How Important Are Keywords in a URL?

[Randy]

I think most poker affiliate webmasters include their target keywords in their URL, but how important do you think this factor is in your SEO efforts? How important are keywords in a URL?

• Keywords in a URL are more important than anything else.
• Keywords in a URL are important, but they're not the most important factor.
• Keywords in a URL matter a little bit, but they're not really important at all.
• Keywords in a URL don't matter at all. Keywords in a URL aren't at all important.

Have you done any tests related to keywords in the URL to determine their importance or lack of importance?

[mupha]

They are a factor for sure, but others such as backlinks containing the keywords as anchor text are far more important.

The reason keywords in the URL itself can give a little extra push is that it means any backlinks will have an additional instance of the keywords within the hyperlink html, regardless of what gets used for anchor text.

[DealerDan]

I'd say keywords for a specific term are a lot more valuable in the actual domain name than as sub-folder of another domain. I don't believe they matter as much in the URL, but it definitely helps ans as mupha said, give that extra push.

[poker69]

To me it seems like having your target keywords in your URL is pretty important. Without them in there I find you will need a few more quality links with your target keyword as the anchor to rank at the same level as if you had the keywords in the URL.

[pokaff]

Randy,

How did you read in my mind, I was about to post this question just now?

Anyway, it seems that it must give an extra little push, it cannot have zero value I guess.

And it seems that everyone does it, with very long file (url) names, confirming the idea.

[Trikkur]

I've seen a definite correlation between higher rankings and keywords in URL. I've noticed it helps get earlier rankings compared to a non-keyword URL. What I mean by that is I can rank in the top 10 in like a week or two with a keyworded URL and the same everything else compared to a non-keyword URL.

[mjmurphy53711]

I think 2p2 proves it doesn't matter, they rank for everything - even before they added the seo friendly forum posts.

[themike537]

2p2 has a lot of other stuff going for them though. I think for long tail terms it's pretty important. I've put up domains such as www.keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.org and ranked top three basically as soon as it was indexed.

[punchtheclock]

important for URL of deep pages for sure, and it would make sense that google would use these to figure out what your site is about.

But domain name...maybe not as important. Although I'm sure poker.com ranks #1 for a reason.

I think the brandability of your domain name is more important than using SEO oriented keywords.

Two plus two would not be so successful if their name was bestpokerbonuscodesonearth.com

[Sebastien]

Dudes,

I have noticed that exact match domains have a huge advantage. After all, if someone types in CNN.com, there is only 1 site across the entire internet that has the exact match domain (at least in *.com)

I would argue that this advantage is not unsurmountable, but initially these domains have a large advantage.

Type in daniel negreanu and one of the top ranking sites is danielnegreanu.org, just a random blog, no links or anything.

Exact match domains = ranking boost = bankroll boost.