Keyword-rich domains get more clicks: Study

Study shows that domains with keywords matching a search query get more clicks.

Verisign has published the results of a study showing that keyword-rich domain names matching a search query are more likely to get clicked in search results.

For example, if someone searches for “How do I create a personal brand online?” the domain PersonalSpaceOnline.com has two matching keywords from the search query.

Verisign looked at the click-through rates of the top 20 search results for 11 million search queries.

Results that didn’t have any matching keywords in the second level domain had a 12.44% click rate. Those with one matching term were clicked 21.79% of the time, and two or more words 25.30%.

As best I can tell, the study didn’t consider the search placement of results.

These results are not surprising. It’s well known that repeating the keywords in a Google Adwords ad increases CTR.