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Can using gTLDs help your business?

posted Feb 2, 2017, 1:52 AM by Unknown user   [ updated Feb 17, 2017, 7:22 AM ]
In the early days of the Internet, domain name suffixes were pretty limited, with .com ruling the roost. Over time, more options became available, such as country codes. Then came the era of the generic top-level domain, allowing website owners to get even more specific with their branding.

Registrations of gTLD domain names reaching new heights

Citing statistics from nTLDStats.com, domain name industry blog TheDomains noted in April that new gTLD domain name registrations exceeded 5 million for the first time. The .London domain was the 13th most commonly registered gTLD on the list, racking up more than 60,000 new registrations.

“It’s safe to say that gTLD momentum is building.”

In light of the figures from nTLDStats, it’s safe to say that gTLD momentum is building. However, co.com CEO Ken Hansen believes there’s still a way to go before registration rates peak.

“New gTLDs will continue to grow steadily,” he opined, according to a European Domain Centre blog post that collated experts’ views on gTLDs.

Do sites with gTLDs have an edge?

Hansen went on to note that the heightened gTLD adoption reflects registrars’ efforts to tailor their marketing toward the specific needs of their demographics. But will a gTLD really give a website an edge from an organic standpoint? According to digital guru Matt Cutts of Google, probably not.

“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 wrote in a Google Plus post from March 2012. “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.”
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