SEO Benefit for .Asia domains

[netfleet]

Two distinct possibilities:

1) we all know Google gives preference to local websites. Eg if I search for 'flowers'on google.com.au, 9 of the top 10 results are Australian sites using com.au (the exception is the often found wikipedia entry). That's not to say the com.au in itself gives SEO benefit but it helps Google decide that the site is Australian and so gives it that extra boost in the SERPS.

So, we need to consider whether Google will give .Asia domains any sort of advantage for all searches made in Asia exactly as they do for com.au in Australia (and .de, .co.uk in their respective countries no doubt). Does anyone know whether this happens for .EU? Searching from Australia, I have never seen a .EU pop up in results... if European searchers do see .EU domains in the SERPS then perhaps this is the case?


2) Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the first time that an extension is a high volume search term in it's own right. If you search for the term 'com' in Google for example, Google emboldens the 'com' in the extension for the results. This suggests that Google does indeed look at the extension when analysing a keyword (rather than just use an extension for sorting a query geographically as in the above example.)

So, does this mean that domains like hotels.asia will, all other factors being equal, have an edge in terms of SEO for a search "hotels in asia" over hotels.com?

If these two theories are proved to be true, this unquestionably adds a significant premium to the value of all .Asia domains.

Any thoughts?

 

[netfleet]

Rubberduck, thanks for trying to find reasons to discredit this theory. Every argument needs to be tested against a counter argument to make it solid.

Firstly you said

Forget the impact of extension, if you are in a parallel universe in terms of keywords no extension is going to have any benefit over any other extension!

Then you conceded that perhaps that wasn't the case

Yes, what you are saying now is absolutely true. You effectively pick up the extra keyword.

Then you pursued the line that the term "asian" would more likely be used in searches but that looks to be irrelevant anyway due to Google's semantic search algo.

Now you are suggesting that serach terms containing the words 'asia' and 'asian' (see point above) should be considered low search terms? I think you are running low on arguments against.

My software identifies 5,079 unique search terms containing the word "asia" from Australia over the last few weeks. It identifies 7,094 containing the word "asian". This is just a sample from Australian searches.

To give you an idea of volume, something we all care about, "domains" clocked in at 474, "domain names" at 271, "domain name" at 725. I just picked that selection of search terms so you have an idea of scale.

So, it seems that both 'asia' and 'asian' feature very highly in search terms, at least here in Australia.

 

[martina2061]

I don't have many .tv names but wouldn't .tv have an SEO benefit as well?

 

[.jd.]

I don't have many .tv names but wouldn't .tv have an SEO benefit as well?

for tuvalu yes.

 

[netfleet]

Good point Martina that's an obvious one!

I just did a search for "australia tv" and "history tv" (first things off the top of my head) and each set of results had one .tv name in them.

That's 1 more than I usually see!

Any .tv investors care to comment?

 

[james2002]

I don't have many .tv names but wouldn't .tv have an SEO benefit as well?

They also will have SEO benefits.

Like

Watchfootballon.tv

etc....

 

[Rubber Duck]

Then you conceded that perhaps that wasn't the case

Yes for traffic derived from outside Asia. But this really should not be the primary interest in the Asian market. The real target should be traffic derived from inside Asia. Realistically, how many Americans are evern going to be planning excursions to Asia in the current economic climate?

My software identifies 5,079 unique search terms containing the word "asia" from Australia over the last few weeks. It identifies 7,094 containing the word "asian". This is just a sample from Australian searches.

To give you an idea of volume, something we all care about, "domains" clocked in at 474, "domain names" at 271, "domain name" at 725. I just picked that selection of search terms so you have an idea of scale.

So, it seems that both 'asia' and 'asian' feature very highly in search terms, at least here in Australia.

Look, China and other Major Asian resources are just using Australia which has a relatively tiny population to source mineral resources, much in the same way that other Western Countries have exploited Africa. Australia just should not be your main target. And the interest of the general population in Australia to Asia on a day to day basis is going to be relatively limited.

Even if Australians start thinking about destinations or Markets in Asia, they are going to segment them into countries. Asia is such a vague and varied concept that it is not particularly meaningful when try to source or sell.

Asia has over half the population of the globe and a very large proportion of the land mass as well. It will also account for a very large proportion of the World's wealth. But, how many people actually know what is meant by Asia? Is Russia or Turkey in Asia? Do they consider themselves Asian? We know Iran is not in Asia because the registry has told us, but what about the rest of the Middle East. Is Egypt in Asia or Africa? Some us think Asia stops in Malaysia, others think it goes right down to Stewart Island. But the real question is still do the Chinese and Japanese think of themselves as Asian, or are we limited to expatriate groups from the Indian sub-continent?

If you are really going to cast your net so wide, why not just go Global and be done with it!

 

[netfleet]

Realistically, how many Americans are evern going to be planning excursions to Asia in the current economic climate?

It's all about American traffic is it? I don't think so.... and I think you know that with your IDN support.

If you are really going to cast your net so wide, why not just go Global and be done with it!

And how do we do that exactly?

Look, from an SEO perspecive, maybe this theory would be even more exciting if the extension was .free or .loans or .mortgage but it's not - it's .asia. Domaining is all about finding markets & niches and, whilst .asia may have a much broader field of use, all I'm saying is that one particular area of use might have an additional benefit.

Namely, English speakers whereever they may be in the world searching on Google using a search term which contains the word 'asia' or 'asian'.

The fact is people do search for these terms. Maybe as you say they are more likely to specify individual countries, maybe as you suggest 'Asians' do not immediately consider themselves as part of Asia (there's definitely an argument for that here in Australia) but regardless, these searches exist and if one can convert some of these searches into traffic by development & taking advantage of this 'edge', then it's a worthwile commercial pusuit. IMHO

 

[Rubber Duck]

Maybe as you say they are more likely to specify individual countries, maybe as you suggest 'Asians' do not immediately consider themselves as part of Asia (there's definitely an argument for that here in Australia) but regardless, these searches exist and if one can convert some of these searches into traffic by development & taking advantage of this 'edge', then it's a worthwile commercial pusuit. IMHO

That is because Australia was never in Asia, until the dot Asia registry conveniently put it there.

 

[martina2061]

Yes for traffic derived from outside Asia. But this really should not be the primary interest in the Asian market. The real target should be traffic derived from inside Asia. Realistically, how many Americans are evern going to be planning excursions to Asia in the current economic climate?



Look, China and other Major Asian resources are just using Australia which has a relatively tiny population to source mineral resources, much in the same way that other Western Countries have exploited Africa. Australia just should not be your main target. And the interest of the general population in Australia to Asia on a day to day basis is going to be relatively limited.

Even if Australians start thinking about destinations or Markets in Asia, they are going to segment them into countries. Asia is such a vague and varied concept that it is not particularly meaningful when try to source or sell.

Asia has over half the population of the globe and a very large proportion of the land mass as well. It will also account for a very large proportion of the World's wealth. But, how many people actually know what is meant by Asia? Is Russia or Turkey in Asia? Do they consider themselves Asian? We know Iran is not in Asia because the registry has told us, but what about the rest of the Middle East. Is Egypt in Asia or Africa? Some us think Asia stops in Malaysia, others think it goes right down to Stewart Island. But the real question is still do the Chinese and Japanese think of themselves as Asian, or are we limited to expatriate groups from the Indian sub-continent?

If you are really going to cast your net so wide, why not just go Global and be done with it!

Do me a favour and type 'asia' into the Baidu search page. 18 million plus responses. I think they realise they are in asia and this is the traffic that .asia would be targeting.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as China and India know they are part of the Asian continent (which they obviously do), then that makes it a worthwhile investment.

 

[Rubber Duck]

Do me a favour and type 'asia' into the Baidu search page. 18 million plus responses. I think they realise they are in asia and this is the traffic that .asia would be targeting.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as China and India know they are part of the Asian continent (which they obviously do), then that makes it a worthwhile investment.

I would not read too much into that. Baidu like all other major search languages indexes page content in all Unicode scripts including ASCII.

It is a bit like using your thumb to measure a pulse. You simply end up counting your own heartbeats. :D

More interestingly, see how many Ads Baidu pulls up for the term Asia. I get one from Singapore Air. :lol:

 

[martina2061]

I would not read too much into that. Baidu like all other major search languages indexes page content in all Unicode scripts including ASCII.

It is a bit like using your thumb to measure a pulse. You simply end up counting your own heartbeats. :D

More interestingly, see how many Ads Baidu pulls up for the term Asia. I get one from Singapore Air. :lol:

I'm glad Baidu is like all other major search languages, good to know. The fact is, there are major results of 'asia' with the chinese results listed. This is just one search engine of one country's listings in the Asian market.

 

[Rubber Duck]

I'm glad Baidu is like all other major search languages, good to know. The fact is, there are major results of 'asia' with the chinese results listed. This is just one search engine of one country's listings in the Asian market.

Well this is what I get in Google:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=asia,+url:+cn&btnG=Search

and Baidu:

http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=asia,+url:+cn

by contrast a simple search on 亚洲 in Google yields 122 Million Results.

If I go to Google.co.in and search on Asia, I get 502 Million results. If I then restrict to "pages from India", I only get 2,230,000.

Restricting to China on Google.cn I get 793,000

http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=Asia&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&meta=lr%3Dlang_zh-CN|lang_zh-TW&aq=f

This confirms to me that Asia is a term predominantly used by Westerners rather than Asians.

 

[martina2061]

Maybe it shows the vast number of western developed sites over the number developed in the growing asia region.

 

[Rubber Duck]

Maybe it shows the vast number of western developed sites over the number developed in the growing asia region.

No it doesn't. Some Chinese character terms return Billions of results in Google.

It won't be that long before there are more Chinese sites than English ones.

The numbers for 2002 were as follows:

http://www.netz-tipp.de/languages.html

Internet Statistics:
Distribution of languages on the Internet
Chart of Web content (milions of webpages by language) 2002
English 1142,5 56,4%
German 156,2 7,7%
French 113,1 5,6%
Japanese 98,3 4,9%
Spanish 59,9 3,0%
Chinese 48,2 2,4%
Italian 41,1 2,0%
Dutch 38,8 1,9%
Russian 33,7 1,7%
Korean 30,8 1,5%
Portuguese 29,4 1,5%
Swedish 15,1 0,7%
Polish 14,8 0,7%
Danish 12,3 0,6%
Czech 11,5 0,6%
Turkish 4,9 0,2%
Hungarian 4,1 0,2%
Greek 2,0 0,1%
Other 168,0 8,3%
Total Web pages 2024,7 100,0%

But things have changed a lot since then!

 

[james2002]

Robber Duck

It does not matter that much about the language, as far as the domain names are concerned.

For example.

www.baidu.com is the leading chinese language search engine.

Bidu.com is ranked 13 in Alexa.

Note here that the domain baidu.com is not IDN, only in English language. visit the site , you will see chinese language.

Therefore,

People in asia can use whatever.asia domain names in English language to create websites with their own language.

 

[Rubber Duck]

If you are going to succeed in this game, the first lesson is that you cannot expect things to come true simply because you wish them.

Baidu is a Megabrand that has been established for years through the provision of an important and unique service, but even then:

http://www.baidu.com/s?ie=gb2312&bs=baidu&sr=&z=&cl=3&f=8&wd=%22%B0%D9%B6%C8%22&ct=0

http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=baidu

You can expect Latin character version to persist for a handful of big brands even if the local version is more used. This does not mean, however, they are going to all learn to speak English and then use it as their language of preference. If the Martians decided to start trading with the US, do you think they would put forward all their publicity material in Martian?

Even if you can get them to adopt the dot Asia domain, which in any case will probably require Aliasing in Chinese characters, they just are not going to type in English Keywords for domains or start searching on English Keywords either.

Frankly, if you believe otherwise, you need to get out this business before you lose your shirt like a whole slew of dot Mobi investors are in the process of doing, just as whole crowd of dot IN investors have previously squandered a good deal of their life saving in absolute rubbish.

 

[martina2061]

I think one nation, despite how large that nation is, will find it harder to change almost every other nation in the world to cease using english as the international language for business. The chinese are already learning english at a greater speed than the western word is learning mandarin or cantonese.
Trust me, Rubber Duck, we'll still be doing international trade in english despite asia's impending growth.

 

[james2002]

If you are going to succeed in this game, the first lesson is that you cannot expect things to come true simply because you wish them.

Baidu is a Megabrand that has been established for years through the provision of an important and unique service, but even then:

http://www.baidu.com/s?ie=gb2312&bs=baidu&sr=&z=&cl=3&f=8&wd=%22%B0%D9%B6%C8%22&ct=0

http://www.baidu.com/s?wd=baidu

You can expect Latin character version to persist for a handful of big brands even if the local version is more used. This does not mean, however, they are going to all learn to speak English and then use it as their language of preference. If the Martians decided to start trading with the US, do you think they would put forward all their publicity material in Martian?

Even if you can get them to adopt the dot Asia domain, which in any case will probably require Aliasing in Chinese characters, they just are not going to type in English Keywords for domains or start searching on English Keywords either.

Frankly, if you believe otherwise, you need to get out this business before you lose your shirt like a whole slew of dot Mobi investors are in the process of doing, just as whole crowd of dot IN investors have previously squandered a good deal of their life saving in absolute rubbish.

Man, here is the list of top chinese sites. All domains are in English.

http://www.chinesetop100.com/

I used to have a chinese girlfriend and she said www.Chinaren.com is very popular for chinese people. Its domain is also in English. But visit it, you will see full of chinese letters.

The point here is you don't need to learn English alot just to type in whatever.asia. because once you are inside , then you can use your language like chinese etc.... That is why IDN domains are not compatible in price with english domain TLD.

I am just saying they can use English .asia domains for their language orientated websites.

Nowadays, English is one of the major subjects in high school and almost all educated people can at least know a,b,c,d,e etc.... They don't need to learn. They already know about basics. For domain names like baidu.com, they can easily type in.

So I think englishlanguagewords.asia will do better than IDNdomainnames.asia. Definitely.