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CEO at Econsultancy
23 May 2006 15:21pm
With all due respect to Rob and the Cheapflights team and their SEO efforts I strongly suspect that the reason Cheapflights ranks so well on search phrases like 'Cheap flights to XXXX' is quite simple - they've got the right domain name.
'Cheapflights' as the search string is in the domain, in all the URLs and therefore also in any links.
We rank 3rd globally on Google for a search on 'consultancy' for no other reason (I believe) than it's in our domain name (I still haven't worked out how to sell the traffic on to the likes of PWC, Deloitte et al...).
Try these searches:
Bargain Flights
Discount Flights
I could go on... but you'll see that Cheapflights aren't there. But domains with those search strings are.
So, the questions I'd by asking myself are:
- When will the search engines get better at semantic rankings?
- How much is the cheapflights domain worth purely from a search (and therefore traffic, sales etc.) perspective? (A fair few quid...)
- In these kinds of markets perhaps I should be directing a lot of SEO spend at having a first rate domain manager who can acquire relevant domains (a portfolio that fits relevant search strings - think long tail) and not lose them?
Ashley Friedlein
CEO, E-consultancy.com
owner at black and white marketing
23 May 2006 16:10pm
Your right of course, but the URL just stems from the core proposition of the business! And the SEO (including URL) just stems from that.
I haven't checked, but I am pretty sure the link building strategy for these businesses ensure that their proposition (i,e, Cheap Flights) is prominent in the <A> tags .. again helping ranking.
It's a good point about semantics, and it will be interesting to see where these guys will be when semantic technology is fully upon us!
Andrew
black and white marketing
04 23 May 2006 Ashley wrote:
Freelance Web Consultant at architxt.net
23 May 2006 18:41pm
The second position for 'discount flights' goes to http://www.etn.nl/dttickets/ - no keywords there.
Also, would Google be able to read 'cheapflights' as two separate words?
The general opinion is that it's all in the use of the keywords in inbound links. For example: http://www.vols123.com/misc/international.html
CheapFlights have thousands of these, including ones from prominent sites giving it very high Page Ranks.
Another example. I listed my site dedicated to Tablet PCs in dmoz.org as 'tabletPC.it'. I wasn't getting much in terms of SERP until I had the name changed to 'Tablet PC.it'. The space between the two words made all the difference - the site has been top on Google, Yahoo and MSN (in Italy) for the last year or so.
Lawrence
Director at Hedgehog Digital Ltd
24 May 2006 14:14pm
I totally agree with you Loz. The SE's will not read cheapflights (one word) as cheap flights (two words).
Three main things contribute to the success, inbound links, relevant content and traffic!
Alan
THUK Online Marketing Blog
On 18:41:44 23 May 2006 Loz wrote:
Project Manager at SouthernFjord Web Development
24 May 2006 14:58pm
I agree entirely with Ashley:
Of course there are many important elements to SEO (especially including good quality in-bound links, and especially since "Big Daddy") but the number 1 slot on google will usually go to the site which uses the search keywords as its domain name.
As an example, we have a site http://www.stavangertravel.com launched a year ago, which ranks number 1 for "stavanger travel" but struggles with many other relevant search terms.
John
eCommerce manager at Identity Direct / Ortega
24 May 2006 15:01pm
Ashley, I agree with the gist of your comments.
However It does raise questions though about the 'totality' of the domain as a single phrase.
ie. Try removing 'Cheap'
For example
Flights to Paris
Flights to Sydney
Flights to instanbul
Flights to XXXXX etc
CF still rank highly (usualy top), even with a partial domain keyword (flight), in the search phrase
When 'Cheap' is removed, by rights Cheapflights are still fighting against Justtheflight, Flightcentre et al all who figure 'flight' in their URL's and still seem to be winning the battle convincingly.
Its also interesting to note that the term 'flight' is a pretty generic phrase. (as is consultancy)
It really does raise questions about Search engines capacity to ignore Domain's names. Indeed should they? There are pretty strong arguements for legitimate businesses that in many cases, the domain reflects the nature of the business. How then to separate Spam domains from legitimate business domains?
and i thought the days of www.cheap-herbal-viagra-buy-online.com were over!
jon
Freelance Web Consultant at architxt.net
24 May 2006 16:49pm
I'm not convinced by the domain name argument, to be honest.
The company I work for comes top for 'Professional Education' whilst the URL is bpp.com. www.ukwda.org ranks first for 'web design' and www.jdsports.co.uk for 'trainers'
The site I manage in my spare time, tabletpc.it, did not rank well at all for 'tablet pc' until I changed the title on dmoz.org (meaning that the links are present on hundreds of sites) from 'tabletPC.it' to 'Tablet PC.it'.
You have probably done a great job on content SEO to get stavangertravel.com at the top.
Online Marketing / SEO at forum30.co.uk
24 May 2006 17:09pm
It's an interesting question regarding Google's ability to distinguish individual words such as 'cheap' and 'flights' in the domain cheapflights.
If you search for 'pizza', Pizza Hut has been the to result for a long time, even with a site that is poorly optimised for the word 'pizza' (and in general) in terms of on page factors (other than the page title).
Their ranking must be due to the inbound links and the popularity element.
Anyway, a search for 'pizza' brings up Pizza Hut at the number one spot, and the word pizza is in bold in the URL shown in their listing www.pizzahut.co.uk/ showing that (at least in the SERPs) Google can recognise words in URLs without delimiters.
Not sure what this means in terms of ranking pages though, but it's interesting nevertheless.
Cheers,
Daniel
Digital Marketing Consultant, Trainer, Author and Speaker at SmartInsights.com
26 May 2006 06:32am
Interesting case.
Despite the comments about phrase inclusion in the domain name and external links, i think Jon's original post highlights a key reason Cheapflights performs well - the internal linking strategy.
It seems to be a meshed / interlinking structure which helps distribute PageRank throughout the site. A more hierarchical site would have declining PageRank for flight locations and these locations would not perform so well. Many say 'Page Rank' is unimportant these days, but IMV it is crucial in the sense that Google does rank pages from within a site higher if they have a highish PR.
If you Google link: on the top page for the classic 'Cheap flights malaga' for which they rank top (PR=5), you can see there are links to internal links to Malaga page from a wide range of UK airports:
link:www.cheapflights.co.uk/flights/malaga
It's very inclusive - i didn't know there were flights from Benbecula (Outer Hebrides) to Malaga - I guess they;re via elsewhere.
So their internal link structure and specific pages/search results for each route is a key factor for me. That must have taken some thinking through and execution...SEO is a long-term play.
This also makes the site as a whole bigger - sometimes called domain popularity - site:cheapflights.co.uk gives 831K pages for Cheapflights - I'm sure Google take this into account as one of their 200 ranking "signals " recently mentioned by their VP of engineering (he didn't say what they were but previous guestimates were 100 ranking factors...).
Google Press day link
One final point - if you use this internal linking strategy then unlike most competitors, your deep page will be favoured in the SERPS (rather than home page) and will have a <title>, description and URL that match what the user is searching into account, so users are more likely to click on it - greater relevance and i'm sure this is another factor - it will have a higher CTR than competitors!
Dave Chaffey
www.davechaffey.com