New gTLDs such as .shop, .online or .agency rank the same as .com. Google said in July 2015 that it treats them like other generic endings and that a keyword in the TLD gives no advantage or disadvantage. The real risks are spam reputation in email filters, user trust and higher renewal prices on some endings.
When ICANN opened the door to hundreds of new endings from 2013 onward, a lot of SEO advice predicted one of two things. Either a keyword ending like .plumbing would give you a free ranking edge, or Google would quietly bury anything that was not .com. Neither happened.
What Google says about new gTLD SEO
In July 2015 John Mueller published a post on the Google webmaster blog titled “Google’s handling of new top level domains”. The key statements, which have not been withdrawn since:
- New gTLDs are treated like other gTLDs such as .com and .org.
- Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search.
- Regional gTLDs such as .london or .bayern are treated as generic, like .eu and .asia, with possible exceptions in the future.
- .brand TLDs (a company running its own ending) carry no extra weight.
- IDN endings in non-Latin scripts work like any other TLD, and Google treats the Punycode and Unicode forms as the same hostname.
That is about as clear as Google gets. The ending .shop does not help a shop rank for “shop”, and it does not hurt either.
It is worth reading that post as a statement about ranking, not about everything else. Google said nothing about how users, email providers or security vendors treat these endings, and that is where the practical differences show up. Keep the two questions apart and most of the confusion disappears.
Which myths about new endings refuse to die
| Claim | Status | What is actually going on |
|---|---|---|
| “.com always ranks better” | Myth | Google treats generic endings the same |
| “A keyword ending is a ranking boost” | Myth | Explicitly denied in the 2015 post |
| “.london helps in London” | Myth | Regional gTLDs are treated as generic |
| “.io targets the Indian Ocean” | Myth | Google treats .io as generic |
| “New endings get filtered as spam” | Partly true | Applies to some email filters and security tools, not to Google rankings |
| “Users trust .com more” | Often true | A human effect, affects clicks and type-in traffic |
The last two rows are where the honest discussion lives.
The real downsides of new gTLDs
Email deliverability. Several cheap endings have been heavily abused for throwaway spam domains. Some spam filters and corporate firewalls score mail from those endings more harshly. If your domain sends invoices or newsletters, check how your ending is treated before you commit. This is a reputation issue of specific endings, not of new gTLDs in general.
User habits. Tell someone “it’s acme dot agency” over the phone and a fair share will type acme.com. That leaks type-in traffic, possibly to a competitor. Registering the .com as well and redirecting it helps, as explained in multiple domains, one website.
Renewal pricing. Some endings are sold for a few cents in the first year and cost many times that at renewal. A few registries also flag certain names as premium with permanently higher fees. Always check the renewal price.
Policy risk. Each ending has its own registry and rules. ICANN contracts bind them, but the operator can change prices within those contracts.
Popular new endings at a glance
Prices below are yearly rates at betadomain, which are the same for the first year and every renewal:
| Ending | Treated by Google as | Typical use | Price per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| .com | Generic | Anything | €14.99 |
| .shop | Generic | Online stores | €38.99 |
| .online | Generic | General purpose | €41.99 |
| .app | Generic, HTTPS required | Web and mobile apps | €22.99 |
| .io | Generic (ccTLD) | Tech, SaaS | €61.99 |
| .xyz | Generic | Projects, startups | €21.99 |
The .app ending is on the HSTS preload list, so browsers only connect to it over HTTPS. That is a nice side effect if you have not finished your HTTPS migration, because there is no HTTP version to compete with.
When a new gTLD is the smart choice
I would happily pick a new ending in these cases:
- The perfect brand name is taken on .com but free on a fitting ending, and you would otherwise compromise on the name.
- The ending says something useful to users: a law firm on .law, a dev tool on .dev, a portfolio on .design.
- The project is international and has no single country focus. In that case the ccTLD-or-.com question from country code vs .com SEO does not apply.
And I would avoid it when the business is local, when email is central and the ending has a poor reputation, or when the name only works because the ending completes a pun.
Keyword endings and the EMD trap
A combination like cheap.flights or best.lawyer looks like a clever exact match domain. In Google’s eyes it is a name plus a neutral ending. The same lesson applies as for keyword .com domains, covered in exact match domain: the name earns no ranking bonus, and a brand ages better.
Checking your options
Type your brand into a search across all endings and see which ones are free. If you want to compare a specific new ending with .com, the .shop domain page lists the details. For an overview of what all 490 endings cost per year, the complete price list has them in one place. The bigger picture of how much a domain affects rankings is in domain SEO.
Found your domain? You can check and register it directly at domain registration without teaser pricing – yearly price from €2.99.
FAQ
Are new domain extensions bad for SEO?
No. Google has stated that new gTLDs are handled like .com and .org for crawling, indexing and ranking. A site on .online can rank first if its content and links are good enough.
Does a .london or .berlin domain help local rankings?
Not by default. Google treats regional gTLDs like .london, .berlin or .bayern as generic, just like .eu. It said this could change later depending on how they are used, but there is no country or city signal built in today.
Is .io good for SEO?
.io is technically a country code, but Google lists it among the ccTLDs it treats as generic. It ranks like .com worldwide. The same applies to .ai, .co, .me and .tv.
Why do new gTLDs get flagged as spam?
Some cheap endings attracted large numbers of throwaway registrations, and spam filters and security tools reacted. That affects email delivery and link trust more than Google rankings. A site on a well-run ending is not at risk.