I read a snarky comment recently that poked fun at the novice SMM. It read, “… He doesn’t even have a content strategy and I heard he still believes exact keyword domains make a difference!” As I began to look into this, I cannot get a final answer. 

There two groups with the significant majority insisting that exact-match is a must when launching your company website. Then, there’s the considerably smaller group that insists that Panda has essentially stripped away the SEO value of exact-match, and those still touting its value are just regurgitating what they hear pretending they know what they are talking about.  

Now all the obvious branding and direct URL input reasons aside, what am I missing?

@jasonwiser You might want to check out these resources.

http://www.seomoz.org/q/exact-match-domain-names-2

http://www.seobythesea.com/2011/10/googles-exact-match-domain-name-patent-detecting-commercial-queries/

Yeah  @kristi-hines the SEO by the sea article is excellent. I had seen the Matt Cutts video before and he’s not conclusive, which I think fueled this debate. Seo by the sea did a great job of really digging in, and the comments were enough for me to close this topic. I have my answer. 

@erikdeckers  MyBigFunkyExactDomainNameIsAwesome.com too funny!