{"id":17208,"date":"2018-05-16T09:45:41","date_gmt":"2018-05-16T14:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rocksdigital.com\/?p=17208"},"modified":"2024-06-25T13:51:47","modified_gmt":"2024-06-25T18:51:47","slug":"gtld-domain-name-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocksdigital.com\/gtld-domain-name-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Should You Use a gTLD Domain Name for Your Website? A Study into .CARS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Selling<\/a>
dizain\/Shutterstock.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Since the beginning of the internet, Americans have primarily used three main Top Level Domains<\/a> (TLDs) for our websites: .COM, .NET, and .ORG. There are other TLDs that have been introduced that we\u2019re all familiar with, such as .EDU and .GOV.<\/p>\n

Understanding Top Level Domains<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s been fairly easy for us to register .COM, .NET, and .ORG domain names, but you have to be associated with an educational institution or a government entity to secure a .EDU or a .GOV domain name. And then there\u2019s the others that have been available for quite some time now, such as .INFO, .BIZ, and .TV. But still, most consumers in the USA are used to .COM, .NET, and .ORG.<\/p>\n

In countries outside of the USA, the Country Code Top Level Domains (ccTLDs) are widely accepted, and in fact often the default option. Country codes include .de (Germany), .co.uk (United Kingdom), .es (Spain), .com.au (Australia), .ca (Canada), and .it (Italy). Depending on the location of your business, a ccTLD makes perfect sense as an alternative to .COM.<\/p>\n

Since January 2014, hundreds of new Generic Top Level Domains (New gTLDs)<\/a> have become available for registration, giving consumers greater choice. Examples of such New gTLDs that focus on the automotive industry include .CARS, .CAR and .AUTO. Some of the best domain names in this gTLD are still available for registration.<\/p>\n

A Study into a Geo .CARS Domain Name<\/span><\/p>\n

When we refer to the word \u201cGeo\u201d in the domain name industry, a Geo domain name would be one that includes a city name. An example of Geo keywords would be \u201cDallas Cars,\u201d \u201cChicago Cars,\u201d \u201cAtlanta Used Cars,\u201d and \u201cMiami New Cars.\u201d Each of those are Geo keywords, and a Geo domain name would be something like DallasCars.com, Miami.Car, or NewYork.Cars.<\/p>\n

Since .CARS domain names have been available for registration for over two years, I decided to evaluate how these domain names are being accepted in the market, how they are performing online, and how these domain names are being used by businesses today. I was also curious to know if they are being accepted and recognized by consumers. Lastly, I decided to evaluate if the required investment into .CARS, .CAR and .AUTO domains would be worth it for the businesses using them.<\/p>\n

To analyze the data for Wichita.Cars, I wanted to see what happened in the past two years with the .CARS TLD and websites actually using a .CARS domain. I decided to evaluate if a .CARS domain name is worth the $3,000 purchase price, since this can be considered a premium compared to other TLDs not focused on the automotive industry. To find the answer to these questions, I was given unprecedented access to the statistics for these domain names. After viewing all of the data from rankings and analytics, there were some interesting findings\u2014which I\u2019ll detail here.<\/p>\n

Wichita.Cars Study<\/span><\/p>\n

Scholfield Hyundai Buick GMC, back in 2016, originally launched Wichita.Cars and initially created a brand new single-page website on Wichita.Cars, which essentially allowed visitors to click through to another website. Without a considerable amount of content on the website and only \u201cclick through\u201d functionality, the search engines had no incentive to rank this website in the top search results based on the website alone. Google specifically does not tend to rank “thin content” websites very well. This is one of the reasons why the results I found in my analysis below are all the more astonishing.<\/p>\n

Traffic and Traffic Value<\/span><\/p>\n

Wichita.Cars received a good amount of visitors right after it launched in 2016. The amount of visitors grew even further when the car dealership launched a new version of the website in 2017.<\/p>\n

\"Keyword<\/div>\n

Average Cost per Click (CPC) for the \u201cWichita Cars\u201d keyword, according to SEMrush.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Google<\/div>\n

17,191 total visitors to Wichita.Cars website during 2016, according to Google Analytics.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Wichita.Cars website has been live on the Wichita.Cars domain name for just over two years. This is a decent amount of data to draw solid conclusions, based on data collected from Google Analytics along with search engine ranking data from SEMrush.com.<\/p>\n

The Wichita.Cars website and domain name is doing better than other similar websites on other TLDs, such as .COM, .NET, or .ORG.<\/p>\n

Key Observations<\/span><\/p>\n