Can a .DO domain be bad for SEO?

[Tomas12345]

Hi,
We have a new .do site (locked Alpha now) and are planning to launch public Beta in July.
- The brand name has 11 letters, last two of them being "DO"
- Our mission is to help people DO something about complex public issues (last two letters are stressed in the logo)
- The organization is non-profit, but we'll need money for investment, so don't want to be bracketed as com/org/net/co ...

Choosing .do (Dominican Rep.) seems like an obvious choice .... even if almost all content is in English (lots of it, useful, original), and we're based in Central Europe.

I'm worried that Google doesn't yet approve .DO as a generic ccTLD.
May such non-standard choice of domain extension endanger us or English SERPS?

[support.google.com...]
Generic Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs): Google treats some ccTLDs (such as .tv, .me, etc.) as gTLDs, as we've found that users and webmasters frequently see these more generic than country-targeted. Here is a list of those ccTLDs (this list may change over time).
.ad
.as
.bz
.cc
.cd
.co
.dj
.fm
.io
.la
.me
.ms
.nu
.sc
.sr
.su
.tv
.tk
.ws

[rainborick]

Since .do is NOT a Generic TLD, Google will consider your site to have a geographic location in the Dominican Republic, and there's very little chance of the site being seen in the search results by users outside of that country for any search terms other than your company/organization name.

Don't dither. Stop now and get a real generic TLD before you have to undo too much work.

[seoskunk]

Can you check if Do.Do is available?

[Tomas12345]

@rainborick
thank you for a helpful & straightforward answer!

i'd say it's a very imperfect approach of Google to prioritize worse content on international domains & assume that companies chose country domains because they don't want international users... I hope Google will change their mind on that, but accept this might be the current situation.

our second concern is whether the laws of the Dominican Republic might not apply in some cases on .do domains, the thing is both the servers & our organization are in Central Europe...

[Robert Charlton]

i'd say it's a very imperfect approach of Google to prioritize worse content on international domains & assume that companies chose country domains because they don't want international users... I hope Google will change their mind on that, but accept this might be the current situation.

Thomas12345... rainborick (and Google) both gave you a good answers. The factor you're wanting to ignore is that the populations of many countries are already using the assigned ccTLDs for their intended purpose of local geo targeting.

I discussed this same topic in a thread here roughly a month ago...

Will ccTLD "domain hack" hurt rankings in other countries? .ne for USA
May 18, 2017
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4849981.htm [webmasterworld.com]

In the thread, I cited a Matt Cutts video where Matt goes into the population vs common usage issue in some detail and also discusses why Google makes exceptions when it can, but that current usage needs to be a factor...

So, though the ".it" ccTLD might fit well in lots of novelty domain ideas, the Italians have prior expectations. Ditto regarding ".ne" for Nigeria.*

On the other hand, ".io" falls in the middle of the Indian Ocean, not many users, and was widely picked up for use in tech startup sites. Other ccTLDs like ".tv" and ".me" have similar patterns of sparse population demands and popular alternative worldwide uses.

You found the list of exceptions Google currently makes in the support page you link to. The support article perhaps should also link to the video, because Matt does understand the coolness factor, and cautions in a great many ways against the temptations of using the reserved ccTLDs for non-geo purposes. I don't think that Google really has any power to change this.

*Correction re .ne above. It's the ccTLD for Niger, not for Nigeria.

[rainborick]

The basic principle behind geo-location is that it's reasonable to believe that the physically closer that a website is to a search engine user, the more relevant that site will tend be to that user. This is an obvious idea when it comes to e-commerce sites for reasons like a common currency and proximity benefits for both shipping goods and visiting business locations. But it's also a reasonable approach to purely informational sites which may well involve local language idioms and other references.

Geo-location has been used by Google since at least 2003, which is when I first encountered it. It's remained largely unchanged since then. And it's not just Google's approach. The other search engines operate using virtually identical methods. The beauty part is that it's an objective ranking factor and almost completely under your control as a webmaster. So, it's best to learn how geo-location works and take advantage of it as best you can. Good luck!

[keyplyr]

Hi Tomas12345 and welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]

[Tomas12345]

@RobertCarlton @rainborick @keyplyr

Thank you very much for taking your time and the insightful, helpful answers.
I viewed Matt Cutts video and read the thread about the .ne domain. I now understand your point & Google's approach much better.

This is a very interesting topic...
For local searches i accept a country extension sounds like an added "local business" asset, but if - let's say - a local domain's content on global topics was objectively more relevant than comparable content on .COM domains, it will still look to me a bit unfair/artificial to block showing the content to users in other countries only because the domain has a local extension. Also, there's an assymetry, because .COM domains don't seem to be handicapped to rank with good content on local topics...

It seems we'll need to stick to a .ORG domain as a non-profit .... a pity, the .DO element is important for our activist branding, while .ORG sounds a bit bland & bureacratic ... by the way:
- How often does the list of generic ccTLDs change? I suppose it's not really posible to learn from Google whether they are considering .DO to ever make it on that list? :-)
- Do the acknowledged generic ccTLDs lile .ME / .IO / .TV enjoy the same starting position & default future SERPs chances like .COM/.ORG.NET domains or does Google's algorithm still deduct some points for such vanity extensions?

Once again, thank you very much!

[Robert Charlton]

Tomas12345, a quick note to follow up on this. I've recently seen a couple of well-known brands that initially had used a .ly extension to create novelty domains. It turns out that both have switched to .com domains, keeping (phonetically) the same names but dropping the dot.

I won't go into who they are... but one has kept the .ly version as well and 301 redirects it to the .com... and ranks for both the .ly and the .com name search... and the other has either let the old name expire or turned it over to a broker who sells such domains, with no redirect.

Both are still well-known companies.

[lucy24]

the temptations of using the reserved ccTLDs for non-geo purposes

You mean like goo.gl and youtu.be?

[piatkow]

I have posted this before on other threads but some members of the public get very worried about "unusual" TLDs and think that accessing a site that uses one will put their computer's security at risk.

[Tomas12345]

very interesting information, great thanks to everyone!
the .do has a meaning of it's own in relation to our website's mission, but we listened to your kind advices and switched (as a non-profit) to .org (purchased also .com and will redirect it to org)
let's see where it takes us ..