Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 46 posts

Re: How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

#31

Post by mahmud »

jcalacanis wrote: post #30
mahmud wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mahalo registered hundreds of domain names that are actual search queries to improve their search ranking. For example, when Mahalo discovered that people searched for "Car Repair" enough times, Mahalo registered "CarRepair.com" and ended up the first result in google search from that point onward, because google regards the domains that match the query very highly. Then they repeated this for hundreds of other queri…

Some updates for folks on SEO: 1. Domain names are not counted toward SEO. Links and quality content are what drives SEO. That is what you should really focus on. 2. Having more than one domain name doesn't help SEO--especially if they are all on the same group of servers. Google knows when one person owns all the same domain names and when they are all on the same servers. If you wanted to try and fool google you mi…

What? domain names ARE counted toward SEO. I just ranked a month old site to the first page for "X service" where X is a fairly competitive keywords (~50k searches globally)

A friend of mine ranked "X tickets" to #5 in the UK, where X is a very competitive keyword (millions)

My site actually has content, ~80 pages, while his is just a template.

Re: How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

#32

Post by jcalacanis »

davidu wrote: post #11
volomike wrote: post #7

This is autoblogging. This won't work. Google will see the blog theme fingerprint and will either lessen the index or de-index. Also, the dupe content is another factor that gets you de-indexed. Now if they used a generic, common theme, and different themes; and then if they used unique, synonymized content -- these things would perhaps get past the Google filter unless of course something triggers a manual review at…

It's lame, but what they are doing is not exactly auto-blogging. They are driving traffic (eventually) to Mahalo.

Actually, we're not trying to drive folks to Mahalo with these sites. We're actually happier if they stay on the vertical sites--which have higher CPMs.

Re: How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

#33

Post by jcalacanis »

aaronwall wrote: post #22
terrellm wrote: post #18

So not only are they content thieves, they are also cybersquatters with names like: starwarsanswers.com iphoneqna.com facebook-questions.com nfl-questions.com squarespaceanswer.scom astonmartinanswers.com volkswagenanswers.com And that's just the first 2 pages of results.

Buying great domain names is just a great/smart/effective strategy. But cybersquatting isn't something where a person is operating in the gray area of the terms of service, it is something which is clearly illegal . Now that is something you might expect some low end affiliate to do, or maybe an innocent technique by a person ignorant to what they are doing (if they are doing it on just 1 name)...but to raise venture…

Also Aaron, I would read this article... :-) http://www.seobook.com/how-choose-great-domain-names

Re: How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

#34

Post by volomike »

jcalacanis wrote: post #29
aaronwall wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying great domain names is just a great/smart/effective strategy. But cybersquatting isn't something where a person is operating in the gray area of the terms of service, it is something which is clearly illegal . Now that is something you might expect some low end affiliate to do, or maybe an innocent technique by a person ignorant to what they are doing (if they are doing it on just 1 name)...but to raise venture…

Actually Aaron, you can use a domain name with a brand in it.... take a look at wipo and you'll see dozens of examples of this. I've posted one below. That being said, if someone had a problem with our Toyota Answers site or iPad Answers site we would discuss it with them. Not sure that you understand what the term Cybersquatting means. Cybersquatting is when you sit on a domain name that is the same as someone's bra…

I recently googled ugg boots and found that the lawyers for UGG told Google to de-index some sites that had ugg in the domain name. That's uncool.

I knew a guy who had "timex" somewhere in his domain name and the lawyers for Timex did a cease-and-desist on him.

These trademark and IP lawyers are crossing the line because they know they can go after small-time operators who can't afford the legal team to fight them. And then that sets a legal precedent of a long series of wins that gives trademark and IP lawyers more ammo to use on even more cases, like a snowball.

Re: How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

#35

Post by aaronwall »

jcalacanis wrote: post #33
aaronwall wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying great domain names is just a great/smart/effective strategy. But cybersquatting isn't something where a person is operating in the gray area of the terms of service, it is something which is clearly illegal . Now that is something you might expect some low end affiliate to do, or maybe an innocent technique by a person ignorant to what they are doing (if they are doing it on just 1 name)...but to raise venture…

Also Aaron, I would read this article... :-) http://www.seobook.com/how-choose-great-domain-names

If you would have read that article (and followed the advice) you wouldn't have registered names like nfl-anwsers.com ;)

Re: How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

#36

Post by volomike »

jotto wrote: post #17
volomike wrote: post #7

This is autoblogging. This won't work. Google will see the blog theme fingerprint and will either lessen the index or de-index. Also, the dupe content is another factor that gets you de-indexed. Now if they used a generic, common theme, and different themes; and then if they used unique, synonymized content -- these things would perhaps get past the Google filter unless of course something triggers a manual review at…

where did you learn these details about how google's indexing algorithm works?

As a developer, I try to "get in the minds" of other developers sometimes. I try to think, "If I had to build this same system, and ensure it was tuned properly, how would I be building it?"

However, I interact monthly with other SEO guys and learn from their thoughts on what they see from the trenches with their content. They commonly tell me that they think that the Google search engine is not fully automated -- that flags are sometimes raised and low-cost staffers react to those flags when enough go off. From there, low-cost staffers filter out the false alarms and escalate to a core team for manual analysis. This makes the most sense. I mean, if you were Google, building the greatest SE on the planet, it makes sense to automate as much as possible, create tools to collect flags and let low-cost staffers check these flags and escalate or ignore issues, and then have a core team do manual reviews to find areas to improve in the SE code.

Re: How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

#37

Post by randfish »

jcalacanis wrote: post #30
mahmud wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mahalo registered hundreds of domain names that are actual search queries to improve their search ranking. For example, when Mahalo discovered that people searched for "Car Repair" enough times, Mahalo registered "CarRepair.com" and ended up the first result in google search from that point onward, because google regards the domains that match the query very highly. Then they repeated this for hundreds of other queri…

Some updates for folks on SEO: 1. Domain names are not counted toward SEO. Links and quality content are what drives SEO. That is what you should really focus on. 2. Having more than one domain name doesn't help SEO--especially if they are all on the same group of servers. Google knows when one person owns all the same domain names and when they are all on the same servers. If you wanted to try and fool google you mi…

Jason - I think the data would beg to differ. Correlation of exact match domains and even of domains that simply include the keywords with high rankings on both Google and Bing are quite pronounced - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/google-vs-bing-correlation-analys... - particularly for algorithms that supposedly contain 200+ ranking elements.

I agree with Aaron that a keyword-rich domain can be a great asset and benefit from an SEO perspective, but I find it hard to believe that you approved/initiated this strategy without some knowledge of the SEO benefits and intention to reap the rewards. Either way, glad to see you helping to spread the concepts and success SEO can bring rather than bash it - that's certainly a welcome change :-)

I don't have any type of legal background, so don't feel qualified to speak to the legalities of employing trademarks in domain names.

Re: How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

#38

Post by slouch »

terrellm wrote: post #18

So not only are they content thieves, they are also cybersquatters with names like: starwarsanswers.com iphoneqna.com facebook-questions.com nfl-questions.com squarespaceanswer.scom astonmartinanswers.com volkswagenanswers.com And that's just the first 2 pages of results.

i had to look:

google-questions.com/tip_guidelines

how timely is this google webmaster video?

youtube.com/watch?v=RlNPRonDxuU#t=2m57s

the key part about domains google seizes starts at 2:57

Re: How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

#39

Post by aaronwall »

slouch wrote: post #38
terrellm wrote: post #18

So not only are they content thieves, they are also cybersquatters with names like: starwarsanswers.com iphoneqna.com facebook-questions.com nfl-questions.com squarespaceanswer.scom astonmartinanswers.com volkswagenanswers.com And that's just the first 2 pages of results.

i had to look: google-questions.com/tip_guidelines how timely is this google webmaster video? youtube.com/watch?v=RlNPRonDxuU#t=2m57s the key part about domains google seizes starts at 2:57

Great citation.

Years ago I registered AdWordsBlog.com and AdSenseBlog.com & then pinged a Google engineer so they could transfer them in. Its the polite thing to do. I did the same thing with SethGodin.net. If you see some stuff like that out there then why not try to help people out who have spent millions of Dollars building up their brands.

The opposite of the above, to register the domain names & then to try to cash in on someone else's branding efforts is a lower rung strategy.

For a person like Jason to cybersquat, and then compare his auto-generated for profit websites to sucks sites protected by free speech laws...it really doesn't sit very well.

Re: How long has Mahalo been using keyword domains like this?

#40

Post by aaronwall »

jcalacanis wrote: post #27
andrewljohnson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Cutts is completely aware of everything Mahalo does, if from nothing else than the constant threads on HN.

Ain't that the truth! I've got 10 or so SEOs who watch everything we do and send complaint letters by the dozens to Matt. Keeps us on our toes to an absurd level.

The question is, do you feel you deserve such exposure? How did you manage to earn it? Was it what you were hoping for?

I hope your search traffic is up, in spite of what third party metrics tools are showing ;)

I will give you this... nfl-answers.com was (almost) a great Hail Mary strategy ;)

Post reply on HN