An SEO's Guide to Acquiring New gTLDs

By now, you're probably very used to the original, or what I would like to call the main Top Level Domains (TLDs), .com, .net, and .org. And everyone else, other than SEOs and online marketers, are more "used to" seeing those three TLDs, as well as .info, .biz, and occasionally .tv. Of course, internationally, the Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs), are widely accepted now, including .co.uk (United Kingdom), .es (Spain), .com.au (Australia), .ca (Canada), and .it (Italy). Depending on the location of your business, a ccTLD makes perfect sense as an alternative to .com. In the coming months, there are literally hundreds of new Generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) coming available, and some are already available for registration. In this SEO's guide to the new gTLDs, I'm going to introduce you to the new gTLDs, tell you (from an SEO perspective) what you need to know, and what you can do to acquire them.

What New gTLDs are Coming Out?
I've already mentioned that the main TLDs, .com, .net, and .org will be joined by hundreds of new gTLDs. Here are a few that are already available for registration, meaning that they have gone through all of the required processes in order to be accepted: and you can go right now any register any available domain names with these extensions. Keep in mind that during the days leading up to the release of these many domain investors and trademark owners have already registered some of them:

.today .technology .tips .land .kitchen .contractors .diamonds .construction .clothing .camera .careers .directory .enterprises .guru .holdings .gallery .equipment .estate .bike .recipes .sexy .shoes .plumbing .photos .lighting .singles .tattoo .voyage .みんな (Japenese for Everyone) .ventures

ICANN has a list of the new gTLDs on their site.

Timeline for New gTLDs
Each of the new gTLDs is being released based on a certain timeline. The easiest way to think about it is in three different phases:

Trademarks
Pre-registration
General Release

Within these three periods of time, there are technically even more phases, but that's the easiest way to understand the timelines. During the first period of time, any trademark holders can register any domain name that they wish, as long as they show proof of ownership (you must prove that you own the trademark in order to register the name).

The second phase, the pre-registration phase, has several different times during it, but think about it this way: the earlier you register the domain name the more you'll pay for that name. Generally speaking, the cheapest time to get the name during the pre-registration phase is going to be the day before it's released to the general public. I've seen three "times" during the pre-registration phase that have three different prices for a name: first the name was about $12,000, second the name was about $3500, then the day before general availability the name was about $150. Then, the first day of registration the domain name was about $39 with a $39 annual registration fee (renewal). If you were to pay $12,000, the annual renewal would still be $39.

The third phase is what I "general availability). In most cases, after the first two phases are met, there's a certain date that the name is generally available to anyone. On that date, it usually becomes available at 10:00am CST, which is 8:00am Pacific Time in the US.

For certain domain names, however, they have been "held back" by the Registry, and other premium names have been put up for auction. So, the timelines and phases vary depending on the gTLD. Your best bet is to look at CalZone.org, the best timeline and calendar for the gTLDs, and you can also verify with the actual Registry for each gTLD.

Cost of the New gTLDs
Currently, there are 30 gTLDs that are new, and available for registration. You can currently buy any domains that end in these extensions that have not been registered. The price for registering these domains depend on what the registry has priced the domains for, along with what the domain name registrar has priced them at. That means that some gTLDs are as cheap as $19.95 a year and some are as expensive as $400 a year. The registrars are pricing the domains differently, so what you pay at Godaddy might be different from what you pay at Enom for the same domain name. Then there are certain domains that are priced higher even though it's the same gTLD. For example, a MajorCityName.gTLD will be priced as a premium domain, meaning that it will cost more than a different name with the same gTLD.

Trademark Issues and gTLDs
Trademark issues are something that any domain buyer should be aware of. For any domain name, no matter what the TLD, if you have bought the domain name before the trademark was applied for, the trademark owner can't take the domain name away from you. That isn't always the case, as the trademark owner could still claim that they were using it before you registered the name. For the gTLDs, I'm not an attorney, but I advise against registering any names that contain trademarks or typos of trademarks, brands, or company names.

If you are a trademark owner, though, each new gTLD has a period of time where the trademark owners can register their marks. For certain gTLDs, if the TLD is one that is in your business category (i.e., .shoes and you make shoes) then you'll want to claim your trademark. An alternative would be to not register your trademark. If that happens, then you'll need to file a UDRP and obtain legal counsel, which could then cost you more than registering the domain.

After closely watching the first 30 or so gTLDs become available, I have not seen many trademark owners register their marks--which surprises me. There have been a few cybersquatters registering some very large trademarks, including Adidas.clothing and Burberry.clothing that were registered by cybersquatters.

Can New gTLDs Rank in the Search Engines?
So, as an SEO, what's really important? Whether or not a domain name on a new gTLD can rank well in the search results or not. According to Matt Cutts of Google and Duane Forrester, they've both publicly said that any TLD, whether or not it's an old TLD or a new gTLD, it can rank in the search results. There is not extra search engine ranking weight given to a certain domain name or TLD (or gTLD). They can all rank well. But that's what they say, and you and I know that we can't always take their word for it: we need to see proof, right?

In March, 2012, nearly two years ago, Matt Cutts addressed a myth about the new gTLDs. Specifically, he said:

"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."

That said, I don't expect any extra boost from Google for having a certain domain name. We actually learned a lot about that from the Exact Match Domain update. But let's take a look specifically at an example, for the keyword "track shoes".

If I were selling track shoes online, then there are several options here:

www.trackshoes.com
www.track.shoes
www.yourbrand.com/trackshoes/

Currently, one of the most valued ranking factors is still links. And I personally believe that it will be a long time (perhaps at least several years) until links are de-valued as a search engine ranking factor (if they're ever de-valued). If you were getting links, which domain name or URL would you want to use? Personally, just by looking at that list above, I'd like to build links to www.track.shoes since each keyword is technically "separated" and doesn't run together. As you look at track.shoes and trackshoes.com domain names, there's a better chance that you would get a "keyword" anchor text link directly to the home page. This is the same reason why we tend to see companies rank for their company name: most of the links pointing to their website include the company name (the keyword) and it's "natural" to do so.

How To Get a New gTLD to Rank Quickly
New gTLDs are just that: they're completely new. That means that there's absolutely no history behind that domain name, which can actually be a good thing. Since there's no history behind the domain name, and there generally isn't going to be any links pointing to a new gTLD domain name, you're starting fresh. Buying a new gTLD domain and immediately putting up a website on that domain name, there may be some value gained from the "QDF", Query Deserves Freshness. I have seen brand new domain names with brand new websites rank fairly well if they're promoted properly in the first few months.

If I were to buy a new gTLD that's keyword rich, however, I would take a different approach. There is a better chance that the site would rank well in the search engines if you were to take an existing website and move it to a new gTLD. Let's take, for example, a website or 'micro site' that doesn't have an Exact Match Keyword as the domain (and EMD). Perhaps that site ranks fairly well for several main keywords but could do better. Consider buying and moving the site to a new gTLD if you were able to buy a keyword rich domain. You'd want to use SEO best practices for moving a website to a new domain, which would involve:

- 301 Redirecting Pages
- Getting links updated to the new URL
- Promoting the new domain/site properly to get new links

Problems with New gTLDs
So far, I haven't seen any problems per se with sites built on the new gTLDs, although I have yet to see any new sites rank in the search results. However, that's not all unexpected. I was doing SEO in the travel industry for several years, and I only once saw a .travel site rank in the search results. But that doesn't mean that they cannot rank well.

Going forward, if it's any indication, the search engines are indexing the new gTLDs just fine. If you want to look for sites that are already indexed, in Google, search for:
site:.gTLD

For example, we already have 1.6 million pages of .guru domain names indexed in Google (as of this post). Look at site:.guru and you'll see the web pages that are indexed. Look at site:.photography, which is now at over 300,000 pages indexed in that new gTLD. It's been available for a few weeks now.

On the social media sites, I was worried at one point that Twitter was not recognizing the new gTLDs as actual links in Tweets. But luckily that has now been changed, and all of the three major sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) all recognize the new gTLDs as links if you add them in a post. In other words, they're changed to clickable links if you add the URL in a post.

What is the Timeline for the New gTLDs?
As of the beginning of March 2014, there are already about 30 new gTLDs that have completely going through the entire acceptance process. They have gone through the phases required to now be generally available to the public. Each week, based on the timelines that have been posted, there are new gTLD domains available every few days. Your best bet is to follow the timelines on Calzone.org, the calendar for the new gTLDs. As a rule of thumb, if you don't want to pay the ultra-premium pre-registration prices, then look for domains that will become available on a no-eap basis (look for that date). Then, the prices will be cheaper (if the domain is still available) a few days prior to no-eap date.

If you encounter domains that are offered on a pre-registration basis, make sure that the domain name is being offered so that you can start using the domain name immediately. There are many cases where you can pre-register a domain name, and that's essentially on a backorder basis: you may pay hundreds of dollars to pre-register a domain but you're not assured that you'll actually get that domain name. If you don't get that domain name, then the registrar will refund your money.

Where Do You Buy gTLDs?
Most registrars are offering new gTLDs. There are some registrars, like GoDaddy, that have selectively chosen not to offer certain gTLDs. For example, GoDaddy is not offering .tattoo or .sexy domain names. Prices vary, so shop around.

As an SEO, I am very excited about these new gTLDs, since they offer a chance to get a good keyword rich domain name (some with a good keyword in the beginning of the domain and another keyword in the extension). And since we know that there really is no difference when it comes to actual search engine rankings, then there is a good chance that if you do your job as an SEO and promote the domain properly it will rank well.