It’s been almost 6 years ago that Google forever altered the search landscape when it released an Exact Match Domain (EMD) Update — a filter launched to prevent low quality websites from ranking well simply because their domains had words or phrases that matched search terms.

This update wiped and hijacked search rankings for a number of websites overnight. One day websites were receiving hundreds and thousands of visitors, while the very next day was a handful of visitors, if any.

And although many website and website owners were impacted by Google’s EMD Update, there were a select few that weathered the storm without issue. In fact, some websites experienced increased search ranking.

One of those websites not impacted by Google’s EMD Update was an educational website dedicated to instructing and creating Java tutorials so easy, a 10 year old could do it.

When starting a business these days, one quickly encounters how challenging it is to reconcile a business name and the available matching .com domain that passes the radio test.

If you like most business owners, then you’ve likely not heard of the domain radio test or understand the importance it plays to your business and its digital presence. 

Welcome back to the latest The Week in Review for Emoji Domains.

It’s been quiet on the emoji domain sales front the last couple of months. Per DNAcademy, the last big emoji domain sale closed December 16th, 2017 at $3.1K — 😎.ws.

But from the looks of the latest action this week, emoji domain sales may have sprung to life! 🤩

A little over five years ago, I accidentally stumbled upon something that forever altered my domain development experience: geo service domains.

Sometimes categorized as exact-match or partial-match domains, I encountered a geo service domain via GoDaddy’s expired domain buy-it-now/closeout auctions for a suburb of the greater Austin, Texas metro.

Although Google had issued an exact match domain update that devalued and slightly lessen exact match domains’ ranking, I decided to take a chance on developing my newly discovered geo service domain.

Little did I realize my development and SEO prowess would produce a page one ranking geo service domain website.

Years later, and many new and existing domain investors still question whether or not geo service domains are worth investing in.  That’s the question will attempt to answer in today’s podcast.

At least a couple of times a month, this is the most commonly asked question I field from new domain investors hoping to dive into domain investing.

Or I’m questioned about evaluating a list of potential domains to be purchased by a new investor.

At surface level, both opportunities appear to be simple, straight forward questions not requiring much thought, yet both opportunities are odd and challenging for me to objectively answer. Why?

With Easter Weekend finally here and well underway, it’s been a busy week for me on all fronts.

And being short on time and not able to highlight all that has occurred this week in emoji domains, an opportunity has presented itself to bring you a week in review for emoji domains.

It’s likely not going to be a normal occurrence, but count it a blessing when time, ideas, thoughts, and latest happenings present themselves.

But enough context about the purpose of the week in review for emoji domains. Let’s get down to business with the latest emoji domain happenings for this week.

In today’s podcast, I have the honor and privilege of interviewing the fabulous, one and only Tess Diaz, Business Development Coordinator at Media Options.