Exact match domain

In practice

The exact match is worth real money because it removes friction: someone who hears the name types it and arrives. When it is unavailable, the alternatives (a modifier, a different extension, a slightly altered spelling) each impose a small ongoing cost in explanation.

The value is spoken, not ranked. Google has said it treats new generic extensions like .com and does not use keywords in the ending as a ranking signal, so an address is not worth buying because it contains your keyword. It is worth buying because it is your name. A domain that merely repeats a search phrase, with no brand behind it, is a different thing and gives you nothing to build on.

In a naming project, the error runs both ways. Teams drop a strong name because the .com is taken, without asking whether the owner is using it or whether another extension would serve. Or they bend the name, adding "get", "app" or a hyphen, and then spell it out in every conversation for years. We check the exact match for every shortlisted name and read a taken one as a reason to reconsider the name, not to patch it.

Where this sits in the process

The studio treats this as part of a single run rather than a separate service: the category is read, the creative direction is chosen from what the research found, candidates are generated in volume and then cut against criteria that were written down first. See how the studio works for what that produces, or the naming module for the stages themselves.

Related concepts

• Domain strategy: Domains are a naming constraint, not an afterthought.
• Spellability: The radio test: whether a name survives being heard rather than read, and what that costs when it fails.
• Domain squatting: When a domain matching your brand is already taken by someone with no use for it: what squatting is and what recourse exists.

Further reading

• Do you still need a .com? Domains and brand names: How much a .com still matters, which extensions work as alternatives, and what the domain ending does for your brand and for search. A position, not a list.