Anne Kennedy (twitter.com/AnneKennedy) interviews Jeremiah Johnston (https://twitter.com/jeremiahjohnsto) of Sedo about domain name search engine optimization at SES Toronto 2012 after their “What Still Works in SEO” panel.

“The market and keyword demand for domains shows that domains are still an important part of a robust SEO strategy. Premium, one-word domains still give webmasters quite a jump because of user demand and keyword relevance.”

But what about the roll-out of generic top-level domains? “We’ll have to wait and see how that all shakes out. We’ll have to see who, of the GTLD operators do the most to make the public aware of their resources. First that these new extensions exist, second what users can expect to find at those extensions. That consumer awareness is really what will drive the success of the GTLD’s, because obviously the search engines will be looking to see if users flock to them, link to them, or not.”

Kennedy gets to the heart of one of the trickier aspects of domain-buying SEO strategies: does your domain have baggage in the way of old, undesirable links? “I think it’s important for buyers to do their due diligence. When you’re paying 5, sometimes 6 figures, you want to know what your investment’s search profile looks like. Some websites like domain tools do good WHOIS and reverse WHOIS lookups. Because you’re going to be associated with that history, so make sure you know what that history is.”

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