There has been some talk of the power of exact match domains recently and more so since Matt Cutts mentioned that Google would be looking into the strength of exact-match domains within the SERP’s.

There are differing opinions on whether exact-match domains should have such heavy ranking weighting, I for one am on the side that exact-match domains should have nowhere near as much influence as they currently do. Let’s look into the positives and negatives of exact match domains having such strength.

I’ve held back on the negatives a bit here because it becomes a bit too one sided, and you can probably guess that I think exact match domains carry far too much weighting.

One of my main concerns is that there are companies that exploit the power of an exact match domains, especially companies that target small businesses who may not have the knowledge that us SEO's have. I know of a few companies that sell "instant ranking websites" which are basically just a template site with an exact match domain and some basic on page SEO. The terms are generally low traffic because most of the high traffic exact match domains have been taken, but the sales people of these companies can still persuade the customers to part with their money, based on the power of a "number one ranking in Google". Personally I think its immoral and unfair on the customer as they really want to see more traffic to their site and not just a number one ranking for a poor term.

Here are a couple of the SERP’s that these sites have affected:-

As you can see not big terms by any means but they do alter the SERP's quite dramatically and can often monopolise in local SERP's as they seem to appear above Google Places results more often than not.

It would be good to hear if any of you have come across any companies selling these "instant ranking sites" and what your opinion on them are.

Rand has done some great analysis on the strength of an exact match domain, which i'm hoping is enough to convince Google that something needs to be done soon but it would also be great to hear your own opinions of exact match domains and any other positive or negative impacts of them.