I’ve heard a number of people cite that keyword domain names aren’t nearly as helpful as they once were. This may or may not be entirely true (I’ll let SEOs debate that), but I want to share one keyword .com domain name brand that seems to have done well this Christmas: Gifts.com.
I’ve neither bought anything from Gifts.com nor do I have any type of relationship with Gifts.com. In fact, I don’t recall ever visiting the website until I was researching how some of the big brands ranked for Christmas gift related keywords (Overall, I think Walmart fared the best in terms of big brands ranking for broad keywords).
According to its website, “Gifts.com is the #1 online gift recommendation service, offering over 7 million monthly shoppers during peak holiday periods with personalized gift ideas and interactive tools to help them become better, more organized gift-givers.”
Here’s how Gifts.com currently ranks for some Christmas gift keyword searches:
- Gifts – #1
- Gift – #3
- Christmas Gifts – #5
- Christmas Gift – #8
- Christmas Present – #7
- Christmas Presents – #6
- Best Christmas Gifts – #3
- Popular Christmas Gifts – #2
- Top Christmas Gifts – #1
I know that many people search for individual gift items such as XBox or Apple iPad, but I would imagine most of those search results would favor the brands rather than individual retailers like Gifts.com. I would also imagine the search volume would favor broad keywords rather than aggregated  individual products or brands.
Broad keywords rankings like the ones Gifts.com ranks well for are difficult to achieve, and I believe that the keyword domain name is helpful. Not only does it tell people exactly what the company is offering, but Gifts.com sounds like a trusted brand. Despite never buying anything from them before, I wouldn’t hesitate to make a purchase, primarily because of the brand name. I also assume many of the trusted links to Gifts.com can be attributed to brand trust.
Keyword domain names can be brands, and Gifts.com is a great example of a keyword .com domain name becoming a trusted brand.
This should be recommended reading for those people who think EMDs are a thing of the past.
A great EMD will enhance your CTR, bring down your CPC & rank as well when competing with top companies.
Good research Elliot!
It’s ranking high because of it’s solid trust history in Google — 14yrs of consistent gift related ecommerce website. PR7 which is pretty impressive.
That said, it got wacked pretty hard over the last year. Check out the major dip in overall keyword rankings.
http://www.semrush.com/info/gifts.com?db=us
I’ve always liked Gifts.com but I like http://Gifts.TV better 🙂 the business plans/executive summaries that were done over the yrs. just didn’t pan out but we know it will do well when a new owner comes along 🙂 Great research Elliot 🙂