Exact Match Names and SEO on Web3.0
Exact Match Search Engine Optimization
What exactly does an exact match mean? An exact match domain name is a name that simply matches the user search. For example, on Duck Duck Go a user will type in Glasses 302 to find a local ophthalmologist in the 302 area code (Delaware). The search engine will then look to its database and list the names that it indexed and ranked for the search terms “302” and “Glasses”.
Search Engines – Inner workings explained, sort of
Exactly how a search engine ranks results is far beyond the scope of this article, but in the spirit of helping to understand the value in exact match names, I will do my best to simplify an explanation just for you! There are different terms used on SEO forums, but this explanation is for illustration purposes.
Every search engine has a set of criteria it uses to “score” a website. A score is giving a rank to a website to display on the results page. Historically the domain name has always held quite a bit of value for search engine results but over time the value has decreased slightly due to low-quality websites and spammers using exact match names to rank. Content will always be king, but having an exact match name will help.
Let’s assume that there are 10 sites that performed the same in all other areas within the rank criteria and we have a 10-way tie. From the search engine perspective, these sites are equally as good as one another in every way. There needs to be a tiebreaker to display the search results in the proper order. The domain name itself can be used as part of the overall rank criteria. The exact match, length, and type of word can all play into the overall rank of the site. In this example, both keywords are matched in the search string and will beat out all other names for the first rank on page 1. This site will continue to rank well for these search terms individually or together because of the exact match!
What’s in a name?
On Web 2.0 instant clout is associated with OG domain names. Just think of all the huge name sales that occurred over the years topping millions of dollars. Why? Two reasons, Clout is one but additional traffic from users typing words directly into the browser. Think about the current web 3.0 enabled browsers (Beacon & Opera ), users have been seasoned to use their address bar as a search box. There are very few users that go directly to a search engine to type the search string. Users have become accustomed to using the address bar as the search input.
Searching Web 3.0 Style
As web3 starts taking off, wouldn’t you and your company love to be the first ones to capture all of that juicy traffic from users typing the search string directly into the browser?? I know I am looking to take advantage of this free traffic. Think about owning a banging name like dogs then purchasing a bunch of dog breed names just to use as funnel pages. These funnel pages can be set up to redirect to an SLD of the dog’s name!!
Now think about a small SEO hack to capture more search traffic using our previous example. We are already getting traffic for Glasses 302, but what if we add local as the Second Level Domain? local.glasses302 in the eyes of the search engine will now be Local Glasses 302, as you can see it expanded the targeted keyword set and utility of this domain name.
Web 3.0 Search Engines and Web3 Search Rankings
Currently, a Web 3.0 Search engine does not exist but soon will. There was one small project that I am aware of that was working to become the web3 search engine, but it has since shut down. We are in the beginning phases of building a primitive Web3 Search engine, so Stay tuned!