Google: No, New TLDs Won’t Give You A Ranking Boost

Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts, said on his Google+ page that using the new TLDs will not give you a ranking boost in Google.

Matt Cutts said, “I don’t expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn’t bet on that happening in the long-term either.”

Cutts said this in response to a story published on markingmag.com.au where the CEO of a domain name registrar claimed that the “new TLD web addresses” will “automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent.” Matt Cutts that he “needs to debunk this misconception.”

As we covered last June in our article What The New ICANN Domain Names Mean For Google Rankings & SEO: Nothing – the new TLDs will have no direct impact on rankings in Google and Matt Cutts of Google just said it one more time.

Here is Matt’s full post:

I read a post by someone offering new top-level domain (TLDs). They made this claim: “Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent? Quite simply, yes it will.”

Sorry, but that’s just not true, and as an engineer in the search quality team at Google, I feel the need to debunk this misconception. Google has a lot of experience in returning relevant web pages, regardless of the top-level domain (TLD). Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don’t expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn’t bet on that happening in the long-term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that’s your choice, but you shouldn’t register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you’ll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings.

Related Stories:

• What The New ICANN Domain Names Mean For Google Rankings & SEO: Nothing
• Google Says Domain Registrations Don’t Affect SEO, Or Do They?
• Google’s Matt Cutts On Keywords In The URL
• Google & Microsoft Share Advice For Webmasters, SEOs

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