Google Unleashed the First Version of EMD SEO Update

Last week of September was probably the most memorable and horrifying time for SEO professionals. After releasing Panda 20 on 27 September, Google pushed a completely new Exact Match Domain or EMD update on 28 September to punish low quality exact match domains. Matt Cutts announced the news via Twitter and said it will affect 0.6% English-US search queries.

So, what does this EMD actually means? Exact match domains are those that use generic keywords in the URL hoping to get a top rank on SERPs. However, that does not mean any site that has keywords in URL will be punished by EMD. In reality, it’s targeting those sites that are using several keywords in the domain, have low quality content in the site and may have no brand recognition at all. For instance, cars.com won’t lose its rank, but buycheapcarsindia.com may lose its position. Though, the final deciding factor is quality of content.

Whether your site has been affected due to EMD update or not, there is only one suggestion for you, write quality content to save your business. This is just the first version of Exact Match Domain update and the next version may release in a couple of months. Even if your site has escaped this time, it may not be so lucky next time.