Expert: Roger Ellman - 1/15/2009

Question
Hi, How much does putting the word "the" in front of my domain name hurt my ranking when searched? For instance, my situation is similar to this: either thejimihendrixexperience.com
or  jimihendrixexperience.com    my site has jimi hendrix info on it for public usage free... people will likely just google "jimi hendrix" and nothing else, correct?....does that "the" hurt me?... and how much if so....
by the way, I do want to use the "the"....but if you suggest it really hurts me then I would likely not....thank you...
thank you !!!

Answer
Jackson

The word, words or phrase without "the" in front are usually best.

However in general if most of your audience will recognize the words run together with "the" in front - thejimihendrix experience would easily understand, almost at first glance, what words are there..what they mean, then search engines will for the most part also understand the same.

I would look at a few forums also - about search engin optimization - to see what may have been said about this, such as www.highrankingsadvisor.com www.seobythesea.com and www.searchenginewatch.com - they will also have links to some others, including www.searchengineland.com and if you find this mentioned it will reassure you. In most cases their are a multitude of opinions about this sort of concern.

One other key thing always to bear in mind is how likely/easy it is for your audience of visitors to remember. As someone certainly familiar with Jimi Hendrix and his music, I would anyway talk to others about The Jimi Hendrix experience as that I believe - am I right? - was the actual title...

Best wishes with your site and let's hope the next much-mentioned-in-the-news "axis" is Axis Bold as Love rather than the more firghtening "axis" we have been hearing about for the past few years!


Best wishes
Roger