am an attorney and will go into private practice soon. Someone is making a website for me. I want to know which domain name has the better chance of better SEO; I read conflicting information on the benefits of keywords in domain names. so I do not know whether to use the long domain name or should I go with the short name. I already own both domain names.

Answer. You want to think of SEO as a combination of many factors. The Google algorithm doesn’t rank a website higher than another based on just one factor, but rather on a summation of ALL the factors. Some factors are more important and more powerful than others. That said, you are in competition with other websites, and it’s the sum of yours vs. the sum of theirs. They may have some factors (like links) in better order; you may have others (like ON PAGE link sculpting) better than theirs, etc. It’s complicated how this all sums up.

So really your question is “how important” as a factor is a domain name? If two sites are competing will the site with an exact match domain do better?

Generally speaking –

• On Google: domains have little, if any, big impact on search results. Other factors – especially inbound links, are MUCH MUCH more important.
• On Bing: domains DO have quite a big impact. In fact, Bing is a sucker for exact match domains, and for specific searches you can launch a site with an exact match domain, and you’ll pretty easily show on Bing.

Now, let’s talk ROI (Return on Investment). If it’s not expensive and IF you are ready to LIVE with that domain for a LONG TIME, then having a keyword in your domain is probably a good thing. If it’s cheap. Don’t pay a lot for a domain. Also realize you are “locked in” to your domain because – over time – you are going to be building inbound links to your domain, etc., and that “footprint” is NOT transferable to another domain. So, if for example, you choose a domain like TulsaDUIAttorney.com, you are STUCK in the DUI attorney business FOR EVER. If you want to switch your focus to Tulsa family law, your domain will look stupid to users. But, Google doesn’t care: the inbound links which build to TulsaDUIAttorney.com are NOT transferrable to a new domain.

So –

• Domains DO help for SEO, especially for BING. But Bing has only about 25% of traffic.
• If you choose a domain that is keyword heavy, remember you’re going to be STUCK with it.
• Don’t pay a lot for domains!  The inbound link footprint is MUCH more valuable in terms of SEO.
• Don’t choose spammy domains like Tulsa-DUI-attorney-for-you.com.  Too many dashes, too many keywords makes it look cheesy to humans and suspicious to Google.

You’ll do better if you build inbound links to ANY domain than having a keyword heavy domain.