Case study: Will new domain extensions provide an SEO boost?

[News]

While many in the SEO community debunk the myths that the new domain extensions will have any impact on SEO status, others have proven otherwise.

I have long since believed that one of the benefits of the new domains in SEO is that the vast new categories and names allow a domain name that is more semantically or categorically tied to natural language of how people search.

For example, if you were looking for Lucra cars, that’s what you would type into a search engine. Now there is an exact match domain name at the top level instead of just adding .COM to it."

As new internet users come online and the next generation begins their digital life, they will drive this revolution and demand shorter, more memorable domain names. This will become the new normal...

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[gareth1614]

Great example of how new TLDs can often make sense for SEO.

This should make the naysayers think twice about the new extensions.

I actually pre-registered a couple of .cars domains, but when I saw the price I changed my mind.

 

[disaac81]

SEO is moving forwards and tld has no impact. NO search engine worth its weight in pretend salt is going to favor one general tld over another. I am not talking about cctlds.

For example

fast.cars
fastcars.com

Who wins? With the exact same metrics, meaning user experience history, bounce rates, links, content, word depth and age there will be no advantage to either.

Why? Just as keyword domains can be abused so can gtlds, there is no difference.

 

[gareth1614]

The comments section under the article is definitely worth checking out. As @disaac81 just said (and as Google themselves say), there is no direct advantage to either in terms of Google rankings.

I'd hazard a guess though that this kind of new TLD - the kind that forms a direct phrase related to a business (e.g. Used.cars) - will be very easy to remember, which in itself may lead to a return to the earlier era of type-in traffic. The major search engine's won't like this, and it could lead to a major shift in their algorithms.

I could, of course, be way off here.

 

[robaireg]

names like this will go to page 1 of google very quickly. but when typed in with the dot - as the exact spelling of the domain.

without the dot, it looks like it takes longer and involves regular seo factors; the google algorithm has many measures to it and part of that is secret no doubt. but as always content is king (relevant site content).
ps i did not wish to boast or sound egotistical but my site was on page 1 on 2 days. but only when spelled with the dot as in the domain name.

 

[vinsdomains.com]

I've launched many sites on new G's and they all get to page 1 of Google with a little time, albiet little competition
6N domains - 6n.domains
LLLL domains - LLLL.domains
dads tattoo - Dads.tattoo

 

[JB Lions]

haha, sometimes I wonder

"They took LucraCars.com and permanently redirected to Lucra.Cars."

"It’s great to have seen the Google search engine respond so quickly. These new naming options are great news for companies that didn’t have the chance to get the premium .COM they wanted due to unavailability."

Read that carefully. The company already had the .com, site up. They just did a redirect. It wasn't a case of a company just starting up and couldn't get the . com they wanted, got a new gtld and got on page 1.

Just read the comments of the article, they already took it apart.

"All that was proven was that if you have a solid redirect strategy in place, like Lucra did, you can still rank #1 for you own name (which shouldn't be hard). If you screw up the redirects like Barclays did, then things will be screwed up."

 

[Recons.Com]

search engines won't give preference to word.cars over word+cars.com
The latter would still have preference probably as more proven, usually more aged, more trusted etc.

 

[daoyouqingliubu]

I registered the xyz new domain name suffix

 

[disaac81]

Where keywordkeyword.com has the target word in the domain name where as keyword.keyword has one word in the domain name and one in the tld there will quite obviously be algorithm differences, however slight.

I should have added to my first comment, a keyword may be favored in the domain name rather than as a top level domain.

For those who still live in the old days of seo, be sure to realize that keyword in domain name has very little impact, it is not the same as keyword in url which some seem to be confused about.

As I alluded to earlier, seo is moving towards user experience more than links and keywords. However at this point in time, keywords are still the main thing.

And for the last time... ranking a new domain name on google for a weak keyword does not mean you found the jackpot gtld, when are people going to get the message, ranking is based on so much more than the tld!

Good luck!

 

[DANEYAL]

That is something interesting. Whats in an extension, if you have a smart & small Catchy name, with more emphasis on website content & technology, you can win, even without having the so called aged domains at dot com. Anything that feels good for the market, should work with the right strategy.

 

[amaz_bab]

imo it has impact, especially combined with structured data like schema.org
just my 2 cents

 

[disaac81]

Just also remember in the english language we use a full stop as a terminator. Brands would most likely prefer to own a dot tld such as com, net, org unless they are already established and can afford to experiment in marketing.

 

[Adriaanh]

yeah... i have noticed how kick ass torrents (btw...i dont download anything from there, I just go there to have a look at what they have......umm...i dont ask you on what sites you go ok....) anyway ...they keep changing their extension because they get banned, but if you do a google search for "kat" they always on top rankings! even after they changed their domain the day before...incredible that google can't ban them from top listings, and no my browser doesn't store cookies, they on top naturally.

 

[disaac81]

Plus search engines are returning search results more and more based on intent, which is why in a lot of search queries the first page contains results that do not even have the keywords in the meta title, meta description or any h1 tags.

As I said before, it is all about experience, the keyword power is still relevant of course but it is all down to "common sense" so sites that misuse keywords are doomed, this includes new gtlds that think they will rank just because they have the corresponding search tld.

 

[Adriaanh]

google's intent from day one was to make google "human, friend alike" a friend will only give you the best referrals for the best possible information and experience. Google will keep getting better and better at it...content is king. SEO is non-existent to me. i'd rather spent the time gathering content than trying to optimise keywords.

 

[disaac81]

I think the same way as you, the term seo has for a long time been dead to me too. We should be writing our content for our audience, not for search engines.

In time all seo will be is content marketing, we can see it heading that way already.

 

[robaireg]

search also seems to be moving to local relevance.

 

[dataman]

I think it will have a slight effect. .COMs will be better because they have age, but new ones like super.car is a lot shorter which is probably one of the SEO factors as well.