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- Nov 27, 2013
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New gTLDs may have benefits in getting a more relevant, and shorter, domain name, but there is no advantage when it comes to how well they perform in online search results.
On his Google+ page, John Mueller wrote:
"It feels like it's time to re-share this again. There still is no inherent ranking advantage to using the new TLDs.
They can perform well in search, just like any other TLD can perform well in search. They give you an opportunity to pick a name that better matches your web-presence. If you see posts claiming that early data suggests they're doing well, keep in mind that's this is not due to any artificial advantage in search: you can make a fantastic website that performs well in search on any TLD."
Mueller reiterated a post by his former colleague Matt Cutts in response to a follower's question who asked "Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent?"
"Sorry, but that's just not true, and as an engineer in the search quality team at Google, I feel the need to debunk this misconception," wrote Cutts. "Google has a lot of experience in returning relevant web pages, regardless of the top-level domain (TLD). Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don't expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn't bet on that happening in the long-term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that's your choice, but you shouldn't register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you'll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings."
In a comment, he went on to add:
".. and just to be complete -- we treat all of the new TLDs as gTLDs, meaning you can set geotargeting as you wish in Webmaster Tools. There's no automatic geotargeting for TLDs that look like city or regional names. "
The post by John Mueller can be found here
On his Google+ page, John Mueller wrote:
"It feels like it's time to re-share this again. There still is no inherent ranking advantage to using the new TLDs.
They can perform well in search, just like any other TLD can perform well in search. They give you an opportunity to pick a name that better matches your web-presence. If you see posts claiming that early data suggests they're doing well, keep in mind that's this is not due to any artificial advantage in search: you can make a fantastic website that performs well in search on any TLD."
Mueller reiterated a post by his former colleague Matt Cutts in response to a follower's question who asked "Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent?"
"Sorry, but that's just not true, and as an engineer in the search quality team at Google, I feel the need to debunk this misconception," wrote Cutts. "Google has a lot of experience in returning relevant web pages, regardless of the top-level domain (TLD). Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don't expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn't bet on that happening in the long-term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that's your choice, but you shouldn't register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you'll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings."
In a comment, he went on to add:
".. and just to be complete -- we treat all of the new TLDs as gTLDs, meaning you can set geotargeting as you wish in Webmaster Tools. There's no automatic geotargeting for TLDs that look like city or regional names. "
The post by John Mueller can be found here
