Ever since Google's Exact Match Domain (EMD) update back in September 2012, they've always said publicly that all TLDs are created equal: all of them have an equal chance to rank in their search results. I've been skeptical--especially when the New gTLDs were launched.
So, I thought I'd test it, using several ways to look at the results: SEO Testing software, manual searches at Google, and Google Search Console data.
I chose 15 TLDs, including New gTLDs, .COM, .NET, .ORG, and a few ccTLDs as well:
Also, the .XYZ site got indexed much quicker than any of the other TLDs. Some were really difficult to get their pages indexed.
Each site was a unique 25 page site, 375 pages total. I chose a unique word (namescon spelled backwards) to register each domain (i.e., nocseman.icu, nocseman.com, etc.). The word "nocseman" doesn't appear anywhere on any of the sites: yet Google read the keyword in the domain name and, at the end of the test, we ended up with the .NET site ranking #1 for 'nocseman'.
Each site was also assigned a unique keyword, as well. And I followed the indexing and rankings of each site during the testing process and wrote about it all.
The highlights are all written up here if you're interested: https://www.hartzer.com/blog/tld-bias-search-engine-indexing-rankings/
I'm happy to answer any questions about the testing or the results.
So, I thought I'd test it, using several ways to look at the results: SEO Testing software, manual searches at Google, and Google Search Console data.
I chose 15 TLDs, including New gTLDs, .COM, .NET, .ORG, and a few ccTLDs as well:
- .ICU
- .TOP
- .XYZ
- .SITE
- .CLUB
- .ONLINE
- .VIP
- .COM
- .NET
- .ORG
- .DE
- .CO.UK
- .CO
- .LONDON
- .IN
Also, the .XYZ site got indexed much quicker than any of the other TLDs. Some were really difficult to get their pages indexed.
Each site was a unique 25 page site, 375 pages total. I chose a unique word (namescon spelled backwards) to register each domain (i.e., nocseman.icu, nocseman.com, etc.). The word "nocseman" doesn't appear anywhere on any of the sites: yet Google read the keyword in the domain name and, at the end of the test, we ended up with the .NET site ranking #1 for 'nocseman'.
Each site was also assigned a unique keyword, as well. And I followed the indexing and rankings of each site during the testing process and wrote about it all.
The highlights are all written up here if you're interested: https://www.hartzer.com/blog/tld-bias-search-engine-indexing-rankings/
I'm happy to answer any questions about the testing or the results.