Google SERP's and TLD's

I'd like to perform a test to see how tld's may or may not affect Google rankings.
I'm not sure exactly how to go about this but I would assume that 4 different tld's for a nonsensical term would be the way to begin. That's the easy part, the possibly hard part would be to get an equal amount of equally strong backlinks.

Of the TLD's I think should be tested would be a .com as they appear to be the most popular, a .org as there has been some speculation that the Big G may favor them slightly, a .info as they are cheap and often associated with spam sites and then maybe a .tv, well..because.

I'm open for suggestions and feedback on how to approach this, although I also believe that it would be great if we could do this as a group too.

Whle I'll applaud anyone that decides to test rather than assume... this isn't possible...

What order of tld do you suggest in algo friendly?

What domain tld is related to a term being ranked?

First and foremost... if Google or any search engine used tld as a factor in their algorithms it would be an "always on" factor... meaning...

1. buy a domain

2. point it to a host

3. submit it to search engines

4. it ranks

...if it doesn't it's unsubstantiated

Pick up something like dlw8rejmfuwtewjrfffr476tye.com and search for that occasional and the order will appear or not at all...

The moment you add other known rank friendly factors is the moment you get bias results.

That said - if you need to look at something from the context of "nonsense" - how sensible it that?

I look at this in the scale of relativity... if your premise works with a constant for the speed of light [links]... and the speed of sound [titles] what difference will you really get factoring in an ant crawl?

If you really want to turn this insideout so it makes little or no sense...

try a phrase with tv info and see if dot.tv and dot.info beat the others... "unrelated"... since that's what happens with dot.uk in UK or and dot.ca in CA

Lets stick to discussing how to do the experiment and forget about what we feel the outcome will be...at this time.


I have to agree that you should start out with a nonesense phrases such as dlw8rejmfuwtewjrfffr476tye.com and register it under each tld you think may be worth more in googles eyes. Then start the experiment by submitting them to google and hoping they will rank...

2nd I would register a second set of domains under a nonesense phrase and link to them from a domain you control so that the links are identical in link text. Then note the outcome...
Keep in mind you should only attempt to get links from domains you own or have an absolute ability to control(get all the links from them) - if you happen to get a link to one of these domains and not the others it will throw the whole experiment off.

I am still working on a third experimental idea for this as I feel a good experiment needs atleast 3 tests. But we'll see how it comes off and then decide the rest.
My feeling was that it needed a larger scale approach... perhaps we ask members to link to all the tlds from their pages... giving us a much larger link value to work with and note the outcome. I think that would be the absolute decider for this theory.

Congrats on the initiative!

Some suggestions...

Rather then a rubbish domain name I suggest using a hypenated domain names with real words. ie www.bear-dog-orange-car.com www.the-best-green-dogs-in-canada.com This will allow us to see a greater range of ranking to see if these domains come up side by side for these terms or if there is a big fifference in SERPs.

I suggest as well as a few identical links from different domains also using some of the do follow social bookmark sites and SBM these domains. This should give these domains some actual short term boost and help see if there is seperation in the SERPs for combinations of the terms in the domain. I think the more links the better as long as the links are identical. Could ask for volanteers to place the links on there page.

The pages should have some text. I suggest some scanned unrelated content from the same book (text book would work fine) Same amount of words. The page titles should be identical and include the keywords. Also H1 tag could include the keywords (identical).

I suggest that at least 1 or 2 country specific tlds be used as well as we will then be able to see if the geo advantage appears great in different locations.

If the cost of doing this is an issue I also think you could ask for some donations to cover cost on this board. Using a paypal account.

If the experiment does suggest a large advantage for TLDs it could then be run again using different domains to see if the effects can be reproduced..

Those are some good ideas although I wonder about one thing, if the domain names are posted publicly what is to stop "stray links" from possibly popping up?

I think they would have to be not made public. Just ask for volanteers to give links and pm them with the domains and instructions. After the test is run the names can go public with the results.