Why Oddball TLDs Aren’t Totally Useless

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

It’s almost common knowledge that .com, .net, and .org TLDs are preferable to other TLDs if you want to rank in the search engines. But that doesn’t mean that oddball TLDs are totally useless. They still provide some value for business and for search engine optimization efforts.

I’m talking primarily about country code TLDs – .pn, .me, .cc, etc. These TLDs may rank well in their countries and regionally, but overall, they don’t do well globally. That’s why you don’t really want your primary website to be one of these TLDs. But you can use these TLDs for link building.

I’ve noticed that the links that come from .pn, .me, and other nontraditional TLDs actually are powerful links. They may not carry authoritative weight the same way that an aged .com TLD would within the same niche. But if you have  TLD in your niche that is based on a country code then you’ll get relevancy credit and it’s possible that you could get authority credit if you build that TLDs authority within its native country. I can’t speak to that because I haven’t tested it. But it does seem to reason that a .pn TLD with high authority regionally could still register some authority points though not as many as a .com in the same niche with similar authority.

I don’t know, the search engine prejudice toward .coms seems irrational, but I don’t set the policy. Maybe someday that will change, but for now don’t build your primary website on low-level TLDs. You can, however, use them for other micro sites.