Why Can A New Domain Extension Be Good For Me?

Until recently, there were not many options when registering a domain – in addition to the traditional .com, .com and .net – but recently, the possibility of registering new extensions: .online, .tech , .site, .store, .website was announced. These alternatives represent a new range of options that, when well worked out, can make a difference in your company’s online strategy.

The biggest advantage in registering new extensions is undoubtedly the new possibilities, which were not previously available. Who has tried to register www.yourcompany.com and ended up having to opt for www.your-company.com knows what we are talking about. With the new extensions, you could try great options like: www.yourcompany.online or www.yourcompany.site.

Why can a new domain extension be good for me?

If you already have a registered website address, you can take advantage of the new options to increase your brand coverage in the digital world. For example, if you have registered www.yourcompany.com you can also use www.yourcompany.website. This increases the chances that your business will be found in many ways by your audience. Registering new domain extensions can be of help if you want to protect your brand since you prevent another company from registering the same address as yours and changing only the TLD.

But what about SEO?

If you want to register your site with a new extension but fear that your site’s SEO will be harmed, see what Google has to say about it: “In general, our systems treat new gTLD’s like other gTLD’s (such as .com and .org). They will require the same settings and will no longer have any weight or influence on how to crawl, index, or sort the URLs.” Given this, it is clear that registering a domain www.mydomain.com or www.mydomain.site for Google has the same weight.

How to change the domain without suffering?

Moving a domain without proper care can have a negative effect on search engines. This is because when you decide to change the address of your website, for the search engines this new domain starts from scratch. It can become a hassle, especially if the SEO work of your site is already consolidated. Fortunately, there are alternatives that can be made to not harm the reputation of your site.

The Moz blog created a step by step process that will make migrating your site to a new domain quieter:

◉ Create a sitemap for your old site;

◉ Create content for your new website;

◉ Set up the new domain and put it on the air;

◉ Register and verify your old and new domain with Google Webmaster Tools;

◉ Create a custom 404 page for the old address inviting the user to visit the new page;

◉ In a development environment, test the redirects from the old to the new domain (something like www.yourolddomain.com/products.html to www.yournewdomain.site/products.html);

◉ Redirect 301 from your old domain to the new one (the most important point for successful migration);

◉ Submit the old sitemap to Google and Bing;

◉ Fill in the “Change of Address” form in Google Webmaster Tools;

◉ Create a new sitemap and submit it to the search engines;

◉ Wait for the Webmaster Tools updates and correct the errors indicated in the “Diagnostics” tab;

◉ Monitor search results to make sure the new domain is being indexed;

Ready! Your migration is completed successfully.

Now that you know you can use a new extension without fear, we have some tips that can be useful when you are thinking about which extension to choose for your site.

.tech: The ideal extension for your startup

You had a great idea about a new product or service, chose the name of the company, set up your business and marketing plan, planned the design and content of your site and the time to register the domain name: it is already being used by another company. What do you do? Register the second, third, or fourth option. You are not alone, therefore, about 65% of people do not get the domain name they want, and in 32% of cases, companies have changed the name of the product due to unavailability of a domain. The problem is that your business is new and you want people to remember your brand and a “different” domain might not contribute to it.

The new options for TLDs have emerged to help, precisely, those who go through situations like this. Following the example, instead of registering an alternate domain or renaming the product, a great alternative would be to choose a .tech TLD.

e-commerce and .store: a perfect match

The first extension of e-commerce domains can bring a number of benefits to virtual stores, such as chatting with your customer before he or she even access your website. A .store address already shows immediately to the Internet that this site is an e-commerce, making your site stand out from its competitors.

Another possibility to use for this extension is the possibility of creating categories of products within your site as “chairs.store” or “tables.store”. As there are currently 460,000 domains that contain the term “store” in their name, there is also the possibility of using a .store extension to simplify your company’s URL.