How to Examine Domain Factors During an SEO Audit

How to Examine Domain Factors During an SEO Audit

Your website’s domain name is a representation of your company in the online world. The domain name you buy should be appropriate for your business and meet your business goals. SEO performance is affected by a number of factors, including the domain name. As a result, as part of your SEO auditing training, you should become familiar with auditing domain name-related factors.

There are a number of things to keep in mind when purchasing a domain name.

Select a Domain Name that is Appropriate

Priority one: make it clear and memorable for your intended audience. Avoid using domain names that are too long or complicated for your customers to remember. A good business practice is to keep domain names short and simple. Use words that can be pronounced and spelled easily. You should avoid using slang in your domain name at all costs. This looks sloppy and amateurish. Another bad practice is the use of hyphens and numbers in a domain name. It is a method that has been deemed obsolete.

The Domain’s Age

Even Google is divided on the subject of a domain name’s effect on SEO. This was said by Google’s John Mueller during a webmaster hangout. In some cases, however, this assertion can be shown to be false. There was agreement that domain age can play a role in determining a website’s ranking.

This information can be gleaned from a variety of online resources. A good example is Godaddy’s Whois. Enter all of the domains you have on your list into the application. Observe the outcome of the test.

Exact Match Domain

Exact match domains used to yield good results in search engine rankings. There are domains that have the exact phrase in the domain name, like ppcservicesndia.co.uk. The EMD update was introduced by Google in 2012 to reduce the visibility of low-quality websites in search engine results.

The update’s goal, as previously stated, was to prevent low-quality sites from gaining an advantage in the search results. In spite of the update, high-quality exact match domains were able to benefit from it.

Inquire into The Domain’s History

It is hard to tell if a domain has a bad history. For example, the domain may have a history of Google Penalty or spammy links. Running a deep link profile on the domain is the only way to discover it.

Pages from low-quality domains are less likely to be included in Google’s index. Spammy link building and content techniques are the most common causes of this problem. Check out the domain’s traffic. If there was a lot of traffic in the past, but now there aren’t many people visiting, something is wrong.

You should steer clear of a domain name if a search on Google returns no results for it in the search engine results page (SERP).

Domain-Specific Keyword

Keyword usage in a domain name can be a ranking factor or just an indicator. There are no tests to see if it improves the ranking of a website. SEOs, on the other hand, believe it could be used as a relevancy signal in search results.

Regardless of where they appear in the domain name, keywords in domain names make them appear spammy and unprofessional. You don’t have to be concerned, because Google doesn’t give any weight to such domains.

Domain Registration Length

You need to be aware of the difference between domain age and domain registration time. The total number of years a domain has been operational is known as its domain age. It is the number of years that you renew your domain in advance that determines the length of the registration.

According to Google, the majority of legitimate domains are purchased for a long period of time in advance. Doorway domains, on the other hand, are rarely renewed for more than a few months or a year. When determining the legitimacy of a domain, Google considers the expiration date.

Penalized Domain

If your website’s traffic or ranking haven’t changed significantly, it’s possible that your site has been penalized in the past for spamming. In order to determine whether your website has been penalized by any significant algorithm changes that have occurred in the past, use Google Analytics.

 

How to Examine Domain Factors During an SEO Audit