Why Brandable Domains Beat Keywords in the Age of AI Search

By:

Andrew Richard

June 12, 2025

•

5 min read

The Golden Age of Keywords Is Ending—Here’s What’s Replacing It

There was a time—not that long ago—when the path to online visibility was fairly straightforward. You picked a keyword-rich domain like BuyShoesOnline.com, built out a few thousand words of SEO-friendly content, earned some backlinks, and waited for Google to reward your hard work with organic traffic.

And for a while, it did.

Search engines used to function like glorified index cards. If you aligned your domain name with user intent, and your site ticked the right technical boxes, you could sit comfortably near the top of the results page. It wasn’t glamorous, but it worked—and domains that matched exact search phrases had a clear edge.

But that entire model is crumbling. And fast.

Search Behavior Is Shifting—And So Are the Rules

First came the slow erosion: more ads, fewer organic results, and a SERP crowded with Google products. Then came the real wave—AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and even Siri started answering questions directly, bypassing the traditional link-based results model altogether.

Now, when someone types “best project management software” into an LLM, they don’t get a list of 10 blue links. They get an answer. And that answer isn’t based on who owns ProjectManagementTools2025.com—it’s based on what the model recognizes as a trusted, familiar name.

Not only is this changing how we discover brands—it's redefining what makes a brand discoverable in the first place.

AI Doesn’t Rank. It Recommends.

Unlike search engines that match queries to metadata, AI models draw on probability, context, and memory. They’re not evaluating who has the best-optimized title tag. They’re surfacing what’s most likely to satisfy the user—based on content, authority, popularity, and yes, brand recognition.

So while TaskSoftwareReviews2025.com might have crushed it in the old SEO game, AI is far more likely to recommend Asana, Hive, or Notion. Not because those names say what they do—but because they’ve become embedded in how people talk about tools.

This is why a new ecosystem of companies—like AthenaHQ, BluefishAI, and BrandLight—is emerging to help brands optimize for LLM visibility. The SEO arms race is evolving into something far more abstract: a battle for semantic credibility and brand salience.

Why Brandables Are Outperforming Keywords

Brandable domains—think Ramp.com, Figma.com, Vanta.com—are built for this future. They don’t describe a product. They stand for one.

These domains succeed because they’re:

🤝 Short, clean, and easy to remember
💪 Flexible enough to grow with the company
✅ Instantly credible in a world where users trust names that sound like…well, names

They're not just about being catchy—they're defensible, scalable, and increasingly, the names that AI is most likely to serve up in a one-shot answer world.

Are Keyword Domains Totally Dead? Not Quite.

To be clear: domains like Loans.com or Hotels.com still carry weight—especially in lead-gen verticals with strong transactional intent. These names convert, get type-in traffic, and in certain contexts, still print money.

But the moat around keyword domains is shrinking. Their strength used to be distribution via search. That’s no longer guaranteed. AI doesn’t prioritize them. Google has buried them beneath ads. And users don’t interact with the web the way they used to.

So while keyword domains still work, they’re increasingly tactical. Brandables, on the other hand, are strategic. (Check out Snagged’s deep dive on the value of Keyword vs. Brandable Domains)

The Big Shift: From Search-Driven to Recommendation-Driven

We’re moving from a web where visibility was earned by showing up in search... to one where visibility is earned by being remembered.

That changes the whole equation. Search-aligned domains used to convert on the first click. Brand-aligned domains now convert over time—through recognition, conversation, and familiarity.

Here’s the new reality, side-by-side:

The Bottom Line

If you’re building a company in SaaS, AI, consumer tech, or anywhere trust matters, your domain can no longer just explain what you do. It has to embody who you are.

In the AI era, attention is fleeting—but brand memory is sticky. LLMs won’t always link to you. But if your name is strong enough, they’ll mention you.

And that’s where brandables win.