My presentation on the search engine optimization impact of new generic top level domains. Includes a discussion on the birth of the search optimized TLD, and also considerations for site migration to a new TLD, among many other considerations.

1. Search Implications of New gTLDs
@robgarner

2. iCrossing - Agency services
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3. with clients including…
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4. www.sempo.org www.dfwsem.org
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5. SEMPO Toolkit – New Member benefit
• $2,000 worth of products and services
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bit.ly/SempoSignUp
@robgarner

6. .Com: The branding of a gTLD
• .Com became king in the 90’s when
advertisers spent billions on promoting
their domains (ex. company.com)
• .Com is still king in the US
• Short term prediction: gTLD fragmentation
will only reinforce the strength of the .Com
TLD brand
• Long term: Will gTLDs become the norm
for large online players? Not yet known…
@robgarner

7. .Anything: The branding of a gTLD
• New gTLD operators will need a branding
strategy to raise awareness
• Different strategies will be required for
open registries, versus proprietary brand
registries
• Media companies may be best suited for
a .brand domain, as they have more
visibility to brand towards their audience
Ex.news.cnn, snl.nbc, etc.
@robgarner

8. POV with enterprise brands
• Most of the gTLD discussion is driven by internal legal
departments
• Some are moving forward with .brand for TM protection
• Reports from IT departments that some legacy systems will
not function when moving from brand.com to site.brand due
to dependencies on the core brand.com URL
• Potential that some may attempt to migrate, but CMOs are in
no rush
• Closed brand gTLDs may provide an additional level of search
engine trust, similar to other closed TLDs like .Gov and .Mil
• ANA has taken a stance against gTLDs on behalf of enterprise
businesses, and many large brands are not interested
@robgarner

9. Enterprise brands – other considerations
• How long is your brand name, and would it make a good
extension?
• Are there other potential confusingly similar gTLDs that could
be registered, and preclude registration of your .brand?
• If so, do those potential registrants and operators have the
resources to manage a large registry?
• What are the costs of not having the gTLD 10 years from now,
especially if there is a legitimate risk of confusingly similar
strings?
• Other than marketing novelty or brand protection, what
value does the gTLD bring that your brand.com doesn’t?
@robgarner

10. Spammy gTLDs: Can a whole registry be seen
as a “bad neighborhood”?
• The way the gTLD operator manages the registry will be
a key influence on how well that TLD performs in search
as a whole
• Qualities of successful gTLD SEO:
• Well-managed TLDs that discourage spam
• Proprietary closed gTLDs
• Sites with significant and engaging content resources and
utilities
• Sites within gTLD have good content, linkage, and buzz around
the social graph
@robgarner

11. Spammy gTLDs: Can a whole registry be seen
as a “bad neighborhood”?
• Closed and trusted: .Mil and .Gov are generally highly trusted TLDs
with the search engines, because they are carefully managed, and
contain authoritative content, with little or no possibly for spam to
gain visibility.
• Trusted, but open: .Edu was previously given high marks by Google
due to the high percentage of authoritative academic content, but
this trust was eventually diluted by student pages, and
commercialism on university news sites
• Open TLDs that have had a sketchy past with Google: .Info was not
managed very well for search, and at one point the registry gave away
hundreds of thousands of free domains, and thus the signal for the
.Info gTLD as a whole was weakened greatly, to the point that may be
somewhat of a search liability to build a new site on this
extension. .Info is still a good extension, but high performing sites in
search must still have a solid content play behind them.
@robgarner

12. The birth of the search-optimized gTLD
• There must be a solid content play behind the URL, and gTLD
• Standard SEO signals and optimization still required for it to
perform well in search across a wide variety of terms
• Quality of sites residing on gTLD may be a signal to search
engines, in terms of the overall TLD quality
• Generic gTLD keywords do not guarantee top search visibility
• Search engines view of TLDs have changed over the years –
nothing is set in stone
• Ex. .Edu links, Tweaking of .info, banning of entire subdomains and
hosts
• Hints from Google that exact match domains may not have the same
boost they used to have
@robgarner

13. Considerations for migrating from
brand.com to domain.brand
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14. It’s the same as any other site migration
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15. What could be lost in a site migration without SEO
(moving www.brand.com to site.brand)
Natural traffic: Estimate potential traffic loss or gain, and multiply times
the media value, or actual conversion rate of this traffic. Ex. 25,000 new
visits from search X $3.50 CPC value is $87,000 worth of traffic per month
Link equity: Time is money. Changing domains could shed 15 years of link
development that is almost priceless. Also quote how much it would cost
to build up 1,000-1,000,000 quality links on a new site, and use this
estimate as a value for saving money.
Natural search equity and history: For sites with positive equity, there is a
price on trust and authority. The cost is in years of waiting and rebuilding.
Most often, this is priceless because it can’t be reproduced.
Costs for fixing technical mistakes: If your developers find too many
dependencies on an existing legacy URL, consider the potential cost to
correct.
@robgarner

16. What could be lost in a site migration without SEO
(moving www.brand.com to site.brand)
Sales, actual monetary returns. Look at conversions in aggregate from the
natural search channel, and calculate the risk or gain by percentage points.
So if you are getting $1,000,000 a year in sales from natural search, and
50% of the content is removed, expect sales to decrease by 30-50% as well.
Trophy rankings: Think of the costs involved when your boss’s pet trophy
ranking “Tulsa Oklahoma widgets” goes away.
Sum of long tail rankings (and subsequent traffic, media value, and
conversions)
@RobGarner
214.676.2089
Rob.Garner@icrossing.com
VP Strategy, iCrossing
@robgarner

17. Defining the elements of domain equity
The Domain is the axis point for ALL of the traffic to your site.
@RobGarner
214.676.2089
Rob.Garner@icrossing.com
VP Strategy, iCrossing
@robgarner

18. Understanding the impact of a site migration
Impact and cost to marketer when URLs change
● Spiders can’t find new pages as quickly
● Engines can’t apply pre-existing backlink history
● Visitors can’t find what they are looking for
● Bookmarks rendered useless
● Bandwidth wasted
● Traffic is gone
● Conversions and sales are lost
@RobGarner
214.676.2089
Rob.Garner@icrossing.com
VP Strategy, iCrossing
@robgarner

19. Understanding the impact of a site migration
Impact and cost to marketer when URLs change
CASE STUDY
Site relaunch on renamed URLs, with no redirection plan
Site relaunched with new URLs in mid-month
404 errors spiked, and the site never fully recovered @RobGarner
214.676.2089
Rob.Garner@icrossing.com
VP Strategy, iCrossing
@robgarner

20. Understanding the impact of a site migration
Questions your web and marketing team should ask before starting a site migration:
1. How can I help mitigate
the risks of migration by
addressing the issue in the 2. How much search equity
project’s business and is established in my current
technical requirements? site structure?
3. How do we approach
a redirection plan and 4.What value does a gTLD add to
content strategy? your marketing and branding
efforts?
@RobGarner
214.676.2089
Rob.Garner@icrossing.com
@robgarner VP Strategy, iCrossing

21. Assessing URL equity and value before a major migration
• Use proper redirection techniques for URLs that must
change
• Utilize 301 redirects for pages that are permanently moved
• Assess quality of inbound home page and deep site links
• Authority sites? .Gov’s, .Edu’s? $299 Y! Dir links?
• Assess the age and history of domain and URLs
• Site’s with a positive URL history can be at a distinct
advantage
• Estimate URL liabilities
• Read log files
• Are internal pages pulling high volume search traffic?
• Why are these pages performing well? @RobGarner
214.676.2089
• Does the long tail of the site refer substantial traffic? Rob.Garner@icrossing.com
VP Strategy, iCrossing
@robgarner

22. Final note
• Each decision to pursue a gTLD (or not) is highly
subjective
• Each situation should be evaluated individually before
decided whether or not obtain a gTLD
• Consider the brand protection and TM implications
• Consider the implications of site migration if a site moves to a
new gTLD
@RobGarner
214.676.2089
Rob.Garner@icrossing.com
VP Strategy, iCrossing
@robgarner

23. Thank You
Rob Garner
214.676.2089
@robgarner
Fb.com/garner
Rob.Garner@icrossing.com
VP Strategy
iCrossing
@RobGarner
214.676.2089
Rob.Garner@icrossing.com
VP Strategy, iCrossing
@robgarner