What are the benefits to use .bank as a TLD against the locat TLD?

[Kirowski]

One of my clients is a leading bank in my country and want to switch to .bank TLD from the local one. Does anyone have experience of what are the benefits or drawbacks of the switch? Is it really a trusted domain with all the security benefits they promise or just another low level TLD with chances to get attaced even more often than before?

[Yoav-Blustein]

In summary, there are no TLDs that Google finds preferential to others; they are all treated equally in rankings. There are some geo-specific TLDs that Google will default to a specific country and use that as an indicator that the website is more important in a specific geographic region. But all TLDs are treated equally.

Here are the FAQs Google published on this topic:

**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 and .org). Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search.

Q: Will Google support my SEO efforts to move my domain from .com to a new TLD? How do I move my website without losing any search ranking or history?
A: We have extensive site move documentation in our Help Center. We treat these moves the same as any other site move. That said, domain changes can take time to be processed for search (and outside of search, users expect email addresses to remain valid over a longer period of time), so it’s generally best to choose a domain that will fit your long-term needs.

source: searchengineland article

[MattRoney]

Hi Kirowski! It's pretty much an aesthetic distinction. Know, though, that Moz tools don't work with all of the new TLDs, so you might lose some functionality in our toolset.

Also, the illustrious EGOL made a very good point about these in another recent thread about them:

"My personal opinion is if you tell people that your website is at egol.buliders they will say "WHAT?"

But if you tell them egol.com or egol.co.uk they will get it immediately."

Just make sure your domain name is something folks will remember.