Often of major concern to people setting up a website for a business is choosing what domain name to use. In actual fact, the choice people have these days is quite limited. A quick check on domain registry sites shows that a large majority of domains are already taken. The problem…is choice.

As part of the new blog here at SEO Consult, I’d like to take this opportunity to write today about some of the big changes that are coming to the world of domains in 2010. This will be part of series of articles as I attempt to delve deeper into the changes proposed by ICANN, how it will affect people’s choices of domains in the future and crucially, what it means for SEO.

Top-Level Domains

TLDs don’t affect SEO (currently), but users will typically trust a site which uses a dot-com TLD more than a dot-info one. The latter are cheaper but also less popular amongst legitimate companies and online businesses. Result? – it won’t affect the site’s SEO but it will affect visitor’s perceptions of your site’s authority.

Is this set to change? Well…yes. With ICANNs proposal for (g)TLD changes now finalised, the concept of a site’s domain gaining authority in the eyes of the user goes out the window. Instead, rather than choosing from amongst the limited 21 TLDs currently in existence, organisations will soon have the option to create their own.

Although it will be at a vast expense – ICANN estimates $185,000 for initial applications with a further $19,000 annually – organisations (or individuals) will soon be able to create a brand new unique TLD. For example, the local government for London currently uses london.gov.uk for their website. With the changes brought in from ICANN, they could choose to purchase the gTLD dot-london. This would then allow them to begin selling off second-level domains to organisations wishing to have websites ending in dot-london.

Now with making such a commitment does come with its caveats; the organisation creating the gTLD is in fact making a contractual agreement with ICANN to operate a registry business. They have to demonstrate a willingness and capability to successfully manage the distribution of domain names to customers.

Where does this leave SEO? Well in steps your business; a London-based chain of hotels? A cleaning company? This would be your chance to dive in and purchase hotels.london or cleaning.london. The result? Needless to say, with Google and other search engines continuing to focus more on customising search results and providing localised results for where you are, you no longer have to worry about targeting keywords like ‘london cleaning’ or ‘cleaning london’ on your website; its safe to say that a website for a cleaning company appearing under the dot-london gTLD will appear very highly in local SERPs.

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