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

 

[Messiah]

Operating from a .com will not give you an SEO advantage or rank you higher than any other TLD for the same keywords.

New gTLDs are not in any way disadvantaged form ranking in search results.

Google recognizes keyword/s both left and right of the dot with the search query.

If search engines operated with this kind of bias then they would be subject to 'Unfair Competition Laws' in particular the EU.

And who said they give more importance to dot com here? Nobody. Well, at least not me.

What I said is that even if it is PulseVision.com, PulseVision.org or PulseVision.biz, they would still rank well provided they have done proper SEO and have good authority.

 

[Bullock]

This has very little to do with the topic here.

The topic regards "ranking". Yes, I know!

 

[Bullock]

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

My thought is simple. When EMD isn't available in .com, I wouldn't suggest a nTLD with a EMD keyword in the extension. Or, perhaps, change domain/URL hoping to get a boost in ranking with new extensions.

 

[doubleU]

My thought is simple. When EMD isn't available in .com, I wouldn't suggest a nTLD with a EMD keyword in the extension. Or, perhaps, change domain/URL hoping to get a boost in ranking with new extensions.

Could be wiser to use the alternative EMD keyword in the extension for branding purposes.

 

[golan]

Not true. In the past .info and others were shown to rank less well than .com and .net.

There were SEO studies done on this in the past. .com and .net exact match did rank better than the "lesser" ones like .info.

Not true. Good whitehat .info's and others were always as good as .com's. There were no any such "SEO studies", they were merely SEO myths invented by fucking "SEO Gurus" in order to confirm their greatness in the eyes of their flocks and to sell them more $7 WSO's full of bullshit on fucking dumpsters like WaFo, BHW, DP etc etc.

 

[Olayinka Oladele]

Google. Always got something up their sleeves and mostly, fishy! 50-50. Let's see where this ends. Good read.

 

[doubleU]

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

No information is the best policy as one wrong comment could open up a can of worms followed by a decade of law suits and mistrust.

The weight placed on keywords in a domain name for ranking purposes has declined a long time ago and has been partially replaced by other criteria, so much so that it may be more worth while concentrating on your domains branding potential.

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[GBA]

I've found actually an older statement by Matt Cutts, 2012, software engineer at Google, also disproving the fact of taking the new gltds into special account:

https://plus.google.com/+MattCutts/posts/4VaWg4TMM5F

 

[doubleU]

In fact @loredan it has everything to do with search algorithms and this is far from common sense. The average person has no idea how they work.

Keywords in TLDs is now so commonplace that it can't be left ignored by users.

 

[doubleU]

I've found actually an older statement by Matt Cutts, 2012, software engineer at Google, also disproving the fact of taking the new gltds into special account:

https://plus.google.com/+MattCutts/posts/4VaWg4TMM5F

All that's saying is that all TLDs are of equal importance and .com will not be giving a preference over other TLDs.

 

[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.

 

[doubleU]

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.

I have to agree with most of what you said but has I mentioned earlier the search is never over when google reply's with a result set for a particular query. Searchers will choose which link is appropriate from the results they are given. This is where the power of exact match left and right of the dot comes to into play.

Also if google finds that more people choose a lower ranked search result then I'm sure it will take notice and increase it's rank in the future.

 

[Daniel Mac Sweeney]

Google dont give a shit about the tld, it's all about good
Content with them

 

[doubleU]

Google dont give a sh*t about the tld, it's all about good
Content with them

This has being the case for a long time now, years ago you could rank high for 'exact match' even No.1 spot by simply parking your domain names.

In an effort to improve search results Google demoted most parked domain names and penalized websites that over optimized or contain to many affiliated links.

 

[biggie]

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

kinda reminds me of when the iPhone first came out and domainers were anticipating seeing a ".mobi" in the url of the phones' browser. but they used .com instead.

that doomed .mobi speculation and now big G says they will ignore all ".whatevers" for ranking considerations.

soooooo, if you got in and didn't get out before the .mobi reality check, you probably lost money.

soooo, if you got in and haven't got out of .whatevers yet, based on this revelation... what should you expect?

imo,

 

[Jon B]

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

 

[Chris Rice]

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...

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.

White lies and flip-flopping is a common occurence when it comes to the information Google provides about SEO.

 

[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 ?

 

[Chris Rice]

Go figure. And who actually searches for xyz ?

The point is you cannot trust Google to tell you how their algorithm works, and more importantly how it will work in the future.

It is common sense that they will use every keyword at their disposal to determine the content and relevancy of a specific website for Google Search (alt tags, content, backlinks, domain name, TLD).

Another example is when Google Adsense advised us to embed advertisements on the top of our websites for better results (6 to 8 years ago). They later came out and penalized people who placed ads "Above the Fold" 3 to 4 years ago (even though it contradicted their previous advice). Now visit YouTube.com, their main advertisement on their desktop version is "Above the Fold" (against their TOS for Adsense).

This type of flip-flopping and misinformation is common in Google's press releases and keeps people focused more on building quality content than trying to game their algorithms. TLD's already play a role in Google Search and will play a much larger role in the future.

 

[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)

 

[Chris Rice]

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:



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

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). Especially if you switch from a website like TheBestCarsInCalifornia.com to California.Cars

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

FACTS:
- 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).

 

[Chris Rice]

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:



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

The point is you cannot trust Google to tell you how their algorithm works, and more importantly how it will work in the future.

 

[domainer021]

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

Google is not a conventional company (source: abc.xyz).

"coffee club"
"hardware group"
"cute wallpapers site"

(without the quotes of course)