.tv Google, Yahoo, and .TV

That could be a major problem is the quest to attract large numbers of end users to the extension, lets hope this matter gets sorted out.
It must be a major headache George after investing so much time & money to get the right .tv's for your business.

I only beat this horse Ronnie because others have privately shared the same observations and because I hope that collectively we can get Demand Media to speak with Google and confirm and/or advocate equal treatment for all sites no matter which extension is used.

And yes, I'm still bullish on .TV as an investment.

I agree DM has some work to do with G. Y is indexing nicelly!

Search engines do not treat domains according to their extensions. There is a myth, that some people believe in, that .info domains have less value as of SEO than .com domains. But this is just not true - here's one example:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cheap+dedicated+hosting&btnG=Search
(306,000 results for that keyword and #1 is a .info)

And the same applies to .TV. I belive you can rak #1 in Google even with a .TV, but you need to do good SEO and build many backlinks and that's not easy.

Andrej,

I do the same SEO trick for all my domains. It works for .COM and .NET and not for .TV domains.

There is a reason CO.UK domains don't come up high @ Google for US Searches. They are viewed as UK sites.

DNJournal reports .TV as a CCTLD not as a global TLD.

Are we sure, .TV isn't viewed as a CCTLD for US searches on Google?

Because .TV is technically a CCTLD.

I agree with the GLOBAL extensions (.com, .net, .info, and .org) they are treated the same.

My feeling is that GOOGLE treats .TV sites as international for US searches.

In fact, we are moving some campaigns from PestControl.TV to Pest.PRO next week because .PRO is a global extension to see if we can get the same results as our .COM and .NET sites.

localexperts said:

There is a reason CO.UK domains don't come up high @ Google for US Searches. They are viewed as UK sites.

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I admit, you are right. When I search Google for e.g. "dream car", the first result that comes out is a .co.uk domain (my location is Slovakia). However, when I do the same search via a proxy, .net is on the first place and the .co.uk is second.

That's a pity it works this way on Google, but it's because like you said .TV is a CCTLD of Tuvalu, it's not a TLD (e.g. .com, .net, .org, .mobi).

IMHO The #1 priority for the .TV community is to get .TV viewed as a TLD not a ccTLD.

localexperts said:

IMHO The #1 priority for the .TV community is to get .TV viewed as a TLD not a ccTLD.

Click to expand...

I agree, that would be great. Maybe we could try contacting Matt Cutts. :hehe:

localexperts said:

Andrej,

I do the same SEO trick for all my domains. It works for .COM and .NET and not for .TV domains.

Click to expand...

This statement is not fully supported.

IMO you can't make this determination because you would need the same .TV and the same .Com.

Competition for each term is dictated by many factors including, URL, # times the term pops up in your title, description, and meta tags. Plus back links, domain age, I mean it goes on and on. When you say you are dropping ReceptionHalls.tv in favor of BanquetFacilities.com, well the two terms are entirely different and statistics for each category differ greatly, not to mention banquet facilities is a much more searched valuable term and the site has tons of backlinks plus the URL was created in 98. Reception halls has 2/3 the search volume and the .TV URL was created on 23-Jul-06. Plus GOOGLE gives you higher ranking if your domain is registered longer, the .TV is set to expire this year and the .com is set to expire 2014. Beyond that, the competition for exact relevant data between categories is unquantifiable via normal google search results. By this I mean, if you search for banquet facilities, the most relevant results filter to the top, out of 2920000 total results only a small fraction of the overall results may actually be relevant; this small percentage is your actual true competition for keyword SEO purposes as other sites may just have the keywords in their text strewn about totally irrelevantly. You can't compare easily because the controls for the expreiment are different, you would need the same domain that was created in both .com and .tv at the same time to run an equal equation.

IMO you have made biased decisions and posts about .TV that are not easily supported. I know you tried your best to support .tv, but patience may have yielded the same results, but now we will never know.

I wish you luck on your endeavors.

Don't remember the last time I did a general search term like "wedding" from a US based IP and saw a .co.uk or .ca site come up on page 1 or 2.

Why would .TV be an different when it is a ccTLD just like .co.uk and .ca?

While I agree the results were not developed in a "cleanroom" environment, when you step back, you ask a question "Is .TV treated different than a global TLD like .COM or .NET?"

I don't see any downside to supporting .TV as a global TLD vs a ccTLD. I see alot of possible (and that is the keyword) upside.

(Officiants.tv and DiscJockeys.tv still have campaigns leading to those domains. I still support the extension.)

Excellent Post Marlowe rep added

Did a little bit of test for ReemIsland.TV

"Reem Island" in yahoo shows up in first page and #3 in ranking
"Reem Island" in google shows up in first page (sometimes second), but at the end.
If I update more often, it climbs up in google and yahoo.

I just bought NorthernVirginia.net and I own NorthernVirginia.tv

The other day regged DiscJockeysTV.com and I own DiscJockeys.tv

Closest thing I can get to a pure test. Will rotate ads between the two extensions and see what happens for search term "Northern Virginia" and "Disc Jockeys" using same sites with a .net and .tv and .com and .tv.

I think you are shooting yourself in the foot, but good luck.

localexperts said:

I just bought NorthernVirginia.net

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That is a nice name!

domainacrobat said:

That is a nice name!

Click to expand...

Defensive move since NorthernVirginia.com is currently undeveloped (but owned by State Ventures LLC which operates Maryland.com and Annapolis.com)

The marketing side of my brain prefers NorthernVirginia.TV as a brand.

One thing we can all find common ground - We want the best for .TV extension.

localexperts said:

I just bought NorthernVirginia.net and I own NorthernVirginia.tv

The other day regged DiscJockeysTV.com and I own DiscJockeys.tv

Closest thing I can get to a pure test. Will rotate ads between the two extensions and see what happens for search term "Northern Virginia" and "Disc Jockeys" using same sites with a .net and .tv and .com and .tv.

Click to expand...

Good luck and Keep us updated

localexperts said:

Don't remember the last time I did a general search term like "wedding" from a US based IP and saw a .co.uk or .ca site come up on page 1 or 2. Why would .TV be an different when it is a ccTLD just like .co.uk and .ca? While I agree the results were not developed in a "cleanroom" environment, when you step back, you ask a question "Is .TV treated different than a global TLD like .COM or .NET?"

I don't see any downside to supporting .TV as a global TLD vs a ccTLD. I see alot of possible (and that is the keyword) upside. (Officiants.tv and DiscJockeys.tv still have campaigns leading to those domains. I still support the extension.)

Click to expand...

My guess is that Google treats .tv neither exactly like a .com and neither exactly like a ccTLD.

The Demand Media guys have said that they have had good discussions with Google about .tv and that Google understands what .tv is and that they treat it is a gTLD. Is this fully accurate? who knows?

Here is what I have seen with election.tv

1/ I think one thing that is the case between Google and YAHOO/MSN is how much value they place on the domain name.

I have done no SEO on election.tv, but look at some interesting results.

On MSN, it appears first page for "election", for Google it is nowhere to be found.

Why? Well, it appears that MSN pays a lot of attention to the domain name in general. Look at the other domains with election in their name (like election.ca or election.org.nz) that also appear on the first page for MSN.

2/ Does it mean Google does not love election.tv? Hard to say at this point.

It is the #1 result for "election TV" (no surprise there) and is a top result for certain search terms "what congressional district am I in?" for example

So it is clearly being indexed and being placed well in non-competitive terms like the ones above even without any SEO work. It is certainly not being screened out and only shown to searchers from Tuvalu.

I think however for tough terms it might be getting more scrutiny vs. a .com or that google is just more competitive in general for terms like those.

It is very hard to say at this point and as has been pointed out before, even the slightest thing (e.g. amount of time the domain has been registered) might be playing a role.

3/ To look at more established examples:

Search for "TNT". there you have 2 mega-corps each using TNT.com and TNT.tv respectively. They appear #1 and #2 in the Google results which seems like a completely fair outcome to me.

Look at MTV. There you have: 1/ MTV.com 2/ MTV.uol.com.br 3/ mtvjapan.com, 4/ MTVasia.com 5/ MTV.tv

Again, seems reasonable to me.

My overall conclusion: perhaps a bit tougher SEO than if it is a .com (which is seems fair to me, if I had to weight one over the other, I also might give slight preference to .com) but clearly not being screened out for US searches.

antonis I think you are having the same experience that I found. I didn't mean to assert that .TV is screened out, but there is some difference compared to .COM, .NET, and .ORG site.

Our .TV sites come up well when you search for "pest control videos" or "officiant videos", but with the highly competitive terms like "pest control" or "reception halls" we have a similiar experience as yours with "election" - no where to be found - I stopped looking after page 25.

Even low search terms like videographers.net and termiteinspections.com yield better SEO results.

I'm glad that DM has spoken to Google. That is all I wanted to accomplish in this thread is to raise awareness.

I think it does depend on a combination of name/keywords/description and content. And then I believe it weighs very heavily on back links and time as well.

One of the reasons I believe it relies on the domain name is this: I have DallasLawyer.tv. Nice keywords but VERY difficult to suddenly rank above all the other sites with those words.

If I search for dallas lawyer, I am nowhere to be found. If I search for dallas lawyer tv, then I am on the front page.

Same thing goes for your Officiants. Search for just officiants, nope not there. search for officiants tv and there you are.

Very Ironically, this is the text it shows for your officiants site: "Q: Why should I advertise on Officiants.TV? A: Officiants.TV is ranked well in many of the search engines and we continue to work hard at growing our ...



The only true test, and I have suggested this before is to build a .tv and a .com exactly the same. Then give them exactly the same backlinks through your network. See which one is on top. I think I suggested using sdfkljklsdfjkljkl.tv and .com with the keywords : "I like green butter and orange flavored spoons".

Ha, In this case I have to agree.

I would search for pest control, or local pest control company.

I guess I won't get soup either because I would never think to search for pest control video either.

No offense man, just me.

localexperts said:

But you are correct Bulldog, "pest control videos" yields PestControl.tv. My SEO expert's comment when I told him this, who searches using "pest control videos". My response "No soup for you"

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correct. search volume for [keyword]+tv or[keyword]+videos is approximately ZERO.

Oh I know.

At the time, we were discussing how our .TV had zero SEO traction so I was desperate for any small sign to support my point of view that we should stay the course.

In the end, we compromised and kept Officiants.tv and DiscJockeys.tv going with ReceptionHalls.tv traffic going to BanquetFacilities.com. We are fully dedicated to .TV for the GEOS (I have no alternative) and the home improvement space (Remodeling.tv, Contractor.tv) where these domains are our best brands.