You might have noticed that when you are browsing the internet, you come across websites with all sorts of domain endings, from the more common .com, .co.uk, and .ac.uk endings to the newer (and therefore rarer) .biz, .club and .io. These are known as TLDs, or Top Level Domains and represent overall categories of website domains.
Since each one of these has specific meanings and usage cases, it is important that you understand what each one of them is and the impact that they can have on your website, before choosing one of them. That’s why, in this blog, I’ll explain to you more about what they are, why they matter and some of the key factors you should be aware of when choosing them.
What Types of TLD are Out There?
As I have mentioned, there are all sorts of TLDs in use today. The original seven TLDs (.com, .edu, .gov, .int, .mil, .net and .org) were introduced in the 1980s and have specific purposes. For example, .mil is reserved for (American) military organisations, .gov for (American) Government organisations and .org is used globally for non-profit organisations. Many newer and unique ones have since been introduced. See below for a brief summary of those newer ones.
Why is it Important to Choose your Site’s TLD Carefully?
It might not sound it, but it really is important to make sure you choose your TLD carefully, before you buy it. Once you have bought it, it can be very hard to change it.
Getting it right is very important for helping clients and visitors remember your website URL. For example, .com ones are much more common than, say, .biz or .rocks and so are easier to remember. In addition, the TLD you choose has a big bearing on what visitors will expect from your site. A good example of this is the .org extension, which is very commonly associated with non-profits.
In previous blogs, we have talked about how search engine optimisation (SEO) is very important for your website. You can be rest assured here that whichever one you choose, for all intents and purposes, your SEO performance won’t be affected. That being said, local SEO is still important to consider. For example, if you have a business based primarily in the UK, such as a gift shop, you may benefit more from a localised TLD, such as .co.uk, to have a better chance of appearing in local searches.
How Can You Make Sure You Choose the Right TLD?
There’s so much information out there about choosing the right TLD for your website that it can be quite daunting. Well, have no fear. I have put together three simple rules you can follow to help you choose, which will see you right.
K.I.S.S. – Keep It Simple, Silly
You’ve got to remember that even though there are so many new and exciting TLDs out there, such as .biz for businesses or .cafe for cafes, the majority of your visitors will still likely associate .com or .co.uk with your website by default. That means, if a visitor isn’t sure what your TLD is, then they’ll try typing one of those in. If you are using one of the newer ones, you may risk your visitor not actually being able to find your website.
What you often find is that you’ve chosen the web address you want, but someone already has the .com or .co.uk versions of it. In this situation, you might be tempted to try and stick to your chosen web address, by choosing a different TLD. That would be a mistake, since you risk creating confusion, as visitors who want to visit your website will likely end up on the other version with the more common TLD. That’ll mean you lose out on a lot of potential traffic/visitors. In this situation, you are better off choosing a new domain name. Here is a resource that will help you do that, if you are struggling.
Of course, if your website has a very specific purpose, a TLD such as .com might not be the best option in any case. A good example of that is in the following section.
Keep in Mind your Website Purpose
As we’ve seen, there are some cases where you might want to consider the purpose of your website when choosing a TLD. For example, if you are a non-profit of any kind, you are probably better off choosing a .org TLD. Choosing anything else could cause visitors not to take you seriously, as they would only expect to see a .org TLD for a non-profit. If you are purely an information website, you should probably choose a .info TLD.
Whilst the majority of TLDs are unrestricted, which means you can purchase them on any domain provider, such as Google Domains or GoDaddy, some of them are restricted, which means you can only register your domain with that TLD through a single provider. The best example of this is the educational .ac.uk TLD. The registration of this in the UK has been administered through Jisc since 1996.
Of course, if you are in a different country to the UK, then for instances such as educational TLDs, you will need to use a localised version, not only as they can be restricted by country, but also because of the SEO benefits. It is important to remember though, as we have previously seen, the TLD isn’t everything, when it comes to the SEO performance of your URL web address. There are a lot of factors to consider, which you can see here.
Purchase Multiple TLDs
For any given TLD, you can only have one domain, but you can have the same domain with multiple TLDs. For example, with my own Digital Lychee, I own digitallychee.com, digitallychee.co.uk and digitallychee.net.
As I have done, many businesses purchase multiple TLDs. Even though they only intend to use one of them, there is a very key reason for doing this. It prevents a competitor from purchasing an alternate TLD for your domain, redirecting visitors who intend to go to your website to theirs, ultimately ‘stealing’ your traffic.
This of course does raise the issue of budget. After all, instead of purchasing just one TLD, you are purchasing multiple ones. If you are a small company, it is less likely that you will need to purchase multiple ones, as it is unlikely someone would deliberately want to steal your traffic. However, you’ll notice that big companies and organisations, such as Google or Facebook, have purchased a vast array of TLDs (including .com, .info and .biz) all which redirect to their main website.
Above all, the most important one is the .com TLD. Even if you aren’t intending to use it as your primary TLD, you need to make sure you purchase it as a redirect. It is the default one most people will use if they aren’t sure what TLD you use, meaning by doing so you are preventing anyone else stealing your website traffic. It also means you have plenty of flexibility to choose your domain name.
How will Digital Lychee Help You?
As we have seen, your choice of TLD will affect what your visitors think of your website. That goes without saying. Choosing the wrong one could make your website seem unprofessional or untrustworthy, which of course you don’t want. You could even end up directing your visitors to someone else’s website, which of course isn’t ideal.
If you are simply using my blog to help you decide what to do with your own website, then all you need to remember is three key things:
- Unless you have a specific reason for choosing a different TLD, go with .com, as it is the most memorable one and is also very professional.
- If you are setting up an educational site, perhaps for a school or something similar, you must use a specific .ac.uk TLD. Similarly, if you are a non-profit, you are better off going with a .org TLD, so people will trust you more.
- If your budget allows, make sure you purchase multiple TLDs, to avoid letting your competition creating lookalike sites to steal your traffic. If you are using a less common TLD, such as .cafe for your café, you would do well to purchase the .com one as well and set up a domain redirect, to avoid any confusion. If you need to know how to set up a redirect, here is some cPanel information on how to do that.
However, if you are looking for me to help build your website, I would absolutely love to hear from you. From the very start of the journey, I will give you all the advice you would need, to set up a successful website for you, your business or organisation, whatever it may be. You can get in touch with me here. I am looking forward to hearing from you.