Is it just me but .biz domains just don't go well with seo? I tester .pro domain and it seeds very well but those biz domains don't want to do it for me. Am I wrong?
engine
4:51 pm on Dec 19, 2024 (gmt 0)
I noticed a lot were registered as junk domains and that might have helped play a part.
I had a few when they first came out and they never got anywhere.
jmccormac
4:56 am on Dec 20, 2024 (gmt 0)
It is a small gTLD (around 1.2M registrations) and is not a major player in the domain footprint of most countries. The main axis for most countries is the local ccTLD and .COM. They typically have 80% of those markets. The Web Usage percent for TLDs matters. The ccTLDs often have up to 40% of their domain names actively developed. The percentage for .BIZ is much lower. Most of the registrations are brand protection registrations and are not used. Even to the people in Google, any attempt to optimise and promote a .BIZ websites should look odd.
There is a kind of effect where a TLD effectively splits into two different TLDs when the registry decides to sporadically use heavy discounting to drive registrations and also increase the fees on renewals. There is an older and more stable set of registrations that keep renewing and many of them are undeveloped brand protection registrations that have gone through their first renewals. Then there is a TLD made up of first year registrations and many of them will not renew.
The age of the registrations by last recorded new appearance in the first of the month zone files are:
Percentages of the .BIZ count (1,217,697) are for the 01 December 2024 zone file.
Some of the domain names registered in 2023 are still going through their renewal process. For domain names registered in December 2023, the renewal/deletion cycle will end in April 2025.
In terms of domain name age, a domain name registered in 2024 won't become a "veteran" registration until 2025-2026. Until then, the registration is a potential one-year-wonder that may be dropped without being renewed. (Approximately 50% of all .COM new registrations in 2023 will drop without being renewed.) If the registration is on a registrar that is a discount chaser (avails of registry promotions to offer reduced registration fees to its customers), then it may be another signal that it is not, despite any good work by the registrant, a potentially important website. Domain name age may be a factor in rating the websites and any SEO benefits may only appear in the second year.
The reason why .BIZ never became a competitor to .COM is simple: the bursting of the DotCOM bubble. The fallacy was (and still is) that all the good domain names are taken. The problem was that the DotCOM bubble burst in 2000 and many of the the domain names that had previously been unavailable came back on the market. The .BIZ was also intended to be for businesses only and that policy didn't work out well. Before the bubble burst, the .BIZ made sense for businesses that could not get their .COM domain name. When the bubble burst, the unique sellign proposition wasn't so unique.
As for .PRO, it's launch was one that should be taught in business schools for its sheer cluelessness. Its business plan was to get a significant percentage of registrations from professionals (doctors, lawyers, accountants etc). It only ended up with a few thousand registrations. It had to rethink its plan and the gTLD was later acquired by Afilias.
Regards...jmcc
randle
1:28 am on Dec 27, 2024 (gmt 0)
.biz sites can be successful but they are predominantly destined for failure before there ever launched, and it has nothing to do with "seo", or Google not liking them or some other mysterious ailment. Its all about perception. Its because it lacks the perception of radiating quality. It lacks energy and doesn't provide excitement for the people charged with building it up (even if thats you and you dont think that will matter). All new sites are difficult to get down the runway and off the ground but trying to lift off with a .biz tld puts heavy drag on the flight. The inevitable poor rankings further erode the energy and amount of resources put into the site, and the death spiral begins.
Who among you would recommend to a client, or friend who is starting a company, to base the foundation of there online branding efforts on a ".biz" domain? You could sell them on the concept, but deep down there will be a lack of excitement for them, and those charged with bringing the site to its fruition. Low enthusiasm will always produce less than desired results and a .biz tld brings low enthusiasm as opposed to a great .com that someone had to shell out some real money for which shows commitment.
Siminoff could have saved a million bucks by buying ring.biz instead of ring.com, but how excited would his employees have been about that, and what would the consumer perception of it have been?
Whitey
1:34 am on Dec 29, 2024 (gmt 0)
Great insights from @jmccormac and @randle on the challenges of .BIZ. A few thoughts and questions
1/ Perception Issues: Can .BIZ rebrand itself, similar to .IO or .PRO, and find a niche? Or is its reputation too damaged?
2/ SEO vs. Trust: Is the poor SEO performance of .BIZ due to the TLD itself or the low-quality sites typically using it?
3/ ccTLDs vs. gTLDs: With ccTLDs performing strongly in local markets, should businesses targeting specific regions prioritize them over .COM or .BIZ?
4/ Future of TLDs: With AI and voice search evolving, will the importance of TLDs diminish in favor of content and user behavior?
With that, I wonder if .BIZ can find relevance, or is it time to move on?
justinmundia
12:20 pm on Dec 30, 2024 (gmt 0)
You should focus on content and quality backlinks for .biz domains. It works well as other domains do. I have been working on .biz domains since 2009 and got nice results.
