Google

For several years, there has been discussion about Google downplaying the role of domain names and their importance. To an extent, domain names may be less important than they once were, greatly due to search engine changes and advances, but they are still essential and play a crucial role in navigation, brand marketing, email deliverability, connectivity, and other aspects related to web presence.

One concerning development for domain investors has been Google’s de-emphasis of domain names over the last several years. Some examples of this include former Google search team leader Matt Cutts’ comments about keyword domain names, Google’s using the navigation bar for searches, and Google’s removal of domain names in mobile searches. It has appeared that Google would like to reduce the importance of domain names, and that would obviously impact the value of domain names to some degree.

For several months, Google has been excluding domain names from the majority of its search results. Instead of prominently displaying a website’s domain name, Google has generally been displaying brand names / website names and favicons to help users better identify the websites they were visiting. I thought this had the potential to be confusing, but it looks like domain names will be making a comeback on Google search results page:

Presenting site domain names prominently 🙌🏼 https://t.co/PATbim2sXe

— Doron Vermaat (@doronvermaat) January 14, 2020