When purchasing a domain, choosing a top-level domain is positively correlated with SEO page ranking! Therefore, “domain types and URLs naming” is particularly important.
Usually, URLs use the English translation of the company name or related English words for naming, you can read more about URLs here: Building a SEO Ranking Capable Website.
However, due to the need to optimize for different “regions,” the choice of domain endings will also vary. Among them, the most competitive item in the domain is called the “top-level domain.”
What are the 4 Types of Top-Level Domain?
A top-level domain is the highest level domain in the domain space of the Internet domain name system hierarchy, such as com in the URL example.com.
All top-level domains are managed by the “Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and can generally be divided into four categories:
Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD)
The top-level domains directly managed by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) under ICANN were initially created based on usage to allow users to identify the content or source of content on a website by seeing the top-level domain.
The following table provides a reference:
| gTLD | Purpose |
| .com | For Commercial/Businesses |
| .edu | For Educational Institutions |
| .net | For Internet Service Providers |
| .org | For organizations that doesn’t belong to other gTLD groups |
| .gov | For Governments and subsidiaries |
| .mil | For Military Organizations |
Country Code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD)
The top-level domain is named after the country, and the common “.us”, “.ca”, “.hk” are few of them for examples.
Geographic Top-Level Domain (GeoTLD)
Different from country codes in ccTLD, these top-level domains are based on geographical location or regional relations, and “.asia”, “.london”, “.quebec” are typical regional example.
New Generic Top-Level Domain (new gTLD)
As the content on the internet becomes more diverse, the original generic top-level domains can no longer identify the content or source of content on a website. Therefore, ICANN has opened up more top-level domains to improve this.
For Brands
For example, the SONY company applied for the new top-level domain “.sony” with its own trade name. If consumers want to know about SONY’s artificial intelligence information, they can directly visit the brand top-level domain “ai.sony.”
For Industries
Some examples include “.restaurant”, “.movie”, “.hotel”. These are generally used to specify the business industry.
For Intended Purposes
These are pretty straightforward: “.business”, “.family”, and “.biz” and “.blog” are intended to specify the purpose of a website.
For Tech Companies/Developers
Tech Companies (especially start-ups) and open-source developers seems to like these domains.
Whereas “.io” are generally used by tech industries, “.ai” are generally used by tech industries focusing on artificial intelligence. And “.app” is a domain usually used by developers and sponsored by Google.
Others
Some other domains include: “.xzy”, though sounds weird, is actually also a new gTLD, the meaning behind it is actually to represent the “Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z”. Google’s parent company is one of the first corporation to register abc.xyz as it’s domain.
Also “.ninja”, an actual TLD, represents expertise, proficiency, and mastery in what they do, just like a Ninja from Japanese culture. This is intended to showcase the expertise or specialized services.
Tips for URLs Naming
Keep the URL “short”
The reason for keeping it short is simple; after all, no one likes overly long addresses. They lack memorability, and overly long words can also cause SEO rankings to lose focus.
Avoid pure numbers or numbers at the end
Google’s browser crawling is mainly in “English,” so it is not recommended to use numbers for naming unless the brand is named with numbers.
Avoid the use of non-English naming
Since programming languages are mostly written in English and numbers, Chinese, Japanese, or special characters URLs not only do not help SEO but are also prone to being translated into garbled text.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the naming of a URL or domain is crucial for SEO rankings, with a positive correlation between the two. It’s important to keep URLs short, avoid using pure numbers or numbers at the end, and avoid the use of non-English naming to enhance memorability and search engine optimization.
The choice of top-level domains (TLDs) also plays a significant role in SEO, with different types of TLDs, including generic, country code, geographic, and new generic TLDs, each serving specific purposes and audiences. Properly selecting and managing domain names can significantly impact a website’s visibility and success in search engine results.