It's nice to see our own industry helping itself and there's a new trend that might sound crazy at first but it makes a lot of sense.
There are new top level domains coming out. A top level domain (TLD) is like .com or .net. The new ones you might have seen are ones like .club or .designer and so forth. We even own webstix.rocks to showcase testimonials we've received from some of our clients.
One new top level domain that's interesting is the .cars domain. What they're doing is much like how .edu domains work. They're essentially vetting each domain registration applicant to make sure they are legitimately in the car/automotive industry. This stops people from just buying .cars domain names to put up low quality content or to just gain an SEO edge. This is how .edu domain names work and those domain names have a lot of trust associated with them.
The cost for a .cars domain name is around $2500 (that's not a typo). Is it worth buying? YES! If you are in the automotive industry, it would be worth buying the .cars domain name because of the trust that is being associated with those websites.
Here's a case study on results of websites using the .cars domain name. They're seeing these websites rank fast:
Case study: will new domain extensions provide an SEO boost? (searchenginewatch.com)
With .CARS, domain registrars will charge a premium of $2,500 - $3,000 per domain registration. That may sound like a lot, but according to Negari it comes with large benefits for auto dealers, manufacturers and related industry suppliers.
“It is paramount for us to ensure a clean and secure namespace in .CARS. We are implementing security scans and monitoring to prevent cyber-squatting, phishing, or other malicious activities by bad actors. By doing this we provide a clear signal to internet users and to Google’s search algorithm to trust the .CARS top level domain. This aligns perfectly with all companies within the automotive industry to further their digital marketing efforts.”
To prove his point, he wanted to ensure that the .CARS top level domain would not cause an SEO blip for companies so before launching he put out a test case.
There are going to be more top level domain names like this. If you're interested in buying one, then make sure there's a vetting process going on. If not, they're probably not really worth switching to and you should keep your .com domain name.
If you do choose a new domain name for your website, make absolutely sure that you move your domain name correctly. Proper redirects need to be set up. That process is basically a mini-website migration in some cases while in other cases, the work can be done in just a few hours. It really depends on your website. We've done a number of these domain name changes with our clients and we know what to look for and what might go wrong if it's not done properly.
-Tony
