Top Level Domains (TLD)
In this article of the ‘How to SEO’ manual, I am going to be talking to you about Top Level Domains (TLD), or as they’re sometimes known, Top Level Domains Names (TLDN). These are the final part of your domain name, I.e. Anything after the the final “.” for instance www.positiongoldltd.com. There are some exceptions to this, for instance .co.uk. These are all assigned by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) and are used as routing directives. These are broken down further into four category’s, (I will only be talking about two in this blog, as these are the only ones to really be concerned about). First is the country-code top-level domains (ccTLD). These are TLDs which are used to assign IP addresses to the appropriate domains, with Countries or territories. In terms of SEO, this is also one of the ways in which search engines identify which data centre results your site will appear in. For instance, a .co.uk domain name will appear in Google.co.uk or Google.com, if your ip address is based in the UK, search results. While .us, the USA, will appear in google.us. It is important, when buying your domain name, to target the correct country or territory, in your TLD you should buy the location of your target audience. Here is a list of some of the countries TLDs that you might need; for a full list of all TLDs click here
- .AT - Austria
- .AU - Australia
- .BA - Bosnia and Herzegovina
- .BB - Barbados
- .BE - Belgium
- .BG - Bulgaria
- .BM - Bermuda
- .CA - Canada
- .CH - Switzerland
- .CY - Cyprus
- .CZ - Czech Republic
- .DE - Germany
- .DK - Denmark
- .ES - Spain
- .EU - European Union
- .FI - Finland
- .FR - France
The second category of TLDs to be concerned about are generic top-level domains (gTLD). These primarily consist of .net, .com, .info, .org, .biz and .name, which will appear in world wide searches. Some of these however have registration restricted. Remember, when buying a TLD, to ‘brand protect’ areas of future interest, as not to suffer traffic leakage later in your business life cycle. The other big tip is to make sure, as a buisness, YOU own the domain, not your web developer or SEO company, as this can cause major issuse if you ever fall out with them!
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