Exact-Match Domain Names And Why Investors Value Them
Forbes Technology Council
May 29, 2018
你网站的域名是你整个品牌建立的数字空间。优秀的域名易于记忆、输入和分享。拥有数千个域名扩展和超过3.32亿个注册域名，优质域名和优质房地产一样，价值呈指数增长。
近年来域名注册激增，使得精确匹配.com域名成为其中最有价值的，主要是因为它们的历史和被互联网最大公司广泛认可的使用。
在当今快节奏的互联网中，几乎每个月都会发布新的域名扩展名（.xyz、.app、.rocks 等）。据《福布斯》撰稿人罗杰·凯介绍：“我们都已经习惯了现有的互联网域名——这些域名带有.com、.net和.edu等后缀——以至于它们似乎像北极星一样固定在宇宙中。但本周和下周，市场上将出现一系列新的后缀。未来几个月甚至几年里，会有更多人涌入。”
为您的企业选择合适的域名可能会很繁琐。在此过程中，你还需要考虑精确匹配域名。原因如下：
选择域名
福布斯撰稿人丹尼斯·平克斯解释说，为你的公司选择合适的域名涉及七个要素。
1. 你希望你的域名具有品牌竞争力，因为它能以数字方式代表你的公司。
2. 你需要一个容易发音的域名，这样既有市场竞争力又容易记住。
3. 你需要一个较短且不难让人输入的域名。
4. 你想要.com延期，因为这些仍然是最有价值且最值得信赖的。
5. 你要完全避免侵犯商标、版权和知识产权。
6. 你需要使用符合你人口统计和搜索内容的自然关键词。
7. 你需要慢慢来，这样才能获得最好的域名。
什么是精确匹配域名？
选择域名时，考虑完全匹配的域名也是明智之举。这些是什么？它们是使用最能代表你品牌或产品的准确关键词的域名。显然，最精确匹配的域名以.com结尾。
很好的例子有 Hotels.com、Cars.com 或 Apartments.com。事实上，据《商业内幕》报道，Hotels.com 域名是有史以来最昂贵的域名购买之一——2003年以1100万美元售出。
访问该域名会迅速确认它与所提供产品完全匹配：网站帮助用户在全球任何城市以有竞争力的价格找到酒店房间。
该域名的搜索引擎优势无处不在。简单谷歌搜索“hotels”会发现 Hotels.com 是自然搜索结果的首位，每年为品牌带来数亿免费新用户。这些品牌的股东非常重视这个渠道为其网站带来的知名度。
另一个例子是 Insurance.com，2010年以3560万美元成交。在谷歌搜索“保险”，它是自然搜索结果的首位。
长期为《福布斯》撰稿人大卫·特滕解释了为什么一些顶尖的风险投资家会投资拥有优秀域名且有扎实营销策略的公司。
像这些最昂贵、精确匹配域名的买家利用它们主导搜索排名。这些收益带来了数亿甚至数十亿美元的收入，远远超过他们为收购该品牌所支付的看似昂贵的购买价格。此外，同一领域的其他竞争对手随着时间推移，将发现与高质量、完全匹配的品牌有机竞争将变得更加困难。
谷歌会奖励完全匹配的域名吗？
这里的简单答案是：可以，但前提是采用正确的营销策略，才能为搜索者带来巨大价值。早在2012年，谷歌发布了一项更新，旨在重新对齐精确匹配域名与互联网其他部分及其在搜索结果中的显示方式。结果是，许多精确匹配域名排名下降，降低了在URL中采用精确关键词匹配的观念。
谷歌最初利用这次更新来规范垃圾邮件。然而，到2012年底，谷歌意识到太多诚实且有价值的精确匹配域名持有人仅仅因为拥有一个吸引人的域名而被惩罚，于是发布了算法更新，提高了这些域名的价值。无论未来搜索引擎算法如何更新，优先考虑最终用户价值的优秀营销和SEO策略，将真正最大化所有精确匹配域名的潜力。
精确匹配.com域的优势
在当今世界，获得你想要的精确匹配域名会很昂贵，尤其是当你想要一个包含高搜索关键词的.com时。选择其他延长很诱人，因为有更多选择可以考虑。不过，如果你恰好找到一个完全符合预算和品牌的匹配域名，好处是无穷无尽的。
从品牌塑造角度看，精确匹配域名能即时提升你的产品和服务的可信度和差异化。
1999年，世界上最受尊敬的投资者之一沃伦·巴菲特说：“投资的关键不在于评估一个行业将对社会产生多大影响，或者它将增长多少，而是确定任何公司的竞争优势，尤其是这种优势的持久性。”
拥有行业内最精确匹配.com域名，能带来持久且具竞争力的优势，这种优势永远无法被剥夺。结合在蓬勃发展的市场中正确的营销策略，投资或收购报价将成为公司常态。
谨慎行事，慢慢来，你可以让这类域名永远为你带来优势。
作者：迈克尔·加尔吉洛
迈克尔·加尔吉洛，VPN.com我们帮助财富1000强企业、创业者和公司保护他们的品牌。
Your website’s domain name is the digital real estate your entire brand is built upon. Great domains are easy to remember, type in and share. With thousands of domain extensions and more than 332 million registered domain names, premium domain names, like premium real estate, are exponentially increasing in value.
The recent surge in domain registrations has made exact-match .com domains the most valuable of the bunch, namely due to their age and widely accepted use by the internet’s largest companies.
In today’s fast-paced internet, new domain name extensions (.xyz, .app, .rocks, etc.) are released nearly every month. According to Forbes contributor Roger Kay: “We’ve all grown comfortable with existing internet domains — which have suffixes like .com, .net, and .edu — to the point where they seemed fixed in the universe like the North Star. But this week and next, a slew of new suffixes will hit the market. More will pour in over the coming months and years.”
Choosing the right domain name for your business can be tedious. Along the way, you’ll want to consider exact-match domains, too. Here’s why:
Selecting A Domain Name
Choosing the right domain for your company involves seven elements, explains Denis Pinksy, a Forbes contributor.
1. You want your domain name to be brandable because it will represent your company digitally.
2. You want an easy-to-pronounce domain name so it’s marketable and simple to remember.
3. You want a shorter domain name that’s not too difficult for people to type in.
4. You want a .com extension, as these are still the most valuable and trusted.
5. You want to completely avoid infringing on trademarks, copyrights and intellectual property rights.
6. You want to use natural keywords that fit your demographic and what they are searching for.
7. You want to take your time, so you can get the best domain name possible.
What Are Exact-Match Domains?
When selecting your domain, it’s also wise to consider an exact-match domain. What are these? They are domains that use the exact keywords that best represent your brand or products. Obviously, the best exact match domain names end in .com.
Good examples of this are Hotels.com, Cars.com or Apartments.com. In fact, the Hotels.com domain was one of the most expensive domain name purchases of all time, according to Business Insider — it sold in 2003 for $11 million.
A visit to this domain quickly reinforces that it’s an exact match for the product it offers: The website helps users find a hotel room at a competitive price in any city across the world.
The search engine benefits of this domain are omnipresent. A quick Google search for “hotels” reveals that Hotels.com is the top organic result, which leads to hundreds of millions of free, new users for their brand each year. Shareholders of these brands value the awareness this channel drives to their site.
Another example is Insurance.com, which sold for $35.6 million in 2010. Run a Google search for “insurance” and it’s the top organic result.
David Teten, a long times Forbes writer, explains why some of the best venture capitalists invest in companies with great domain names with sound marketing strategies behind them.
Buyers of the most expensive, exact-match domains like these have used them to dominate search rankings. The benefits generate hundreds of millions, if not billions, in revenue that far surpass the seemingly expensive purchase price they paid to acquire the name. In addition, other competitors in the same space will find it substantially harder to organically compete with quality exact-match brands over time.
Does Google Reward Exact-Match Domains?
The simple answer here is: Yes, but only with the correct marketing strategy that delivers immense value to searchers. Back in 2012, Google released an update that was designed to realign exact-match domains with the rest of the internet and how they appeared in search results. The result was that many exact-match domains saw rankings decreases that devalued the notion of going with an exact keyword match in the URL.
Google initially had used this update to regulate spam. By the end of 2012, though, Google realized that too many honest, valuable exact-match domain holders had been penalized simply for having a catchy domain name and issued an update to the algorithm that improved the value of these domains. Regardless of the future algorithmic updates of any search engine, a great marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that prioritizes the value delivered to the end-user first will truly maximize the potential of all exact-match domain names.
Benefits Of Exact-Match .com Domains
In today’s world, getting the exact-match domain you want is going to be expensive, especially if you’re shooting for a .com that features a highly searched keyword. It’s tempting to choose other extensions because there are so many more options to consider. Nevertheless, if you happen to find an exact-match domain that fits your budget and your brand, the benefits are endless.
From a branding approach, exact-match domains generate instant credibility and differentiation of your products and or services.
In 1999, Warren Buffett, one of the world’s most respected investors, said: “The key to investing is not assessing how much an industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the durability of that advantage.”
Owning the best exact-match .com domain name in your industry creates a durable and competitive advantage that can never be stripped away from your brand. Couple this with the correct marketing strategy in an exploding space, and investment or acquisition offers will become a regular occurrence for your company.
Tread carefully and take your time, and you can make these types of domain names work in your favor, forever.
By Michael Gargiulo
Michael Gargiulo, CEO of VPN.com. We help Fortune 1000, entrepreneurs and companies protect their brand.