Does your
domain
matter?

The short answer

A domain name with your trade in it used to look like a shortcut. It isn’t one now. Google’s own guide for site owners lists keywords in a domain under things not to focus on, saying they “have hardly any effect” on ranking, and that you should pick the name that is “best for your business”.

The ending matters even less. Google says it doesn’t care whether you use .com or something else unless you are targeting another country, and even then it is a low-impact signal.

What decides the map

When someone searches for a nearby service, the map and the short list under it are what most people look at. Google says those local results come down to three things:

• Relevance: how well your Business Profile matches what someone searched for.
• Distance: how far your business is from the person searching.
• Prominence: how well known your business is, which Google says includes how many reviews you have and how many websites link to you.

Your domain name is not on that list. You can’t change distance, so relevance and prominence are where your effort goes: a complete, accurate profile, and reviews from real customers, coming in steadily.

Where a domain still matters

A domain is still worth having. It is your home on the web, the address on your truck and cards, and the end of your email address. An email from [email protected] looks more established than one from a free email service, and a short, easy name is easier to remember and type.

It matters more for businesses that compete across the whole country rather than on a local map: web apps, online shops and national brands. For them the website is the product, the ordinary search results below the map are where the competition happens, and the strength of the whole site, its content and the other sites that link to it, carries much more weight.

Keep an old domain, or start fresh?

Keep it if customers already know it, because it is painted on your truck or printed everywhere. If it has been quietly unused, a new, short domain is usually simpler, and it won’t cost you anything in local search.

If you do move from an old domain to a new one, point the old address at the new one with a permanent redirect. Google recommends exactly that, says to keep the redirects “generally at least 1 year”, and warns to expect some temporary movement in rankings while it catches up.

What to do this week instead

• Claim and verify your Google Business Profile, choose the most accurate main category, and keep your hours right. Setting up your Google profile.
• Ask every customer for a Google review after the job, not only the happy ones, and never offer something in return for a good one. Reviews, and the rules.
• Claim your Yelp page and keep it accurate, but don’t ask for Yelp reviews: Yelp’s rules forbid it. Claiming your Yelp page.
• Reply to reviews, good and bad, calmly and in your own words.
• Put your website address on your profile, so the people who find you on the map can see your work.