Google has always given importance to the keyword in the domain and all SEOs have been aware of the power of keywords in the domain name till date. But that may change soon . If you are on the verge of registering a new domain and have a catchy brand name then going for a keyword rich domain just for ranking purposes may not help and going for the brand name in the domain may atleast help from the usability perspective as Google may give lesser importance to keywords in the domain for ranking purposes.
Hence while registering a new domain too keep the user in mind as it should be easy to remember and should be short as that would mean less typing for the user ( As the future is mobile and less no. of keys used on a smart phone is always a plus point) .
Google going for the Farmer/Panda algorithm update first and now giving lesser importance to keywords in the domain and that may follow ( I think) with lesser importance to the keywords in the title is surely raising the quality standards for ranking. With these kind of updates in the algorithms only websites with quality content and strictly following the norms of the Google guidelines have a chance of getting a higher ranking as all this will put an end to manipulations of the title tags, and domain names just for ranking purposes.
According to me it is a very welcome change which will ensure that the webmasters and SEOs who work hard to develop their sites with quality standards and content and work on creating an online brand shall be at the win win situation.
