Four to five years ago, you would have seen that there wasn’t much choice when it came to domain name extensions. The most popular options were the .com, .Net, or .Org extensions. Well, that is not the case now. Recently, it seems that a lot of domain name registrars have expanded this list mainly due to the increasing demands.
It is important to understand its effects before investing in a new domain extension. You should know if it can affect your SEO in a negative way or not.
Of course, the general idea is that using.com, .org or.net is perfect for ranking in search engines. Furthermore, many SEOs have indicated that making use of new domain name extensions seems like a bad idea because you risk damaging your rankings on search engines.
Well, there aren’t many cases to support the statement that a new domain name extension is a bad idea. There is one person – Daniel Nigeria who is the CEO of xyz, the domain registry operator, who expressed in a case study that there may be inaccuracies in the negative hype around the use of new domain extensions.
Let’s take a look at what Negari found in his case study:
Negari’s main goal was to demonstrate that a new extension, such as . The car extension can also be categorized as a top level domain like .com. What he did was he worked with Lucra Cars (the car manufacturer, Southern California) and replaced the old domain of their website with the new one, like Lucra.com with Lucra.cars. All Lucra.com URLs have been redirected to this new domain; Also, keep the website structure intact so as to eliminate many other factors that may affect Lucra’s search engine results page.
While the domain initially lost its search rankings, it later rebounded and the company regained its top spot with the new domain name Lycra. cars. The result of the Negari case study showed that the new domain name extension does not harm SEO.
What are the limitations of this case study?
While the Negari case study shows that it is very possible for a site to rank first with a new domain extension, there are some limitations in this case study:
- The results appear to be anecdotal, not scientific. To draw specific conclusions, a large sample size is required.
- The case study was based on a popular brand name rather than a generic keyword.
- Negari’s results show that it is possible for brand names to rank highly even when they have new domain extensions.
Google’s algorithm may change to reflect new domain extensions
Well, even if Google’s current algorithm penalizes domains with these new domain extensions, there are chances for Google to change its algorithm at any time in the future. Many specialists are of the opinion that search engine users ultimately prefer shorter and more relevant domains as Google may change its algorithm in order to meet user preferences.
While the jury is still out on whether or not the new domain extensions will affect SEO, it appears that the expected negative impact may be less than expected.
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