SEO And TLD Checklist

I get asked a lot about the SEO benefits of having multiple domain names with keywords in them. There is no benefit to having multiple domains pointed at one site. In fact if it’s done without the right redirects it will hurt your rankings. There is however benefit still in having an exact match domain despite Google making a change to how it ranks them about two years ago. Having a keyword early in the domain is treated as a ranking signal for that keyword. These days I’m getting asked more about the new Top Level Domains (TLDs). Most of these have only recently been released but there is a bit of a gold rush going on to secure potentially lucrative ones. For instance, I have received marketing material proffering that it would be beneficial for me to purchase seo.melbourne, .melbourne being a new TLD . Traditionally Google has not looked at the TLD as a keyword signal. It’s either been a geo signal like .au or an institutional one like .edu or .mil. The lines have become a lot more blurred in recent years with the flurry of alternate TLDs available like .me .co .info etc.

SEO Is About Content

Whilst the keywords in a domain are part of the signal and right now it would seem an important part, they are only one part. A couple of years ago I was offered to buy seomelbourne.com. It was tempting but I declined as I had enough content to create with existing sites and could not justify spending the $1000 for the domain and then throwing additional resources at it to create the content. Having keywords in a domain is not a magic ranking pill, you still need great consistent content and a well structured, well performing site.

TLD & Branding

Whilst I’m not a branding expert I can see how TLDs might be great for a new brand. I’m not sure about existing brands though. I guess you could have grandprix.melbourne but you would still need a content strategy for that site, unless you were just using it in advertising because it was easy to remember. In that situation you would need to 301 redirect to grandprix.com.au. If it simply pointed at the same content you would have a duplicate content issue.

TLDs Not A Magic SEO Pill

Look at this way www.travel.travel does not rank for travel. Why you would even bother setting up the www in that situation is beyond me. You go to all that trouble to have a keyword rich domain then you mess it up with WWW? Keep this in mind, the earlier you get your keywords into an address the better. That has always been a good signal. Guess what www.travel.travel does rank for though? “Travel Travel”. Interesting eh?

The travel industry sorted itself out with SEO years ago, so best practices have been in place a long time as they have gone through a lot of Google seismic shifts. In this situation the keyword rich domain MAY provide a ranking edge in a highly competitive environment, all other ranking signals being equal but the more competitive the space is, then the more important great content is.

Google on TLDs

Google has said it will take time to understand the various TLDs but for the most part it will treat them like other generic TLDs. This means the likes of say .melbourne won’t automatically indicate to Google that the site is Melbourne related. This may happen once Google has several years of data to show that only Melbourne related domains have been registered at .melbourne but initially no geo juice will be bestowed on such TLDs. Here’s what Matt Cutts said about them a couple of years ago.