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

 

[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.

 

[Fancy.domains]

I've been working with SEO for almost twenty years and I've learned that not EVERYTHING Google says is to be considered as 100 percent reliable facts. They have so many parameters in their algorithm and some of them will be kept secret.

I would say that it's crazy if the .yoga TLD is not considered at all if having a yoga studio. If the name of the studio is "Hot Yoga" and the web page is: Hot.yoga, then you will only be ranked for "hot"? Makes no sense.

Ok, hot.yoga is a kind of hack, but a much better name than hotyoga.yoga. If Google are not taking this into consideration, they are not progressive enough. Google obviously considers the content, links and meta data, but still the niched TLDs should be one of MANY parameters. That is my thoughts on this.

Is really Coffee.club just ranked for "coffee". Google says so, but I am not totally convinced.

Coffeeclub.club is a freaking ugly name...

 

[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

 

[doubleU]

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

 

[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

 

[frank-germany]

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

no just more clicks

 

[Fancy.domains]

And come on, if searching for "google com", of course the "com" part will be considered.

Let's do a test, search for:

A. "bangkok net"
B. "bangkok org"
C. "bangkok com"
D. "bangkok nu"

The results clearly shows that this is a factor for a website with some age. I know that it's also about the inbound and outbound links, as well as meta data, but anyway. :P

Maybe Google are right and do not consider the TLD by now. But secondary, this IS clearly an important factor for all established websites.

 

[deez007]

Go to google.com. Search for "com.space". Check the 1st spot. Oh wait..

What where u expecting? A stand alone domain name to outrank an actual website with content?

 

[enlytend]

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

This. The only way to know what works and what doesn't is to test it yourself.

For those who don't know who John Mu is, he's not an official Google "spokesperson." He runs most of their English and German webmaster hangouts - an extension of their webmaster forum, where webmasters can get help with various issues. People submit questions (or participate live), he tries to answer and provide guidance.

He obviously talks to Googlers in other functions, but he doesn't work on the spam team or write algorithms.

Google employees have to toe the party line if they want to keep their jobs. That said, sometimes the way they word things leaves a lot of room for interpretation if you read between the lines.

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?

Or just optimize your page for it!!
It isn't all about domains. It isn't that simplistic.
Pages can and do rank for hundreds of keywords - they don't have to be in the domain.

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.

Don't disregard user behavior. When the url is visible, people are less likely to click on a .biz or .ws than a .com or .net - it's unfamiliar and has less trust. That can influence rankings. Why would they show a result at #1 if nobody appears to want it ?

 

[GBA]

What where u expecting? A stand alone domain name to outrank an actual website with content?

???

Com.space is a domain that not even exists, it's registry reserved.

Of course you have to consider developed and established sites. Try my bangkok test in my last post. You can probably add any keyword as long as there are established sites for each name.

Wrong example, my bad.

Just tried to prove Google is still looking at extensions. Tried "delicious", and got del.icio.us on 1st spot, I understand, that this is a massive authority website, though. From this point, I think, it's gonna be hard to prove or disprove how is Google treating the new gtlds.

 

[doubleU]

This has nothing to do with the search algorithm. In fact it's common sense and has been this way since the very first day of the very first search engine. It is so simple to comprehend (keywords on the left of the dot - extension on the right of the dot) yet all these registries and smart asses who purchased tons of gTLD crap propagated lies and all idiots trusted & followed them and wasted so much money on silly names that bring no real benefit from a search perspective when developed.

If you own travel.agency or travel.biz is exactly the same thing in SEs eyes. Travel.agency doesn't make you the owner of a nice "travel agency" keyword... it's just the keyword travel followed by a relevant extension and thats all.

On the other hand if you take for instance GolfBalls.pizza and GolfBalls.info technically both domains are equal assuming the fact that they were registered the same time, they've been developed the same way and optimized the same ... no difference whatsoever ... the EMD is "golf balls" the extension could be any ... it makes no difference.

I have no affiliation or interest in promoting any TLD, I only wish for fair competition amongst them.

Have exact match keywords either side of the dot will never be ignored by any credible search engine, even if it doesn't improve its ranking in results it may be a factor contributing to your website actually being present in the result set.

A search is never over when google answers a search query with a ranked result set, the user will continue searching through the result set for the most relevant link. One of the biggest factors effecting the searchers choice of destination is the keywords both sides of the dot. So, when looking for 'travel agency' a user is much more likely to choose travel.agency over travel.biz when presented with both options in result set.

 

[Jon B]

Google has a long history of being deceptive. I wouldn't take anything they say at face value.

 

[Kate]

1. Google "Emafe Rice" and you will see EmafeRice.com

2. Google "Emafe Rice XYZ" and you will see EmafeRice.xyz instead.

Go figure. And who actually searches for xyz ?

 

[enlytend]

They are lying.

1. Google "Emafe Rice" and you will see EmafeRice.com

2. Google "Emafe Rice XYZ" and you will see EmafeRice.xyz instead
.

They said the TLD was not used for ranking. They never said it wasn't used to determine relevancy.

Since they had a match as a navigational search, they interpreted the query as such.

Btw, Gary Illyes just reiterated last night at smx advanced in an interview with Danny Sullivan that Tlds are not used for ranking, although cctlds are used geographically. Exact quote:

DS: Asks about how Google looks at keywords in domain names, specifically whether Google looks at keyword-based TLDs….

GI: TLDs do not play a role in how we calculate relevancy for a specific piece of content or a specific URL. Country TLDs can play a role in queries in specific countries. But TLDs like “attorney” and “news” don’t play a role.

DS: Do you look at the domain name at all?

GI: There could be certain cases where we look at it, but in most cases no. I would not try to buy domain names that are keyword filled. Going for keyword-rich TLDs … that’s just weird. Don’t do that.

(source: http://searchengineland.com/ama-google-search-keynote-smxadvanced-252465)

 

[enlytend]

But if a certain website is determined to be more relevant because of it's TLD it CAN rank higher for specific keywords (or lower).

??? What does that even mean?
Of course if a site TRIES to rank for something they stand a better chance of ranking than the site that doesn't (assuming they know what they're doing)

It is a play of words and everyone including yourself is saying a lot without saying much at all.

No, relevancy and ranking are different things. Pages are indexed for relevant entities when they're crawled. When a search is done, relevant entities are found, then ranked in context of the query.

TLD's must be taken into account for relevancy in navigational searches. If I type Widgets Com into the search box, there's a good chance that's navigational and I'm looking for a site widgets dot com. The odds of it being a navigational query go down if its a phrase that's normally used for informational or transactional searches.

- Short exact match GTLDs (i.e. category killers) can be used for SEO purposes.
- Short exact mact category killers are often 10 to 100x more expensive in .com than their GTLD equivalent (especially before).

If you're talking left of the dot, I agree. What we're debating is the part right of the dot.[/quote][/QUOTE]

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[deez007]

And come on, if searching for "google com", of course the "com" part will be considered.

Let's do a test, search for:

A. "bangkok net"
B. "bangkok org"
C. "bangkok com"
D. "bangkok nu"

The results clearly shows that this is a factor for a website with some age. I know that it's also about the inbound and outbound links, but anyway. :P

Exactly mate.... SPOT ON!

 

[HotKey]

Maybe Google are right and do not consider the TLD by now. But secondary, this IS clearly an important factor for all established websites.

Yup agreed, as @deez007 said, spot on. It will be a crucial factor for established sites, espcially ones that have branded specifically to match prefix+suffix with their name. For Google to ignore this is doing the entire new gTLD industry a disservice, and frankly, a step backwards on their part. Lets hope this is just temporary measures as they figure out how to properly deal with the gTLD flood.

Duckduckgo, anyone?

 

[Veronica Smith]

Good read indeed. Thanks for sharing the info

 

[deez007]

@doubleU

I searched: on Google in this way:

bankaccount.com = 60.400.000
bankaccount.net = 60.400.000
bankaccount.org = 60.400.000

account.bank = 29.300.000 (extension .bank)
account bank = 487.000.000 (without dot)

bank account = 133.000.000
"bank account" = 59.200.000


In conclusion, the results show that Google doesn't consider the keyword extension, rather, it represents a negative factor!

I think it's best you actually learn about how Serps work before conducting "research" and coming to a conclusion.

 

[loredan]

It's very dangerous for such a dominant search engine to comment on their search algorithm.

This has nothing to do with the search algorithm. In fact it's common sense and has been this way since the very first day of the very first search engine. It is so simple to comprehend (keywords on the left of the dot - extension on the right of the dot) yet all these registries and smart asses who purchased tons of gTLD crap propagated lies and all idiots trusted & followed them and wasted so much money on silly names that bring no real benefit from a search perspective when developed.

If you own travel.agency or travel.biz is exactly the same thing in SEs eyes. Travel.agency doesn't make you the owner of a nice "travel agency" keyword... it's just the keyword travel followed by a relevant extension and thats all.

On the other hand if you take for instance GolfBalls.pizza and GolfBalls.info technically both domains are equal assuming the fact that they were registered the same time, they've been developed the same way and optimized the same ... no difference whatsoever ... the EMD is "golf balls" the extension could be any ... it makes no difference.

 

[Messiah]

No TLD is greater than other unless you are using a specific TLD for your branding purpose. I can use WowBlog.com the same way you can use Wow.blog for your branding purpose.

But saying a Keyword TLD is given more importance than other TLD is just a myth. We are not Google insiders but we usually believe what they are saying. When they say there is a penguin update, we see our sites getting heart attack and they go down in search results. Did they lie? nope. When they say there is Panda update, we see our sites getting lower ranked and only high quality sites are displayed in Serps. I don't think they are lying about TLD thing.

You can choose whatever TLD you want. It is not giving a special treatment to rank you higher.

If you think Travel.Agency has better chance than Travel.biz, then it's wrong. Because if you don't do your SEO for Travel.Agency and if I do good SEO for Travel.biz, my site would rank higher than yours. This is just vise versa. It all depends on your SEO and not on TLD.

When it comes to the user perception, it usually depends which place your website is ranking. The first spot gets around 33% of clicks, while the second spot gets 17% and then 8% for third spot.