Four or five years ago, you would have seen that there weren’t many options when it came to domain name extensions. The most popular options were the .com, .Net or .Org extensions. Well, that’s not the case now. In recent times, many domain name registration companies seem to have expanded this list, mainly due to increasing demand.
It is important to understand its effects before investing in a new top domain extension. You need to know whether or not it can affect your SEO in a negative way.
Of course, the general idea is that using .com, .org or .net is ideal for ranking in search engines. Also, numerous SEOs have pointed out that making use of new domain name extensions seems like a bad idea as it risks hurting your search engine rankings.
Well, there aren’t many cases to support the claim that a new domain name extension is a bad idea. There is one person, Daniel Nigeria, who is the CEO of .xyz, a domain registry operator, who has expressed in a case study that maybe there is an inaccuracy in the negative hype about the use of new domain extensions.
Let’s take a look at what Negari found in his case study:
Negari’s main goal was in fact to prove that a new extension, like. because the extension can also be classified as a top level domain like .com. What he did was to work together with Lucra Cars (car manufacturer in southern California) and replaced the old domain of his website with the new domain ie Lucra.com with Lucra.cars. All Lucra.com URLs were then redirected to this new domain; Furthermore, he kept the structure of the website intact to eliminate various other factors that could affect Lucra’s search engine results page.
While the domain initially lost its search ranking, it later recovered and the company regained its number one ranking with the new domain name Lycra. cars. The conclusion of the Negari case study made it clear that a new domain name extension does not hurt SEO.
What are the limitations of this case study?
While the Negari case study shows that it is quite possible for a site to rank at the top with a new domain extension, there are some limitations with this case study:
- The findings appear to be merely anecdotal and not scientific. To draw definitive conclusions, a large sample size is required.
- The case study was based on a popular brand name rather than a generic keyword.
- Negari’s findings show that it’s possible for brands to rank high even when they have new domain extensions.
Google’s algorithm could change to reflect new domain extensions
Well, even if Google’s current algorithm penalizes domains that use these new domain extensions, there are chances that Google will change its algorithm at any time in the future. Many specialists are of the opinion that search engine users eventually prefer much shorter and more relevant domains where Google could change its algorithm to meet user preferences.
While it has yet to be decided whether or not the new domain extensions will affect SEO, it appears that the anticipated negative impact is perhaps less than anticipated.