Why "Long-Tail" Domains Matter

Within the domain industry, longtail domain names consisting of three, four and five keywords are not highly valued when compared to domains consisting of one and two keywords - yet as search engines continue to evolve in sophistication and performance, these longtail domains are delivering some of the highest quality traffic available.

Why?

Websites published to three, four and five keyword domain names offering quality content in which the domain name exactly matches the site visitor’s search query are more likely to lead to the sale of a product or service. The longer the search query - the more narrow the search and the more highly targeted the results. When the benefits of this are documented and fully understood, sales conversion rates will become one of the most important factors in determining domain name resale value.

From an advertiser’s perspective, AdWords is all about conversion rate. If site visits are not converted into sales, advertisers will pay less or look for other marketing opportunities. It’s no different even if you are contracting directly with the advertisers on your site. Visits must convert to sales. Without actual sales, total site visits are next to meaningless. It seems to me that longtail domains are currently under priced - yet over deliver when it comes to targeted, quality traffic with the potential for a higher percentage of site visitor conversions.

There’s one more thing the longtail has going for it:

Domain names consisting of three, four and five or more generic descriptive keywords do not make good trademarks. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much now, but it may prove to be highly significant should domainer unfriendly trends continue into the future unabated.