New internet extensions or new GTLDS

In recent years, the web has seen the arrival of new extensions for domain names or new gTLD. What are they? And why were they created? And finally, are they interesting for the SEO of our site?

NEWGTLD: WHAT IS IT?

To understand what are the New gTLD, let’s start by explaining what the TLD is for a domain. In French, it is most often called “Top level domain” or extension. TLD is actually the abbreviation for “Top Level Domain”.

Take as an example the site www.mister-hosting.com. The top-level domain is “.com”. Why do we speak of the first level? The “.com” is shared by hundreds of sites if the second level, “mister-hosting” for our example, is specific to our site. You can consider a top-level domain as a sort of site category. And there are several: .com, .fr, .film, etc.

There are several types of TLDs. However, we will retain the three most common:

  • gTLD : the first generic top-level domains
  • nTLD or New gTLD: new generic top-level domains
  • ccTLD : National Top Level Domains

The first three generic levels soundt .com, .net and .org. The list has been extended several times to 2013, where the latest extensions have appeared. These are the latter included in the category of nTLDs or New gTLDs.

In contrast, ccTLDs or national top-level domains are associated with countries, such as .fr for France, .be for Belgium, .uk for Great Britain

WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT NEW AREAS?

The appearance of new gTLDs or nTLDs responds to two very simple logics:saturation of the first gTLDs and the need to create new segmentation axes for websites.

The first gTLDs were quickly saturated. There are millions of websites today, and three gTLDs are far from enough. Thus during the 2000 years, a good dozen gTLDs were created and in 2013another larger group followed.

But the arrival of New gTLDs has also allowed a better segmentation of activities. Given the saturation of .com (commercial activities) for example, the use of .travel for travel agencies is advisable, as is the .museum for museums. It is true that a domain name with a clear extension is easier for a user to understand. On the other hand, SEOs can only be satisfied since much of their work is done right away by extending their web suite.

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THE NEW EXTENSIONS CLASSIFIED IN 9 CATEGORIES ACCORDING TO YOUR PROFESSION:

There are hundreds of New gTLDs, which can be categorized into 9 categories:

  • Business : groups gTLDs by business sector like .broker, .consulting, .holdings …
  • Trade : also groups gTLDs by business sectors, usually commercial, such as .auto, .casino or .clothing.
  • GeoTLD : groups geographic gTLDs (different from ccTLDs), such as .aquitaine, .london or .vegas.
  • IDNTLDS : gathers together “international” gTLDs that do not use the standard TLD alphabet that is Latin.
  • Hobbies : groups gTLDs representing leisure activities, such as .film, .holiday or .guitars.
  • originals : groups gTLDs “original” or difficult to classify in the other categories like .hiv, .love or .xyz.
  • service : gTLDs for sites in service areas, such as .cab for taxis, .house or .ong.
  • Lifestyle : groups lifestyle gTLDs like .adult, .life or .singles for singles.
  • Technology : groups gTLDs for sites evolving in new technologies like .email, .host for web hosts or .tech.

WHY CHOOSE A NEW EXTENSION INSTEAD OF A GENERIC EXTENSION?

Consider nTLDs as a new category in which your site will evolve. From a business point of view, the choice to adopt an nTLD corresponds to a choice of segmentation of its customers. Being closer to your final target, you will be able to adapt your communication strategy to make it more effective and have a better return.

Of course, the results that will be displayed by search engines will include both sites with classic gTLDs and those that will evolve with New gTLDs. However, the latter will be perceived as “specialized sites” unlike “more generic sites” by Internet users.

Studies have shown that the CTR (Clic Through Rate) or simply the click rate of a site with a more explicit extension has grown significantly in recent years. This has been confirmed with ccTLDs, when Internet users prioritize the sites corresponding to their country.

 

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