information Should Car Dealerships Use a Geo .CARS Domain Name?

RE: type-in traffic increase, I don't believe you.

>> I've heard exactly the opposite, results not justifying the added expense.
I'd like to see where that happened. That they built a web site with real content, did at least some promo of the site, and saw results not justifying the expense of the domain.

>> I decided that there was no longer any point to continue to hold the domain
Yes, it's true--certain TLDs aren't for domain investors. I'd personally only buy one if I'm going to develop a site and promote it.

>> RE: type-in traffic increase, I don't believe you.
Look at the data. It's all in the PDF. I'm a data guy--I only make decisions and form opinions based on the data.

In one case, they did a bunch of iHeartMedia ads--and direct traffic to the site went way up. Direct traffic in Google Analytics generally are type-ins or links that were redirected, where they don't have a referrer. In this case it was IHeartMedia (radio advertising, as I understand that's what IHeartMedia is). Direct traffic went way up.

I didn't believe it until I saw the data.

Maybe a better title... We spent money marketing

bhartzer said:

>> But what happens if Google decides to change their algo

This isn't *all* about the Google algorithm. In fact, if you read the case study, there's information about direct traffic to the sites, which can be type-ins. One site was doing iHeartMedia advertising which caused a bunch of direct traffic, type-ins and Google organic traffic to go up. Another did GeniusMonkey advertising (not organic search traffic) and also saw more direct traffic and type-ins.

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"Just by moving from ArizonaUsedCars.com to Arizona.CARS, the dealership saw a traffic value increase of $40,611 ($69,618 of value annualized)."

These two sentences don't jive very well or I'm missing something. Sounds like "can be type-ins" is due to increased advertising, not name recognition.

>> If your car business plans to stay open for the next 20 years, that’d be $60k sunk into a single domain name. Any sensible business person would be better off spending ~$10k on ArizonaCars.com, PhoenixCars.com, and other alternatives, and using the remaining $50k for advertising, marketing, or anything else.

Dealership was using ArizonaUsedCars.com. They moved to Arizona.Cars. Just by moving from ArizonaUsedCars.com to Arizona.CARS, the dealership saw a traffic value increase of $40,611 in 7 months ($69,618 of value annualized).

At that rate or return on their $3k investment, if they spent $60,000 on the domain over 20 years, they'd see $1,392,360 in traffic. Not a bad return for sinking $60,000 into a domain.

>>These two sentences don't jive very well or I'm missing something.
The site moved from .COM to .CARS. Didn't do anything else, no paid ads, etc..

In the case study, the numbers are explained. They got X number of MORE visits from organic search and direct traffic (those went up). Multiply X number by $3.36 per click (average CPC) for those keywords, and you get the traffic value.

#1 on G and DDG for wichita cars.

Nice niche, I'd like to see a comparison with an exact keyword .com, including on / off adverting to measure fall over traffic. Not convinced I couldn't do the same with {state}cars.com.

I'm being critical even though this is a good study. It helps validate .cars as a legit gtld.

bhartzer said:

>>These two sentences don't jive very well or I'm missing something.
The site moved from .COM to .CARS. Didn't do anything else, no paid ads, etc..

In the case study, the numbers are explained. They got X number of MORE visits from organic search and direct traffic (those went up). Multiply X number by $3.36 per click (average CPC) for those keywords, and you get the traffic value.

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Hi this is interesting because we've owned PalmSpringsAuto.com for some time now and were thinking of selling it but really have no idea what it might be worth but in a smaller well known town like Palm Springs just my opinion the .com would work better. Thanks for the post.

The TLD only has 331 regs. If they are all paid, then it can be viable.
But the pricing is exorbitant for normal end users.
It looks more like the Centurion program from Amex but with fewer benefits, than a regular domain extension.

I'm afraid you are preaching in the desert, because the pricing is designed to lock out almost everybody. So who is going to benefit from the alleged merits of the TLD ? Almost nobody.
So even if we take your analysis at face value, and accept that the price paid has been cost-effective for one client, it's not the kind of operation that can be replicated easily. It is a magnified example, not a generalization.

Also, I like your quote:

However, in the .CARS registry, there are no premium domain names—none are held back by the registry except for a few select domain names that are used for internal purposes by the registry.

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A more accurate statement would be that all domain names are premium.

If TLDs are so good for SEO, then I wonder why end users are not embracing them massively, even for satellite sites. SEO professionals would be pushing nTLDs in front of their customers massively. There are more parameters that come into play. Domain names don't build websites: they simply translate the level of commitment (or lack thereof) of end users into their branding.

You compared 7months to the prior period - what about the YoY comparison?
I can definitely see it driving more direct traffic if presented well in the iheartmedia advertising - more memorable.
How did these perform in the local pack?

(Too effin lazy to download the whole study, besides its Friday )

I don't think a .cars could survive with just car dealers unless they charged a hefty premium or car enthusiasts used it as well. I have a strong automotive background, I used to run a Mercedes-Benz franchise and in my opinion car dealerships are declining. If the current trend continues it will become like gas stations, the numbers decline almost every year.

Wow 40 posts in ten years .......slow down!

I feel the pricing on the .cars Domain, in hind sight, is viewed as a giant mistake by the registry, but a mistake that is very difficult to back track on.

The price of the domain is exactly what is and has stunted its growth and adoption. Not to mention the normal difficulty of growing a new TLD by itself; that’s hard enough, but the price is just a giant mistake.

It will probably be reduced at some point, after enough registrations are dropped.

I still feel the initial buzz factor is the biggest benefit. I agree that if the rankings are better than a .com that the price is well worth it, but most of Google rankings are dependent on so many other factors then the domain by itself, that it is unlikely to make that much of a difference.

https://www.strategicrevenue.com/gr...w-gtlds-is-temporary-buzz-factor-link-equity/

But even if it did, the cost of the domain by itself is not the only problem. It’s the added confusion of the TLD; they are tougher to brand, and you risk lost traffic from people forgetting that the right of the dot is different. It’s entirely different and added branding endevour.

Nowadays it is difficult enough to get found and then be remembered. Adding the confusion of another type URL, if you do not also own the .com equivalent, is actually putting yourself in a very dangerous position from a marketing perspective.

https://www.strategicrevenue.com/new-gtld-not-so-fast-new-right-of-the-dot-could-total-failure/

In the end, rarely will you find people spending extra money to put themselves in a more difficult marketing position.

So a guy writes a positive article pumping up a new gtld when the very thing he specializes in is seo for new gtlds. No, I would never see that coming.

It would be like owning a Chevy dealership and showing up everyday at your business wearing a t-shirt that says, Chevy sucks drive a Ford.

Yeah, I had problems with some of your other case studies before, gone over in this forum. One was a ridiculous conclusion on a very short sample of PPC

What enlytend said above is the first thing that popped into my mind. Why only 7 months and not a straight up year to year? And what months? Not all months are equal in searching for certain items. Then what mr.x said about about direct type ins. That would not happen on new gtlds unless other marketing was involved, like it was in this case. So you can't say, just by moving to a new gtld, traffic went up based on that alone, because other marketing took place with those new gtlds. There is nothing I see that points to merely moving to a new gtld, traffic went up.

Found the other case study you did that I was talking about. I remember a blog with lots of comments, many people pointing out the same issues I did, and talked about here as well:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/se...case-studies-read-learn.1024870/#post-6209408

and the blog
https://domaininvesting.com/com-versus-new-gtlds-real-world-test-results/

There are many factors that support using brandable names, even longer names, to secure a .com.

I won't get into all the factors as most already know many of them. I will say that arizona.cars has captured good search position and subsequently, is more than likely, seeing increased traffic. The answer to the question as to whether a new gTLD "can" capture top search position for competitive keywords is evidenced by what arizona.cars has achieved as well as other sites that have gained in search with a new gTLD.

However, with all that said, the cost structure for .cars is above what domain "investors" would invest in. With 300-400 total registrations, it appears the general public concurs.

Perhaps the case study could be used by .cars to support making additional sales to retail customers.

It is unfortunate that many great .cars domain names will likely not be registered by domain investors or the general public due to it's current price structure.

The cool thing about threads like this that we can look back a year or two from now and see what's happened!

Thanks for sharing the report.

Silentptnr said:

I will say that arizona.cars has captured good search position and subsequently is more than likely seeing increased traffic. The answer to the question as to whether a new gTLD "can" capture top search position for competitive keywords is evidenced by what arizona.cars has achieved and by other sites that have gained in search with a new gTLD.

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You can rank on any extension. You can get the same ranking with arizonacars.ws, .site, .whatever. Also, Arizona Cars is easy to rank for since it's not typically something people search for, not competitive keywords. People would search more city than state, then with more keywords like cars for sale in Arizona, then more likely an actual city like cars for sale in Phoenix. Think of looking for hotels. It's more city plus hotels, not state plus hotels. People search on Orlando hotels, not Florida hotels.

JB Lions said:

You can rank on any extension. You can get the same ranking with arizonacars.ws, .site, .whatever. Also, Arizona Cars is easy to rank for since it's not typically something people search for, not competitive keywords. People would search more city than state, then with more keywords like cars for sale in Arizona. Think of looking for hotels. It's more city plus hotels, not state plus hotels. People search on Orlando hotels, not Florida hotels.

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Yes, I was kind of saying it is not special what the site did.

DNWon said:

A very pricey extension, so unless the domain change is worth $2,000 to $3,000 more in profit annually, then it probably wouldn't be worth it. But at those prices you can probably get some very memorable .car or .cars names, so to some car professionals, it may be worth the extra annual expense for a more memorable or shorter domain name!

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If the dot cars extension was $20-50 to buy and renew each year ever car car retailer would be using a dot cars gtld

But as good as the extension is the price is restricting sales and always will do at current pricing structure

But dot cars is a great gtld for anyone with that sells cars with a few quid that can see its potential

To use the example given

Arizona dot cars

has great free organic seo

Google reads arizona dot cars as

Arizona cars without the dot and no dot com on the end

Nothing will get close to it in organic seo

I am not sponsored by the dot cars gtld

Although I ought to be lol as my socialmedia profile is followed by some of the main car manufacturers globally and some exclusive car collectors and car retailers lol

But I bought a couple of gtlds in 2014 and tested one in one in Google and nothing got close and currently have a website that uses gtld keyword domain name based seo and nothing can move it from top Google image in its keyword not even a YouTube video which should be top of keyword

At the time of buying a couple of gtlds in 2014 I was hearing info that Google were saying that gtlds eg the keyword right of the dot did not rank in search which I knew having tested it in search to be absolute rubbish

It's worth watching a gtld that has just been listed on flippa

The gtld is

Chinese dot restaurant

Worth millions

How many Chinese restaurants are there?

Millions of them globally

This gtld is the best domain for

A Chinese restaurant

It's free gtld domain name based seo over the years to come will pay for its potentially high purchase price over and over again

platey said:

To use the example given

Arizona dot cars

has great free organic seo

Google reads arizona dot cars as

Arizona cars without the dot and no dot com on the end

Nothing will get close to it in organic seo

I am not sponsored by the dot cars gtld

Although I ought to be lol as my socialmedia profile is followed by some of the main car manufacturers globally and some exclusive car collectors and car retailers lol

But I bought a couple of gtlds in 2014 and tested one in one in Google and nothing got close and currently have a website that uses gtld keyword domain name based seo and nothing can move it from top Google image in its keyword not even a YouTube video which should be top of keyword

At the time of buying a couple of gtlds in 2014 I was hearing info that Google were saying that gtlds eg the keyword right of the dot did not rank in search which I knew having tested it in search to be absolute rubbish

It's worth watching a gtld that has just been listed on flippa

The gtld is

Chinese dot restaurant

Worth millions

How many Chinese restaurants are there?

Millions of them globally

This gtld is the best domain for

A Chinese restaurant

It's free gtld domain name based seo over the years to come will pay for its potentially high purchase price over and over again

Click to expand...

Most restaurants have original names that you can get for reg fee in .com, - https://www.google.com/search?q=Chinese+restaurant+&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1

Don't see it at Flippa.

I see 0 .restaurant sales in Namebio/DnPrices

Organic search traffic is result of hundreds of factors. It's not easy to measure a single SEO ranking factor even if you think you keep all other factors unchanged. Because there are many very critical factors which you don't control such as search volume, other competitor pages, industry related changes, SE algorithm changes and more. Also when you update something on a live website, most of the time you change more than a single SEO factor knowingly or unknowingly. Lastly, exact match domains lost their importance in search ranking, especially in google searches. However, using a keyword as an extension should bring some SEO advantages compared to an irrelevant word like "com" . But I didn't experience it, didn't buy or developed a site on nTLD, didn't redirect a site to a keyword TLD. I made domain changes in some sites when nTLD's were not existed, they lost some of their organic traffic. Then I learned when you make domain change you must redirect the site to the more authoritative domain, in other words to the older domain. Keyword in TLD can be positive SEO factor for brand new websites. Redirection should not bring good results to existing old sites, IMHO.

As to type-in traffic, first-time visitors type usually .coms domains as .com is the best known TLD. Repeat visitors may bookmark the page, so the domain is less important factor for repeat visitors.

Renewal fee or domain price isn't important for industries that sell high priced items like car. As written in a previous post, they pay for TV ads too. High renewal fee shouldn't be a problem. Assume you are making $500k sales daily (10 cars, 50k each), then think about the "high" renewal fees again. "high" is a relative term

This gtld is beyond expensive... even crypto.cars is available for registration lol. If I owned a car dealership here in Toronto, I'd rather invest $100k to buy cars.ca (which I can always resell) than drop $3000/year for toronto.cars and it's worthless when I'm done with it.

Renewal price for .Cars is exorbitant.