Well, it could be one of the params affecting the popularity of the term, but not sure if it is for good or not.
Imagine you have registered domainterm.xyz, somebody else has registered domainterm.io. Both of you are operating two different businesses. And yet somebody else has been trying to sell his domainterm.com since long and this is the one (the extension) that is coming up on top of Google search results! You might need to end up working harder on your SEO than if this scenario wouldn't have happened.