When It Comes To Black Friday, Exact Match Domains Win

by Morgan on November 22, 2011

Black Friday is one of the busiest shopping days of the year and a major day for online sales. Traffic for the search term “black Friday” has grown like crazy over the last week, just take a look at Google’s search data below:

So with search volume following the famous “hockey stick” growth pattern the lucky souls on Google’s page one are already enjoying a nice burst of traffic, and it’s growing by the hour. What I found interesting about the first page of Google is that the first page is absolutely dominated by exact-match domains. Let’s run-down the order that I see when I search on Google.

Position #1: bfads.net (major SEO done to rank well for “Black Friday” but it worked!)

Position #2: TheBlackFriday.com

Position #3: Wikipedia

Position #4: BlackFriday.info

Position #5: 2011BlackFridayAds.com

Position #6: BlackFriday.us (yes that’s right a .US name is in there!)

Position #7: BlackFriday.name

Do you see what I see? A lot of really nice exact-match domains enjoying some excellent rankings in Google. It should be noted that every one of these sites did some nice SEO here but there are plenty of other sites trying hard to rank well for this term too, they just don’t have the advantage of an exact-match domain.

Now I don’t want you to think that all you need to do is buy an exact-match domain and poof you’ll take-over Google page one. This is a competitive term and ranking well takes a lot more than an exact match domain and often requires a sizable investment in SEO. That being said, the exact-match domain makes it easier and gives you a nice edge against your competition.

You’ll notice .info, .us, and .name in here along with a .net taking the top spot so for anyone who thinks TLD has anything to do with ranking…think again!

{ 11 comments… add one }

Jim November 22, 2011, 12:10 pm

Morgan, what kind of “major” or “nice” SEO do you mean? Can you elaborate or at least speculate on the kinds of things they might have done?

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Chad November 22, 2011, 2:20 pm

Another important search for black friday is “black friday sales”, most of the sites you highlighted above rank on the 1st page and http://www.blackfridaysales.com is almost on page 1 – another exact match on the way up. The traffic for black friday is staggering, this week I bet those top sites will get close to 500,000 to 1M visitors/day.

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John November 22, 2011, 4:29 pm

Will be interesting to see overtime if any domains with midnight catch one since so many places are opening at midnight this year for Black Friday.

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Hal Meyer November 22, 2011, 6:47 pm

Our company’s website http://www.blackfridayelectronics.com is buried pretty deep in Google. I wonder if the domain is a little too specific. Maybe we can do better next year. It is a very competitive keyword.

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Domain Name Newsletter November 23, 2011, 2:12 am

Are you saying the traffic to a .name was type in ?

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Tom G` November 23, 2011, 9:43 am

And look at all the ‘noncoms’ developed, and used effectively. .us, .name, .info.

I’m guessing exact match New gTLD domains will be in demand.

Someone would be interested in using blackfriday.ads

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Douglas Haynes November 23, 2011, 10:30 am

@ Hal Meyer I looked at your page source. One thing you could have is “Black Friday” in your description.

Here is bfads description: Black Friday Ads is home to Black Friday 2011, featuring Black Friday ad listings and ad scans, hot deals and coupons.

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Josh S. November 23, 2011, 12:22 pm

The power of exact match domains is undeniable. We’ve witnessed websites skyrocket in SERPs mere months after they’ve been launched due to the domain name. In the case of blackfridayelectronics.com, something could be amiss with your SEO if you’re buried in Google. Issues with SEO could hamper even the best short keyword opportunities.

BBEX Marketing is offering Black Friday deals to help potential clients save money on SEO and web design. These deals are available to anyone and can be found here (http://fb.me/MJp5uUau).

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Morgan November 23, 2011, 4:42 pm

Great question @Jim, so great that I just did a post about it!

Appreciate all the great feedback everyone!

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Morgan November 23, 2011, 4:46 pm

@Hal – pretty easy answer as to why you’re buried in Google – you don’t have a single backlink coming to your domain? To get even on the 2nd page of Google you’ll need to get a good number of targeted backlinks from reliable sources.

Remember, an exact-match domain will not just rank itself, it will make it easier to rank well by requiring you to build less backlinks, but you still need to do SEO – there are no free rides with Google 🙂

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Josh S. November 25, 2011, 7:05 am

Just following up on an earlier post – the BBEX Marketing list of Black Friday deals has been updated. The new list of coupons can be found here: http://on.fb.me/s6Hi66

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