A top-level domain (“TLD”) a.k.a “domain extension” is the portion of a domain name to the right of the dot. TLDs hold the highest level in the hierarchy of the Internet’s domain name system.

What is a Top Level Domain example?

The first top-level domains were:

  1. .com is the most famous TLD
  2. .edu is a TLD that is reserved for USA-based accredited Universities
  3. .gov is the US Government’s TLD
  4. .org is a general namespace TLD that is used by both nonprofit and for-profit organizations
  5. .net is a general purpose namespace that was originally named for network technology companies
  6. .mil is reserved for US military branches:
    • United States Army
    • United States Navy
    • United States Marine Corps
    • United States Air Force
    • United States Coast Guard
  7. Internet country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) were added to give each country its own namespace using two-letter country codes, such as:
    • .ai is the ccTLD for Anguilla
    • .au is the ccTLD for Australia
    • .ca is the ccTLD for Canada
    • .co is the ccTLD for Columbia
    • .io is the ccTLD for the Indian Ocean
    • .mx is the ccTLD for Mexico
    • .uk is the ccTLD for Great Britain

In 2019, more than 1700 TLDs currently exist, most of which are called ngTLDs, such as .app, .pics, .world, and .xyz

Click to see our complete TLD list.

What is a Domain Name?

A domain name sometimes comprises just a top-level domain (“TLD”) to the right of the dot

For example, here are some simple domain names:

https://www.hr/

.org forwards to https://www.w3.org/

A domain name that you can buy comprises a word or set of characters to the left of the dot plus a top-level domain to the right of the dot.

Eg. DomainAuthority.org is the domain name and .org is the TLD.

SiteGround Web Hosting from $3.95/month Click to get started

What is the Most Popular Top Level Domain?

.COM is the most popular top-level domain, with more than 140,860,141 registrations as of July 13, 2019. That’s 9,810,833 more .com domains that were registered in the last six months. There were 131,049,308 registrations as of January 31, 2018. So .com remains the top choice for all new domains.

What is the Most Valuable Top Level Domain?

.COM top-level domains are the most valuable domains. Most 4-letter (LLLL.com) domains are considered liquid domains in that they are sold and auctioned often in the 5 and 6 figures. In June 2019, a billionaire bought Voice.com for a startup free speech platform for $30 million USD. In comparison, GoDaddy estimates that the wholesale value of Voice.ca is $10,975, voice.net is $15,110, and voice.org is $19,152 USD.

What are the Top 25 TLDs for Domain Authority?

The number of top-level domains that rank in the top 1 million websites according to their Alexa rank is a good measure for domain authority by each TLD.

However, since there are not that many .edu, .gov, and .mil websites, Google probably still skews the results and give greater backlink authority to these top-level domains than websites using other TLDs, since they are considered the most authoritative top-level domains. Websites built on .edu University domains generally have great authoritative content as do .gov and .mil, because US Government domains have traditionally been seen as a reliable source of information.

The following chart ranks top 25 top-level domains, by the number of websites ranking in the Alexa 1 million top websites list:

TLD
Alexa1M
New
Total
.TLD
Alexa1M
New
Total
.COM 505,399 72,695 140,860,141
.RU 101,315 4,960,935
.NET 39,652 4,717 13,371,001
.ORG 37,984 3,817 10,039,948
.IN 18,540 2,018,884
.IR 16,112 1,080,815
.BR 11,678 4,061,895
.AU 9,212 3,195,166
.TR 8,855 404,042
.INFO 8,818 2,565 4,608,010
.UK 8,802 6,927 11,387,790
.VN 8,412 481,855
.UA 8,302 535,735
.ID 8,160 321,307
.CO 7,869
.DE 7,650 16,260,738
.IO 6,517
.GR 6,265
.FR 5,758 3,399,464
.CA 5,559 2,825,463
.JP 5,450 1,569,923
.KZ 4,500 147,913
.ZA 4,277 1,264,123
.TW 3,940 6,701,526
.PL 3,932 2,601,388

List created using DomainNameStats.com

Data derived from Zonefiles & Public sources.
Root Zone and Root Database scan: updated
New gTLDs and most Country TLDs: updated
Legacy gTLDs and rest (.COM etc): processing
Estimated Finish Time (UTC): 14:40:39
DateStamp: 2019-07-13

 

Does TLD Impact SEO?

Officially, Google said that the top-level domain should not impact SEO, on July 21, 2015.

Q: How will new gTLDs affect search? Is Google changing the search algorithm to favor these TLDs? How important are they really in search? 
A: Overall, our systems treat new gTLDs like other gTLDs (like .com & .org). Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search.

Q: Will a .BRAND TLD be given any more or less weight than a .com?
A: No. Those TLDs will be treated the same as a other gTLDs. They will require the same geotargeting settings and configuration, and they won’t have more weight or influence in the way we crawl, index, or rank URLs.

However, there are other factors at play, such as the click-through rate on searches and trust level of various top-level domains. So your TLD remains a factor impacting the SEO of your websites.

And country code domains, such as .ca and .cn remain a good choice because Google gives them a preference by geotargeting searches so that users get more relevant content delivered in their searches:

Q: How are the new region or city TLDs (like .london or .bayern) handled?
A: Even if they look region-specific, we will treat them as gTLDs. This is consistent with our handling of regional TLDs like .eu and .asia. There may be exceptions at some point down the line, as we see how they’re used in practice. See our help center for more information on multi-regional and multilingual sites, and set geotargeting in Search Console where relevant.

Q: What about real ccTLDs (country code top-level domains) : will Google favor ccTLDs (like .uk, .ae, etc.) as a local domain for people searching in those countries?
A: By default, most ccTLDs (with exceptions) result in Google using these to geotarget the website; it tells us that the website is probably more relevant in the appropriate country. Again, see our help center for more information on multi-regional and multilingual sites.

Therefore, if you are a Canadian business, a .ca top-level domain will give you an edge for searches done in Canada. The exceptions are probably top-level domains such as .io and .ai.

Top Level Domain Statistics

2018-01-31 .COM +59,004 131,049,308
2017-03-20 .CN 20,868,593
2018-01-31 .DE -3,148 16,322,988
2018-01-31 .NET +1,524 14,197,437
2018-01-31 .UK +3,185 10,474,140
2018-01-31 .ORG +1,223 10,325,964
2018-01-31 .INFO +3,014 6,362,672
2018-01-31 .NL +932 5,803,927
2018-01-31 .RU -8,400 5,326,178
2018-01-31 .BR -794 3,901,080
2017-09-30 .EU 3,755,676
2018-01-31 .FR +1,488 3,182,603
2018-01-31 .AU +857 3,145,201
2018-01-31 .IT +1,028 3,104,268
2018-01-31 .CA +797 2,699,006
2018-01-31 .PL +823 2,580,925
2017-12-31 .CH 2,123,372
2018-01-31 .US +357 2,077,378
2017-07-01 .IN 2,018,884
2018-01-31 .BIZ -3,004 1,954,979
2018-01-30 .ES 1,900,957
2018-01-31 .XYZ +162 1,890,670
2018-01-31 .LOAN -822 1,806,603
2018-01-31 .SE 1,766,827
2017-12-31 .BE 1,589,715
2018-01-01 .JP 1,495,477
2018-01-31 .TOP +15,267 1,445,466
2018-01-31 .DK +505 1,332,682
2018-01-31 .CZ +248 1,307,561
2018-01-31 .AT +39 1,284,376
2018-01-31 .ZA 1,264,123
2018-01-31 .CLUB -1,014 1,102,216
2017-12-31 .KR 1,048,524
2018-01-31 .PT +509 986,907
2018-01-31 .IR +601 945,686
2017-12-31 .RO 943,626
2018-01-31 .MX +983 919,186
2018-01-31 .РФ -1,691 856,669
2018-01-31 .NO +190 751,219
2018-01-31 .VIP +174 745,967
2018-01-01 .HU 721,119
2018-01-31 .WIN -440 710,525
2018-01-31 .NZ -70 705,785
2018-01-31 .ONLINE -399 673,932
2018-01-31 .WANG -12 581,481
2018-01-31 .UA +135 553,842
2017-12-31 .CL 549,658
2018-01-31 .NU -37 497,189
2017-12-31 .AR 488,847
2018-01-31 .MOBI -3 467,142
2018-01-31 .MEN +1,252 447,082
2018-01-26 .FI 445,109
2018-01-31 .SITE -2,694 443,990
2017-12-31 .VN 427,186
2018-01-31 .TR +15 395,266
2018-01-31 .SHOP +366 377,812
2018-01-31 .SK +196 372,398
2018-01-31 .BID -2,559 358,227
2017-12-31 .MY 339,402
2018-01-31 .LTD +104 326,796
2018-01-31 .PRO +476 279,836
2018-01-01 .HK 264,833
2018-01-31 .XIN -10 249,643
2018-01-31 .ID +219 245,385
2018-01-31 .SPACE -1,264 244,081
2018-01-31 .IE +235 239,181
2018-01-31 .WEBSITE -1,249 215,744
2018-01-31 .ASIA -50 212,123
2018-01-31 .TECH -327 211,637
2018-01-31 .REVIEW +233 199,711
2018-01-31 .网址 +85 198,578
2018-01-31 .LT +63 187,964
2018-01-31 .WORK +269 186,136
2018-01-31 .STREAM +266 185,479
2017-12-31 .SG 177,839
2018-01-31 .LIFE +104 173,875
2018-01-31 .PARTY +157 165,716
2018-01-31 .STORE +305 153,972
2018-01-31 .NAME -8 145,669
2018-01-31 .LINK -119 144,327
2018-01-31 .LIVE +380 142,205
2018-01-31 .TRADE +1,780 135,068
2018-01-31 .BLOG +285 132,419
2018-01-31 .SI +76 127,302
2018-01-31 .CLOUD +113 127,044
2018-01-31 .DOWNLOAD +671 125,810
2018-01-31 .BY +99 123,654
2018-01-31 .GDN -393 118,814
2018-01-31 .SU -175 117,949
2018-01-31 .EE -420 115,750
2018-01-31 .REN +69 110,942
2018-01-31 .DATE -290 110,789
2018-01-31 .CAT +19 105,912
2018-01-31 .KIWI +2 103,465
2017-12-31 .NG 101,695
2018-01-31 .ACCOUNTANT +584 101,184
2018-01-31 .RS +82 99,214
2018-01-31 .TODAY +102 96,796
2018-01-31 .XXX -4 96,260
2017-12-31 .LU 94,699
LastUpdate .TLD Latest Domains
Data derived from Zonefiles & Public sources.
RootZone and Root Database scan: updated
New gTLDs and most Country TLDs: updated
Legacy gTLDs and rest (.COM etc): updated
DateStamp: 2018-01-31
DomainNameStats.com v0.1.0 – 26th January 2018
Data supplied “AS IS” without warranty of any kind, expressed or implied.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *