Is there any benefit of having a .tv tld instead of a .com for a video centric website?

[VanguardCommunications]

We are launching a video dense website.   Is there any evidence that having a .tv tld can help with video optimization?  We are trying to find proof that Google looks at a .tv tld favorably for video SEO as opposed to a .tv website.

[RyanPurkey]

None that I know of. Most of the optimization tools available can be used on any domain. See: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/80472.

Video content includes web pages which embed video, URLs to players for video, or the URLs of raw video content hosted on your site. If Google cannot discover video content at the URLs you provide, those records will be ignored by Googlebot.

A .tv won't enhance the ability for Google to find your videos, but proper tagging and sitemapping will. Cheers!

[Linda-Vassily]

Way back in 2012 Matt Cutts said:

“I read a post by someone offering new top-level domain (TLDs). They made this claim: ‘Will a new TLD web address automatically be favoured by Google over a .com equivalent? Quite simply, yes it will.’

“Sorry, but that's just not true, and as an engineer in the search quality team at Google, I feel the need to debunk this misconception. Google has a lot of experience in returning relevant web pages, regardless of the top-level domain (TLD). Google will attempt to rank new TLDs appropriately, but I don't expect a new TLD to get any kind of initial preference over .com, and I wouldn't bet on that happening in the long-term either. If you want to register an entirely new TLD for other reasons, that's your choice, but you shouldn't register a TLD in the mistaken belief that you'll get some sort of boost in search engine rankings.”

and I have not seen anything to indicate that this is no longer true.

Some people like to get the new tlds because they feel that they will be attractive to the user, that if for instance people see a .tv they would choose it over another page because they would think that a .tv provides a better video experience.

This may be true, but on the other hand, there are plenty of people who no longer think of tv when they think of the video experience...

[Netrepid]

I learned a long time ago in this game that a bad dot com is better than a good dot "anything else" (unless, of course, you are an organization or an educational institution).

The logic there is because, when in doubt, a user is far more likely to assume your site is a dot com when doing a direct visit. My suggestion to you would be to perform a couple searches for the keywords you want to rank for and see if there are any .tv domains ranking for that phrase.

If yes and you can buy a domain that is exact match or partial match to the types of videos you want to showcase, then maybe consider it.

Otherwise, its probably better to find a partial match .com for the types of keywords you want to rank for and build your site on that domain.

Hope this helps.

[MattAntonino]

I've been well aware for years that Google's stock answer is "no, it won't help."

With the NEW tlds that are out, however, you have to think a bit more. Because yes, .melbourne will help you rank here faster than the same domain .com (it seems to act like an EMD).

I've registered & ranked many new TLDs since their debut. I have tested two with the same domain & different TLDs on more than one occasion and where appropriate some TLDs do rank better than others.

However, .tv is not one of these - .tv is a generic TLD (like .com) and won't affect anything positively or negatively. It's simply "just a domain."  TV is ok to use although I agree with the others - .com is best if you can get it or something appropriate.

Hope that clarifies a bit for you and others thinking about the same thing. Some TLDs help (think .clothing) but the majority don't give any help either way.

[RyanPurkey]

Google itself bought the exclusive rights to the .app TLD so there's that in the custom TLD column, but like you and others say here, .tv isn't one like that.