Likely to be a “transition period” where Google figures out how to index new top level domains.
Today’s Google webmaster video is about new top level domains.
Google engineer Matt Cutts already grabbed some headlines when talking about new top level domains and search results last week.
I’m not sure if Cutts answered the user’s question, which had to do more with rankings and Page Rank. Instead, he responded to the question of if domains on these new TLDs will be indexed, and any hiccups to expect.
Cutts points out that we already have hundreds of new TLDs, and Google has done a pretty good job indexing domains on these TLDs to provide the most relevant results.
But indexing sites on new TLDs isn’t automatic. He says there will be a transition period while Google (and other search engines) figure out what the valid new TLDs are and what (second level) domains are on them.
(By the way, your email software might have some initial challenges going through this same transition.)
gtld dan says
he can’t be more clear in saying not to waste your money on glds.
Tom G says
This video is actually from August 18 2011. I found it interesting he chose to tweet this out after the debate this week.
To me, it seems to soften his rebuke of Kinderis somewhat, and is assuring us that new tlds will definitely be included in their crawls, indexing and serps.
Again, the emphasis is ‘We want to return the best results’.
The potential for a TLD to affect ranking exists. It will take time for the SE’s to figure out which ones might demonstrate contextual relevance and quality.
If, then, maybe, yes.
Time will tell.
Andrew Allemann says
@ Tom G – he usually uploads a bunch of videos at once and then makes them public later. Given the # of views I think he just made it public yesterday (when he tweeted it).
I guess it doesn’t matter, though.
Tom G says
@ Andrew – I saw it when it was first released months ago. I Just thought it was interesting he chose to tweet it after the exchange earlier this week.