Domain influence on website promotion
What is the most important thing when developing a website? Design, CMS or maybe texts? Yes, all this is important, but the first thing to decide on is the name of your site. The name of the site or domain must be chosen first of all and everything here is not as straightforward as it might seem at first.
We decided to devote this article to the issues of choosing a domain name and its impact on the fate of the site. And find out if the domain name affects website promotion.
What domain factors affect promotion
Just in case, we remind you that a site’s domain is a unique symbolic name used to identify a web resource on the Internet. Domain plays an important role in site ranking. When ranking sites, search engines take into account many factors, including domain information:
- Site name history. Each name has its own story. It is recommended to buy domains with no history. But, if you have no choice, then be prepared for possible difficulties. If a domain name is on a bad account with search engines (for example, it was used before to sell links) or the subject matter of the site changes, then promotion in search engines (SEO) should be started anew.
The history of the renewal of the lease of the site name is also taken into account. Previously, you could rent domains for as long as you like. Now the maximum rental period (it is also the minimum) is 1 year. If the rent is consistently paid, then search engines will be more positive about your site.
We also recommend not to hide “whois” data. This is the official information about who the domain is currently registered to. Anyone can view it if you do not want to hide this information. Although, in fact, there is nothing to do this.
- Age. Search engines give preference to sites “aged” from 1 to 3 years old. If you have a young site, then the trust from the search engine will have to be earned. It should be noted that the countdown of the domain name’s age does not start from the purchase, but from the moment the first page is indexed. Therefore, to buy a domain, forget about it for a year, and then suddenly be in the TOP will not work :).
- Name. Choose a site name wisely. An ideal choice for a site name – with the main keyword. The site is dedicated to flowers – the most popular key will be “flowers”, car sites can use combinations with the word “avto”, and so on. It is not recommended to include several keys at once – search engines may consider this as overspam.
Choose simple and memorable names – they drive organic traffic by themselves. Another recommendation is to use your brand name as your domain name.
- Domain zone. There are a lot of them. Domain .ru – Russia; .рф is a national top-level domain for Russia. The first Internet domain in Cyrillic; .ua – Ukraine; .us domain – USA; uk domain – UK. They are also called national – they determine the belonging to a particular country.
There are also several special domain zones that give out the type of organization: .com – commercial organizations; .org – non-profit organizations; .net – Network; .info – information portals; .gov – government websites; .biz – Business; .edu – Educational and others.
In order to get an advantage in a particular domain zone, choose the appropriate domain.
How to choose the right domain
We hope that we have not overloaded you with “domain factors” that search engines analyze. Domain, though not decisive, but an important factor in the life of the site. We have prepared for you a comprehensive list of recommendations for choosing a domain name for your website.
Domain level and subdomains
All domain names are divided into three levels.
- Domain of the 1st level.
- 2nd level domain
- Domain of the third level (it is correct to call it a subdomain).
What does this mean in practice. In practice, each of the addresses of all possible sites is a combination of levels 1 and 2. For example, the domain “site.com”. .com – the first level (ordinary people cannot buy such names for a website :)). And site.com is the second level. Subdomains are separate directories within the main (2nd level) and controlled by its owner.
For comfortable work, it is best to choose the second level of domain names. You can use subdomains to create additional pages to include various search queries.
Free domains
We think you’ve read something about free domains and want to save money on it while developing your site. Do not hurry. Usually, you can get a third-level domain for free at some already promoted site. Search networks are not interested in the third level, and therefore you can forget about SEO. And paid ad systems do not favor free domains.
The second way to get a name for the site for free is to get it as a gift from the host. Some companies have tariffs that give you a domain when you pay. But, we do not recommend using such “gifts of fate”. Domains are cheap (especially in the first year of ownership) – it doesn’t cost you anything to donate it, but if you want to transfer your site for service to another hoster, you may face difficulties with the transfer (to the point of impossibility).
Where can I buy
We hope we managed to dissuade you from buying a free domain for your website. Moreover, you can buy them in just 5 minutes. So simple.
This can be done on special sites (reg.ru, nic.ru.) or in a special section in your hosting control panel. We recommend buying directly from the hoster. It may be cheaper and easier to link the name to the site (especially if you are new to site building and do not have time to figure it out). When buying, in addition to choosing a name, ask about the possible history of the domain.
Zones
Usually, when buying, indicate the national distribution zones. The most popular in Russia has been and remains the .ru zone. However, in recent years, another one has been added – .рф (The first domain on the Internet in Cyrillic). We do not recommend taking them, and here’s why.
Why you shouldn’t choose a Cyrillic site name
Although Yandex employees say that domains in the .рф zone are indexed and ranked the same as everyone else, we strongly discourage using this zone for your sites. Below we explain why:
- Google, unlike Yandex, does not disclose information about the ranking of sites in the .рф zone. The share of Google as a search engine is growing steadily (mainly due to the growth in the number of mobile devices where this browser is preinstalled).
- It is not recommended to create mail on the Russian domain. Read more about this in the Yandex blog – https://yandex.ru/blog/company/31537.
- Ugly appearance of external links. When copying and forwarding links, a beautiful link like “site.rf” will turn into a jumble of letters and numbers (the so-called pyunicode).
Check your domain name usage history
Domain history is similar to book cards in a library. There is data on those who owned it, the time of ownership, the history of the site’s indexing by search engines, the history of sanctions from the same search engines. Pay attention to the following indicators:
- Age. The earlier the name was registered, the better for you.
- Renewal terms. We have already said that domains in the .ru zone are bought for a year, and then they can be renewed. If a person bought a domain once and came into business for a long time, then he is unlikely to release him. Therefore, we advise you to be skeptical about domains whose owners have changed every year.
- Site name history. Domain history can be reset if it has been released for a long time or if the site has changed owners frequently. Keep in mind that history is kept by each search engine separately and in its own way.
- Hiding whois data signals that you have something to hide, and search engines pay attention to it. In the Russian space, all domains have hidden data by default, but you can open it and get a little more trust from search engines.
Outcome
A seemingly simple operation of choosing a domain turns into a lengthy event. We’ve explained how a good domain affects SEO. It is important to understand that you are choosing a name for your site. Your clients and partners will find you on the Internet using it. Therefore, you should devote several hours of time at the initial stage of work in order to exclude reputational and monetary risks, which can be justified in case of an error. We hope that we were able to answer the question: “does the domain affect the website promotion”.
