If you are like me you try to gain any advantage you can in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) game for your websites. I also used to try to gain any edge for various clients websites. (In case you weren’t aware helping others with SEO is a painful experience.)
Even though my serious SEO days are behind me I still pop onto SEO discussion forums and the subreddit communities /SEO and /BigSEO once in awhile. It’s interesting reading different perspectives and what effect Google is having on people’s businesses. (If you guessed not positive, that would be accurate.)
Recently I noticed this quote from the user u/JohnMu in the /BigSEO subreddit.
For better or worse, people still like .com’s.
Why is this a notable comment? The person leaving the comment was John Mueller, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst.
Mueller is known in SEO circles as the “new Matt Cutts”. Matt Cutts used to be the head of Google’s Webspam team and would make videos answering questions from people about Google’s thoughts and practices regarding ranking websites. The videos were highly useful and would be something that many marketers and professional search engine optimizers would write about, comment on, and debate.
In the past Matt Cutts commented on why he thought ccTLDs Hacks are not Good and revisited talking about ccTLD Generic use.
The videos stopped several years ago, much to professionals in the SEO space disappointment. Laster last year Cutts took a sabbatical from Google to work for the US Digital Service. (The US Digital Service is where Silicon Valley douches migrate to when they think they can fix all of government’s problems.)
SEO Fail – USDS.gov writes blog posts on Medium instead of using an in-house blog on the website. Why???
Matt Cutts has no plans to return to work for Google. Last month Cutts announced that he was the US Digital Service’s full time Director of Engineering.
Who did this leave to do community outreach when people hand questions about Google and SEO? John Mueller.
Mueller regularly heads up Google Hangouts discussions for Webmasters in English. As well he also holds Google Hangouts for Webmasters in his native language, German. Mueller is based in Zurich, Switzerland.
Mueller also leaves comments on Reddit once once in awhile. Extremely useful insight since it is coming directly from someone at Google with real authority. Compared to your cousin who thinks he knows about SEO. Of course… I recommend you take what Google says with a bit of a grain of salt. They’ve lead me astray more than once with “advice.”
So John Mueller, the current Google SEO community outreach authority, admits people still like .com domains and likely will continue to use them. What do you think about Google saying “People still like .com’s?”
