information Google says keywords in the TLD part of your URL are ignored for ranking purposes

[sutharshan]

Google’s John Mueller confirmed yesterday in a Google Hangout that keyword-rich TLDs, such as the new top-level domains that have keywords in them — like .LIVE, .NEWS, .ATTORNEY and so on — do not count for ranking purposes. Mueller said Google completely ignores that for ranking purposes.
http://searchengineland.com/google-says-keywords-tld-part-url-ignored-ranking-purposes-251971

 

[indam]

Very interesting read for those in domaining! Against all beliefs.

 

[aramyus]

Interesting information, but I have two reservations

a) Google has a long history of not being totally trustful. May be they don't directly lie, but they trucate information or presnt it in a misleading way

b) There might be 'side effects'
For example, a recent study tends to show that there is a benefit to emd (contraility to what G says). The reason is that, for an emd domain, your anchor text is often your full domain name and those pass more easily google zoo filters.

The same could apply to tld domains

 

[deez007]

I have been involved with SEO now for the past 6 years.

When it comes to Google, I always treat everything they say as if it's coming from a People magazine reporter. Sometimes it's true, sometimes it BS.

I'm not saying that Google is downright lying about this but I am not saying I believe them either. I will only know for sure when I run a test on my own and see if I can outrank a few sites with using their exact back link structure and more or less the same sort of content targetting the same keywords and the only differentiation with be a relevant TLD

They say: "The TLD is not something we take into account there,” he said, and added that they “completely” ignore the words in the TLD portion of the URL"

Now obviously the TLD in general is something they have always considered and give it a considerable amount of weight because this is evident when ranking a country TLD. Also for some of the TLD that are only accepting registrations from people within the industry (like .Insurance) so no surely in a cases like this, in order to provide the best quality search results (Which is priority no.1 for Google) taking the TLD into consideration would help considerably.

But like I said, I wont know for sure until I have tested it myself....whenever I managed to actually find the time to test it... no clue when thats going to be.

 

[TRY]

nyc.autos will only rank for nyc and not autos.
To rank for nyc and autos both keywords need to be to the left of the dot.
2 keyword .com's anyone?

 

[dordomai]

a while back someone did a study on exact matches and found that most of the exact match advantage was seen in .com and .net but not so much in domains like .ws, .info etc.

If you think about it there is a good reason for that. Google does not want to be manipulated by SEOs easily.

If anyone could boost their ranking by buying one of the thousands extensions that are now available mostly spammers would benefit. It would be foolish for them to boost any keyword domain.

Would just help to get low quality sites on top. Something they clearly don't want.

 

[doubleU]

Misinformation, Disinformation and the good old reliable BS ....

 

[frank-germany]

I'm not saying that Google is downright lying about this but I am not saying I believe them either.

I can't believe that you say

they at least "don't do evil", right?

 

[frank-germany]

the .tld will have same effect as exact match domains:

in search results the part that matches the search query will be shown BOLD

 

[deez007]

I can't believe hat you say

they at least "don't do evil", right?

Lol...actually they are probably one of the most evil organizations on the planet I think.... They are like E corp from the Mr Robot series

When I said "Im not saying that Google is downright lying" I was referring to only the statement about TLD's ... if you ask me in general if they are evil liars would say HELL YEAH!

 

[TRY]

I can't believe hat you say

they at least "don't do evil", right?

Wrong, "don't do evil" motto was changed.

 

[frank-germany]

Wrong, "don't do evil" motto was changed.

obviously long ago

 

[doubleU]

the .tld will have same effect as exact match domains:

in search results the part that matches the search query will be shown BOLD

Do this this search:

site:.vision pulsevision

Notice the TLD is BOLD in the result set.

 

[golan]

Totally agree with folks above. What G says may be truth and may be lie. Like 50/50. They always tell us how we should do in order to make them happy.

the .tld will have same effect as exact match domains:

in search results the part that matches the search query will be shown BOLD

So what? Showing something in bold doesn't mean higher rankings, huh? Correlation does not imply causation. But here it's not even correlation.

 

[doubleU]

Totally agree with folks above. What G says may be truth and may be lie. Like 50/50. They always tell us how we should do in order to make them happy.


So what? Showing something in bold doesn't mean higher rankings, huh? Correlation does not imply causation.

In this example you see that the TLD part of the domain is taking into consideration when producing the result set.

That's all we need to know !

In fact the only part of domain that's ignored in a search is the DOT !

 

[mad409]

Not sure if this means anything with how it works as I'm not an seo/Google pro but my gTLD site is listed #1, left keyword and right keyword without the dot. And of course #1 with the dot too.

Now if I key in just the left of the dot I'm on page #6. I never wanted to be known as just DN therefore page #6 doesn't bother me that much so IMO I'm being ranked where I want to be I guess.

In short I'm #1, keyword name and keyword extension without adding the dot and that's what I wanted.

 

[namerav]

So say NewYork.Attorney does not find you Attorneys in New York area, instead NewYorkAttorney.Attorney will get you desired results, interesting indeed :D

 

[daica85]

Totally agree with folks above. What G says may be truth and may be lie. Like 50/50. They always tell us how we should do in order to make them happy.


So what? Showing something in bold doesn't mean higher rankings, huh? Correlation does not imply causation. But here it's not even correlation.

It's correct, maybe we will wait for a time to see the change. However, I think those TLDs are just extensions and do not count in SEO factors.

 

[doubleU]

It's correct, maybe we will wait for a time to see the change. However, I think those TLDs are just extensions and do not count in SEO factors.

Thinking is an overrated business !

TLD's have never been more influential in search results !

The TLD is always into account when producing a result set !

 

[golan]

In this example you see that the TLD part of the domain is taking into consideration when producing the result set.

That's all we need to know !

In fact the only part of domain that's ignored in a search is the DOT !

Nope.

Yes the TLD part of the domain is taking into consideration when producing the result set - visually. When G decides what to make bold and what not to.

However the article and the title of this thread saying about ranking.

How making something bold can mean it's now higher in the serp page?