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

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.

He said this at the 12:45 minute mark into the hangout: “The TLD is not something we take into account there,” he said, and added that they “completely” ignore the words in the TLD portion of the URL.

There was some controversy recently around a sponsored article published here on Search Engine Land, Can moving to a new TLD boost search rankings? That article showed how one lawyer switched from a .COM to a .ATTORNEY domain and saw a nice lift in organic traffic.

Both Mueller and Gary Illyes from Google said this is not true and urged webmasters not to switch from their current TLDs to the new TLDs for “vague promises” of ranking boosts.

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Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.