Google coughs over “Fresh-TLDs-as-SEO-boost” claims

Google’s John Mueller chimes in (again) on claims regarding fresh TLDs helping search engine rankings.

Fresh top level domain firm Rightside has been promoting the apparent search engine benefits of fresh top level domain names lately. It is promoting a case study it commissioned with GlobeRunner regarding an attorney who switched from ErickBlockLaw.com to Jacksonville.Attorney and saw a nice uptick in traffic.

Following Rightside did a sponsored post regarding SEO benefits on Search Engine Land the prior week, Google’s John Mueller felt the need to comment. (Mueller is quickly becoming the fresh Matt Cutts when it comes to SEO claims.)

If you take a look at Rightside’s full note (pdf) regarding Jacksonville.attorney, you’ll see that the domain name change was only part of the big update made to the attorney’s site. In fact, the lawyer got an entirely fresh website and started adding good content to the site.

With so many variables at play, it’s hard to say the domain name had much of an impact.

I can see how the domain name would result in more clicks when a searcher sees the domain in search results, but the SEO claims are highly suspect.

Another notable part of Mueller’s post is the mention regarding how it’s hard to switch domain names. This is indeed the case. You can listen to a case study regarding the work involved in DNW Podcast #70. I keep wondering if Google is going to make the process more seamless. Doing so could be a huge boon to fresh domain name choices.