Google has operated its search engine on many different domain names. Of course, Google.com is the company’s primary domain name and the one that is most commonly referenced. Google also operates its search platform on many different local domain names throughout the world. Canadians might visit Google.ca, French citizens might navigate to Google.fr, and Danish citizens might find themselves on Google.dk.
These individual ccTLD domain names that Google operates may be some of the most well known and highly trafficked websites in their respective countries. In fact, each time someone visits Google.ccTLD, it has been a tacit reminder of ccTLD identity for citizens of those countries.
Soon, this will no longer be the case, according to a blog post on the official Google Blog. Here’s an excerpt from the article discussing that Google will soon direct all traffic to Google.com instead of its ccTLD domain names:
“Over the years, our ability to provide a local experience has improved. In 2017, we began providing the same experience with local results for everyone using Search, whether they were using google.com or their country’s ccTLD.
Because of this improvement, country-level domains are no longer necessary. So we’ll begin redirecting traffic from these ccTLDs to google.com to streamline people’s experience on Search. This change will be rolled out gradually over the coming months, and you may be prompted to re-enter some of your Search preferences in the process.”
Instead of finding their Google’s localize website on a Google.ccTLD domain name, all traffic will end up on Google.com. In my opinion, this will reinforce the dominance of the .com extension.
Nearly all of the world’s largest companies use .com for their web presence. I doubt there is any question that .com is the most popular and heavily used domain extension. However, having people navigate to their local Google ccTLD was probably a reinforcement of the acceptable and broad usage of ccTLDs. I could be wrong, but business leaders may have looked at Google’s usage of ccTLDs as an endorsement of the importance of those extensions. That is going away.
With Google moving all of its country-specific domain names to Google.com, I think the dominance and importance of .com as the global extension will be reinforced.
Elliot, If I recall correctly, I have read in some of your other articles that you may have started to invest in other domain extensions than .com. If so, has this google announcement changed your perspective on this?
I have been investing in other extensions – and I have sold a few. In fact, I old a non-.com yesterday via DomainAgents.
That said, I am still buying many more .coms and spending a very significant multiple on .com acquisitions. I have only spent 4 figures on a couple of non .com domain names so far.