Here is a really good question that seems to pop up to startup businesses and those that have been around for a while
“Someone said something negative about the new gTLD’s the other day with regards to SEO. I am not aware of downfalls to these new gTLD’s”
If you think that your domain name and the extension doesn’t matter, think again. There is a reason why domain names sell for thousands of dollars and there is a huge amount of ignorance around the subject.
First, when you ask this question to the SEO community, know that 95% of the community is full of poop or scamming people. Free advice is worth what you pay for. Taking advice on this subject from none Google Certified people sets you up real quick to pay the stupid tax!
I own 100’s of domains and have paid thousands of dollars to buy one over another. I can tell you from first hand experience working with 1,000’s of companies, your domain name and extension are extremely important to your business success.
Second, the url that you use has a big impact on branding and Click Through Rate (CTR). CTR is the most important metric for search engines. The higher your CTR, the higher you will rank. You will never see a webpage with a poor CTR rank. Why? Because the #1 indicator for a search engine that the website/webpage is relevant is based on click through rate.
GTLD is nothing more than any of these extensions com, info, net, and org and biz, name, and pro.
A domain url can drive more traffic to your site just from the name and nothing else. It is basically the same as a business that pays to be in Class A real estate to get more exposure from the high volume traffic vs a business tucked away in the back of a strip center.
Last, using a domain extension like .com vs .promo will have an impact on your SEO rankings. One will not get as a high of a CTR over the other. Why? Because .com or .net is trustworthy and .promo is not. It has more to do with basically human psychology and what causes people to take an action vs is not take an action. Do you buy from people that you don’t trust? You literally cause less trust by the type of website you have and the way you promote it.
Final recommendation on the subject: It is very important to register your domain name for as long as possible -10 years. 10 years is longest you can register a website url for and it does make a difference on SEO rankings. Why? It has to do with a principal of fly by night scammers. Scammers do not invest into the future, they are in it for a quick hit. Where legitimate companies do plan on being around for a long time as longevity is a factor in rankings. So when you register your url for 1 year or 10 years, it makes a difference. When you register your domain name for a long time, your company is more credible and trustworthy than a company that doesn’t. This is not common SEO knowledge as most people that practice SEO have been doing so for less than 10 years. This is 1 of many indicators that search algorithms take into account when ranking sites organically that most people do not know. Pay attention to the details, all of them.