Domain extension and Names

Domain name and extensions play an important role in your SEO strategies. When creating a website for your business or blog, you have to choose the domain and extensions wisely. It could slightly affect your SERP Rankings. But before getting into importance of domain name and extension in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), we need to understand what the basic types of domains are and how can we use it according to our need.

Types of Domain Extensions

Majorly there are seven different types of domain which contains:

• TLD (Top Level Domain)
• ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain)
• gTLD (Generic Top Level Domain)
• rTLD (Restricted Top Level Domain)
• IDN ccTLD (Internationalized country code top level domain)
• Second Level Domain
• Third Level Domain or Sub-Domain

Top Level Domain

Top Level Domains are those which can be easily identified by the extension just after the (dot.) of domain name. We can take the example of .com, .net, .org, .biz, .info, and .ws. These are few common top level domains. Every top level domain has certain rules & guidelines, but commonly available to any registrant, anywhere in the world.

Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD)

According to the name, these are the top level domains which represent the country. It specifies the national domicile for an address. For example:

• (Dot).in stands for Indian domain and the registrant of this domain should be located in India.
• (Dot).eu stands for Europe and the registrant of this domain should be located in Europe.
• (Dot).au represents Australia and the registrant should be in Australia at the time of registering the domain.
• (Dot).ru represents Russia and the registrant should be located in Russia.
• (Dot).it represents Italy and the registrant should be located in Italy.
• (Dot).fr for France registrants.

Generic Top level Domain (gTLD)

It is basically the top level domain which specifies the domain class such as (dot).org for NPO (non-profit organizations) and industry groups. (dot).gov for government agencies and government bodies. (dot).edu for educational groups and institutions.

Restricted Top Level Domain (rTLD)

Restricted top level domains are basically for people or departments which represents a specified identity. For example (Dot).museum represents the museum and the website should represent the same. (Dot).mil represents the military and the website content should represent military information. (Dot).name belongs to individuals and should represent an individual while (Dot).biz represents business and could be used by anyone to represent his/her business. In this category you can clearly observe the Importance of Domain name and extension.

Internationalized country code top level domain (IDN ccTLD)

Internationalized country code top level domain is another top level domain in DNS (Domain Name System) which is encoded to display native language script or alphabet. For example the Chinese Characters, Arabica alphabets and non-alphabetic writing system.  According to Wikipedia article As of August 2018 there are 59 approved internationalized country code top-level domains, of them at least 47 used. The most used are .рф (Russia) with over 900,000 domains names, .台灣 (Taiwan) with around 500,000 and .中国 (China) with over 200,000 domains.[1] Still as of 2018 around 20 countries using non-Latin script do not have an internationalized country code top-level domain, including Israel and Japan.

Second Level Domain

According to DNS (Domain Name System) hierarchy, a second-level domain (SLD or 2LD) is a domain that is directly below a top-level domain (TLD). For example, in theseoguy.in, theseoguy is the second-level domain of the .in TLD. However, in India (dot).in domain allows unlimited second-level registrations under (dot).in. Unlimited registrations under the previously structured existing zones are also allowed:

• (dot).in (available to everyone in India. It can be used by organizations, Individuals and companies in India)
• (dot).co.in (intended for registered trademarks, companies and banks)
• (dot).firm.in (intended for shops, partnerships, liaison offices, sole proprietorships)
• (dot).net.in (intended for Internet service providers)
• (dot).org.in (intended for nonprofit organisations)
• (dot).gen.in (intended for general/miscellaneous use)
• (dot).ind.in (intended for individuals)

Third Level Domain or Sub-Domains

SEO Benefits and importance of domain extension and domain names

Choices between top level domains are pretty wide and choosing a TLD with right extension would be the first step to represent your business. Few major SEO benefits of domain name and extensions are:

Extensions Benefit

Extensions are useful to make users understand business and search engine crawlers the category. For example if you are running a store and want to have a website for the same then you can get domain.store for your business which will reflect your business to user and at the same time, business category to search engine crawlers.

Geographical Benefit

As we know that ccTLD’s are enough to explain your business location to both user and search engines. It plays an important role in showing geographic results on internet. While doing Local SEO it is one of the most important factor and enhance the importance of domain name and extension.

Stand out of the crowd

If you represent a business which doesn’t require commercial domain (dot).com then you can pick your extension according to your business and stand out of the crowd. For example if you have specialization in a particular skill and wanted to serve over internet then you can get (dot).expert or in India you can get (dot)ind.in to represent yourself individually. Similar to (dot).store which is for any kind of business which has physical or online store.

Special Favors from Search Engines

If you represent a verified business or organization such as architectural firms, educational institutions or government body then you will get special favors from search engines in rankings. According to google, the trust score of these websites is little high because they represent a verified category and information. It means if you have a website for verified business, you will get special privilege in SERP (Search Engine Result Page) rankings.

Create a better space for users by using sub-domains

Using sub-domains or third level domains wisely could get you more benefits than the commercial domain. You can have pages for support, feedback, vendors, existing users, social groups and payments. It would help you to focus on marketing strategy of your commercial domain.

Get a mobile site for your business

Search revolution is started already. Desktop searches are slowly diverting to mobile searches and now it’s a good thing for business owners if they have mobile site for their business. If you are providing mobile friendly experience to your visitors then you might get better results for your product and services. Also the mobile indexing and desktop indexing is separated by google back in 2018.

If you have a difficult domain to rank or looking for an international SEO services provider in Delhi, talk to our team today!