What Is A Domain?

Understanding the internet is easy when the right metaphors are used.

Domains are like house addresses, but for websites. If someone wants to visit you or send you a letter, they send it to your street address.

However, if someone wants to visit a website, they type that website’s domain name into the search bar. This article takes a deeper look at domains and how you can use them to your SEO advantage.

What is a Domain?

Domain (noun) – A website’s specific location on the world wide web; also called address, website address or URL (Uniform Resource Locator). It is the physical location of information on the Internet.

For example, the term “http://www.example.com” is a domain. The actual term for this location is an “IP address,” or a string of numbers, but it’s easier to just say “domain” instead. This would be considered a TLD, or a top-level domain.

A domain is one of the key pieces of information webmasters need to understand to rank well in search engines. While it might seem like a simple concept, many people are still coming across this term for the first time. Web hosting services and website builders such as wordpress use domain name registration to link a website with its domain.

Read more: How to Increase Domain Authority

Why are Domains Important?

Domain names are important because they are the actual name of your website. When someone types in a URL, they are typing in the domain name to access content on your site.

The domain name itself has no meaning to search engines, although it can still be important if you want to attract attention to your site. To attract attention to your site, you want a domain that is memorable or easy-to-pronounce/type, but it’s arguable as to whether or not there is SEO benefit for using one over another.

It does look like domains with keywords included are performing increasingly well in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Domains might be broken down into subdomains, particularly for eCommerce websites with blog content and other subcategories of items to be sold.

Domains FAQ

How important is a domain name for SEO?

It’s not as important or as strong as other search factors. If you have a great name and a great site that provides great content, it will take you well above what you would get from using your company’s name as the domain. However, if you’re using a generic website with poor content, this name is likely to hurt your ranking.

How do I choose a domain name for SEO?

The most important thing to remember is that the domain name must be memorable. It also should be something that reflects your business, so use your company’s name if you can. If you can’t use your company’s name, or you want to use something different, choose something memorable.

If you own the .com domain name of a popular phrase, you should go with it. For example, people love cats and they love coffee, so catsofcoffee.com would likely do well.

Which domain has the best SEO?

Domains that have extensive relevant content, a large volume of high-quality dofollow backlinks, and high domain authority generally have the best SEO. Domains, or web pages such as:

Wikipedia.com

Facebook.com

Google.com

Can a domain have a negative SEO impact?

Yes, a bad domain name can have a negative SEO impact. If your domain is not memorable or does not reflect what your business actually does, people may have trouble finding you or remembering who you are. In turn, this could lead to fewer people visiting your site and fewer links being generated. Furthermore, if spammy domains link to your website, then your website domain might be penalized.

How important is domain age for SEO?

Domain age is important for SEO because the older the domain, the more time there has been to build links pointing to that page and the higher the domain rating has. Furthermore, older domains that are regularly updated are generally considered to have greater authority than younger, newer domains.

Summary

Hopefully, this article has given you a better understanding of domains.

Every time people type www.abcd.com into a web browser address bar, they’re using a domain name.

To learn more about our SEO services here at Loganix, please don’t hesitate to contact us today.