How important is your URL name relevancy in SEO?

How important is the relevancy of your URL in SEO? For instance if I own a flower shop in NYC. Is it important to have NYCflowers.com instead of GregsTulips.com? How much consideration if any do search engines take in the URL when deciding placement?



Is it good to buy keyword variations of my domain name? Will that hurt my standings in search? I am considering buying other names but am not sure if this will hurt or help me. Thanks so much..

How important is your URL name relevancy in SEO?
It is important, but it doesn't force you to buy domain names full of keywords. Take a look at Heptagrama.com, for example. If you search English connectors in Google, it ranks between 1st and 3rd, depending on the country and the url www.heptagrama.com/en/i_col_tra_0002.htm doesn't include neither of those terms.



http://www.google.com/search?client=oper...



Don't obssess with that. It's not worth it.
Reply:Your URL name does matter. Try to pick a name that goes along with the theme of you site. For example, if your site is about asian flowers you would want something like. www.asianflowers.com. Better yet, put a underscore between words such as www.asain_flowers.com. Often search engines treat the underscore as a space between words helping you to rank higher for specific keywords.



All in all it really depends on the theme of your site. Make sure you URL reflects that theme.



I would also buy domains that are similar sounding/spelling to yours to limit someone having a similar site.
Reply:Unless the domain name is basically generic in nature, i.e., florist-downtown-los-angeles, having a very specific named domain name will not be easily recognized unless you spend a lot of money marketing the brand. And even with the use of hyphenations to separate a particular phrase such as anna-may-wong.com will not set well with most net surfers who often fail to include the hyphens in search queries.



Instead of placing so much emphasis on a domain name selection, make sure that the essential SEO metatags are observed and placed properly on an opening webpage as suggested in the following article:



The most effective way to advertise on the Internet is

to first set up a website and publish its domain name

on major search directories such as Google.com,

Yahoo.com [at http://www.google.com/addurl/?...... and

MSN.com since 85% of Internet shoppers rely on these

search directories to provide them with goods and

services. In a sense, these search directories are a

very large Internet Yellow Pages.



Nevertheless, should your website or opening webpage

fail to contain "generic" keywords, then anyone using

such "generic" queries will not be able to discover

your website. Your domain name [URL] of your website,

in a sense, will be invisible, undiscoverable.



You may want to consider some simple algorithms which,

when observed and committed in designing of a website

with placement of various critical metatags that can

surely achieve a high search engine presence and

increase Internet traffic to your website. These

metatag strategies work well with published webpages

at Google and Yahoo.



Design: Should you create an extensive Flash-based

website, make sure to fill-in the property entries

such as the Title, Description and Keywords. Failing

to do so, leaves no hard HTML or ALT resource that can

be readily indexed by search robots. Also consider the

Internet audience and their incoming setup. For

example, if they are on analog/dialup, Flash webpages

take too long to load up and therefore analog users

will likely lose interest and discontinue entering the

Flash site. On the other hand, anyone on hi-speed DSL

lines, will welcome Flash pages which load quickly. So

before designing a pure Flash websitge, ask the simple

question, "Who's my end user - is he on dialup or

DSL?" And if you had to choose between these two users

for maximum marketability, then select analog users

since 80% of most resident users are still analog

Internet subscribers and pure HTML designed webpages

is best for them.



A non-Flash-based website which relies on hard text,

is far easier to be indexed by search robots. Limit

the use of stylized text saved as .gifs since as a

graphic, they are not indexable by search robots.



Avoid use of frames since any number of search robots

are unable to properly classify textual material.



Placement of Metatags:



A ranking or search order does take place with Google

and Yahoo and it begins with the "Title" metag which

should consist of no more than 65 characters separated

by commas. The "Title" should describe in generic

terms, the goods and services, followed by a location

from which the resource is located, i.e., city, state.

The placement of a domain name which is not generic

within the "Title" is not appropriate, unless your

domain name is a major recognizable brand name.



The second metatag is the "Description" which is

usually 25-30 words to form a complete sentence which

best describes one's goods and services.



And the very last category - "Keywords" are also

somewhat limited to 15-16 words which can be plural

and compound in nature. Again, avoid multiple entries

which could be mistaken as "spamdexed entries" which

is defined as the loading, and submission of

repetitive words into a particular metatag category.

"Spamdexing" when discovered on a webpage and reported

to Google's spamreport.com can result in the

elimination of your website from their search

directory.



Here's an example of a very highly-placed website on

Google.com: Begin with the very "generic" search query

"sandwiches downtown los angeles," taking note to not

abbreviate Los Angeles to "LA" and of course, leave

out the parentheses ("). It will bring up some 2.4

million+ search results. Check out where "Nazos.net"

is ranked. It's on the SECOND FRONT [ranked 15]!

Again, Nazos.net's high web presence was achieved by

proper web design and placement of relevant metatags

according to Google's publication guidelines.



Good luck!
Reply:Here is the list of factors that effect your ranking in search engines



http://seoz.wordpress.com/2007/07/20/sea...