Exact match domain refers to domain having keywords in the domain for which a website wants to rank in search engines. For example the domain www.websitedesignereastdelhi.in which website url is an exact match domain. Another example is www.buycheapphones.com. In the above examples the websites want to rank for the keyword website designer in east delhi and buy cheap phones respectively, such domains are called exact match domains.

Partial match domains

All domain that include a keyword are not exact match domain. Sometimes a domain may have only one keyword in the name. For example the domain www.bluehost.com has only one keyword “host”, which is related to web hosting in the domain name, such domains are called partial match domains.

Exact match domains and SEO

Exact match domains can be very helpful in search engine optimization and can help drive more traffic to a website. Having the targetted keyword in domain name is a good strategy provided other white hat techniques of seo are also followed.

Exact match domain Penalty

Only having an exact match domain is not going to help a website to rank on search engines like google. If a website does not have good content related to the keyword and has links from spammy websites exact match domains won’t do much good and would rather be considered a low quality website by search engines. In the past exact match domains where a quick way to get top rankings in search engines but now with times search engines have become more intelligent and advanced and consider many other factors to to rank a website. Certainly a website with scrap content, stuffed keywords will not work. Search engines will demote a spammy website with exact match domain.

So are exact match domains bad?

Not certainly exact match domains have an added advantage from seo point of view. If a website with EMD is a quality website with great content and fair seo practices there should be no problem and the website will rank good in search engines.  Search engines want to give users the best search result, but due to misuse of exact match domains search engines demote EMD websites with thin and irrelevant content.