New Top Level Domain Names – What’s Your Poison?
What does your website extension look like? Is it a .com or .co.uk or .net or even a .biz? Recently we have seen the release of hundreds of new domain name extensions known as top level domains (TLD’s).
Since February 2014 there has been a whopping 430,000 new top-level domains registered and if you can name it, it’s probably out there. From the fun and quirky to geographic locations and industry specific, there’s something for everyone. But should you be gobbling up any new top level domain names for your business?
Here are a few stats taking the top five new top level domain names registered as of March 2014.
.guru (47,000 registrations)
.berlin (43,000 registrations)
.photography (30,000 registrations)
.email (19,900 registrations)
.tip as (17,000 registrations)
.today (17,000 registrations)
And there are hundreds more out there….cont. after the info-graphic.
Say you are a photographer named John Smith, then www.JohnSmith.photography could be a pretty good choice.
The natural reaction of many savvy business owners is “should I buy up these domain names so my competitors don’t?” That very much depends on the industry you are in, and to a certain extent, how paranoid you are.
Interestingly, we don’t know how Google and the major search engines are going to view these newer domain name extensions. For example, a .com domain name generally gets more credibility and all things considered, gets a higher search engine ranking than a .me or .info extension. Google views them as more commercial in nature. This is the same for country level domain names from an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) point of view. All things equal, Google will favour a .fr (France) domain name hosted website in France rather than a .co.uk trying to compete in France so you need to think carefully about your market and your business objectives.
Personally I am pretty sure it will be more to do with the quality of the content hosted with the particular domain name rather than the domain name itself. For example, the longevity of the domain name, the number of quality back links, the social media signals, the ‘freshness’ of the site and the relevancy, quality, depth and breadth of the site are all things Google’s algorithm looks for rather than a fancy name.
Don’t forget you can always buy these new domains names and have them pointing to your main site or you can just ‘park’ them for future use. This at least gives you some scope with marketing. You can always use these new domain names to build and host some niche content you have or to use it to focus on a particular product or service.
If you need any help, advice or guidance on domain names then contact us on 01752 295875
