Google’s John Mueller recently confirmed that using compound domain names is fine for SEO. Compound domain names, long shunned in the SEO community as spam, are apparently guaranteed to not have any kind of negative signal attached to them.
Hyphenated Domain Names and SEO
Hyphenated domain names were a big thing in the early days of SEO because search engines originally used keyword-based algorithms to rank web pages. The domain names for the combined keywords were generic and well-ranked. This was more than 25 years ago when SEOs put the keyword in the title, meta description, H1, at the top of the page and then use the subsequent H2 headings to put the keyword phrase variations, and add them to the content in bold, and outbound links to internal pages and the relevant web page .edu and .gov. Those were the days, weren’t they?
Compound domain names were also very popular for backlinks on personal injury sites in late 2006 because SEOs at the time believed that keywords in the domain name of the pages helped them to be relevant. As I understand it, SEOs rent packages of those domain names for thousands of dollars a month.
Archive.org’s open source DMOZ directory of California personal injury law firms showed that about 16% of the listings on that page use compound domain names. What makes this remarkable is that the DMOZ listings were strictly scrutinized by the editors so that usually only the best were listed there. That about 20% of the personal injury firms listed in that category was a testament to the power of domain names associated with that time.
Screenshot of the September 2000 DMOZ Personal Injury Directory
Google Says Aggregated Domains Are OK
John Mueller of Google responded to a post on Bluesky that was about the upper limit of characters that can be used in a domain name.
Answer from John Mueller:
“Sometimes we get questions about whether dashes in domain names are good for SEO (they are).
So far, I’ve never seen anyone ask another question – HOW MANY DASHES ARE OK?
Folks, the answer is obviously 61. “
Are Linked Domains Spam In Nature?
In the SEO community, the common understanding about domain names is that they are spam. At some point those domain names stop ranking in Google and SEOs stop using them. But the fact that they stopped working may have been more about the quality of the sites they were using and less about the domains included.
But back in the day, compound domain names contributed to ranking well and were effective in encouraging users to click through from search results to the domain name. The fact is that the keywords in the domain name immediately send a call to the site visitor that the domain name may be important to the person making the query.
Big Brand Sites Use Compound Domain Names
The truth about domain names is that most of the big legitimate brand sites use them and they rank well too.
Examples of Big Product Sites with Integrated Domains
- Mercedes-benz.com
- Coca-cola.com
- Rolls-roycemocars.com
- T-mobile.com
- Harley-davidson.com
- Merriam-webster.com
The fact that big brand websites use domain names shows that there is no silent penalty attached to them because of hyphens. It’s probably worth noting that in these examples they only use one hyphen but I think with more digging I wouldn’t be surprised to find some big brand domain names that use more than one hyphen.
The United States Government Uses Combined Domains
The United States government uses hyphens in some of its domain names, too.
Verify.gov: Run by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), this is the official site for the system used by employers to verify the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States.
The above use of a hyphen in a domain name is an example of how a hyphen can help break up domain names so they make sense when you read them. Everify is confusing but ieverify makes sense. The takeaway is that a compound domain name makes sense if it makes it easier for users to read the domain name.
The World Wide Web Consortium Uses Unified Domain Names
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international web body that develops web standards covering things like accessibility standards, HTML, and internationalization of web technologies. The W3C also uses compound domain names.
Example of an AW3C Domain with an Integrated Domain
Web-Platform-Tests.org, is part of an open source project that W3C, Google, Apple, and other stakeholders are involved in.
Web-Platform-Tests.org: Provides documentation on how to write web site tests.
The point of this is that compound domain names are used by legitimate websites.
Is It OK For Businesses To Use Domain Names?
John Mueller said they are good at SEO. But I think most SEOs know why a domain name is not the first thing to choose a domain name.
Reasons Why SEOs Avoid Affiliate Domains
- It is difficult for users to type, especially on mobile devices.
- Check for spam.
- It might be considered a little dishonest.
Those are all legitimate concerns but as I’ve noted before, a compound domain name can make a lot of sense if it makes it easier for potential site visitors to read the names. I also think that it will motivate the site owner to work hard in overcoming those problems and biases and in the long run end up creating a product because of that extra work, thus overcoming any particular concerns.
Are bundled domains back on the SEO menu? What is your opinion?
Featured image by Shutterstock/JR-ART
