Do new domain extensions like .io, .dev, and .ai affect SEO?

Sajjad
Domain
26 Oct, 2026

No, new domain extensions like .io, .dev and .ai don't directly help or hurt your Google rankings. Google has said it treats new generic TLDs the same as .com, and it treats a set of popular two-letter extensions, including .io and .ai, as generic rather than tied to their countries. A keyword in the extension, such as .shop or .photography, gives you no ranking boost. The effects that do exist are indirect: how much users trust and click on the domain, whether people remember it correctly, how email filters treat it, and whether the extension sends an unwanted country signal.

This guide explains how search engines handle each type of extension, where the myths come from, which indirect factors are worth weighing, the technical quirks of extensions like .dev, and how to switch extensions later without losing rankings.

How Google Treats Domain Extensions

Search engines classify extensions in two broad groups.

Generic Extensions

Generic TLDs have no geographic meaning. This includes the legacy ones (.com, .net, .org), the new gTLDs (.app, .dev, .shop, .blog, .xyz) and, importantly, a list of country codes that Google has decided to treat as generic because they're used worldwide for non-geographic reasons.

A site on a generic extension can rank in any country. Google works out which audience it serves from other signals: content language, hreflang annotations, local links, addresses and currency on the page, and where its visitors come from.

Country-Code Extensions

ccTLDs such as .de, .fr, .co.uk and .com.au are a strong signal that a site targets one country. A .de site will tend to perform better in Google Germany and is less likely to rank well for the same query in the United States. That's good if you serve Germany and a limitation if you want to reach everyone.

Where .io, .ai and .co Fit

.io, .ai, .co, .me and .tv are technically ccTLDs (British Indian Ocean Territory, Anguilla, Colombia, Montenegro and Tuvalu). Google's documentation lists these, and a number of others, as ccTLDs it treats as generic because so many sites use them without any connection to the country. That means:

A .io start-up isn't assumed to target the British Indian Ocean Territory.
A .ai company can rank internationally like a .com.

Google updates this list occasionally, so check its current documentation if you rely on it. Other search engines may handle these extensions differently. For more on how these categories differ in policy rather than SEO, see gTLDs vs ccTLDs vs new TLDs.

City and Regional gTLDs

Extensions such as .london, .nyc or .berlin are new gTLDs, not ccTLDs. Google has said it treats them as generic, so .london isn't a guaranteed boost for London searches. Your local relevance still comes from your content, your Google Business Profile, local links and citations.

Common Myths About Extensions and SEO

"A Keyword in the Extension Helps Rankings"

It doesn't. Google ignores the extension as a keyword signal, so example.shop doesn't rank better for "shop" queries than example.com. The extension may make the name more descriptive to people, which can help click-through, but that's a human effect, not an algorithmic one.

"New Extensions Are Penalised"

There's no penalty for using a new gTLD. Plenty of well-ranked sites use .io, .dev, .app and .ai. A low-quality site will struggle on any extension, and a strong site will do well on any extension.

".com Ranks Better"

Not by itself. .com sites are over-represented in search results because there are so many of them and because many of the oldest, most-linked sites use .com. Correlation isn't causation.

"Cheap Extensions Are Spam Signals"

This is partly true, but not for rankings in the way people think. Some very cheap extensions attract a lot of abusive registrations, and security tools, email filters and some users treat them with suspicion. Google evaluates sites individually rather than demoting a whole extension, but you shouldn't ignore the reputation entirely. More on that below.

The Indirect Factors That Do Matter

Since the extension isn't a ranking factor, the real question is how it affects people and other systems. These indirect effects can influence traffic, links and conversions.

Click-Through Rate and Trust

Searchers glance at the URL in results. If your audience is unfamiliar with an extension, they may skip it in favour of a result that looks more established. This varies widely by audience:

Extension	Typical perception
`.io`	Familiar and credible to tech audiences, less so to the general public
`.ai`	Strongly associated with AI products, can look trendy to some users
`.dev`	Clear to developers, unclear to most other audiences
`.app`	Clear for software and mobile apps
`.shop`, `.store`	Understood as e-commerce
Very cheap generic extensions	Sometimes associated with spam or phishing

Know your audience. A .dev is a natural fit for a developer tool, but a high-street solicitor would probably lose trust with it.

Memorability and Direct Traffic

People who hear your domain on a podcast or see it on a van will often type .com by habit. If you use .io and someone else owns the .com, part of your branded traffic goes to them. Branded search and direct visits are signs of a healthy brand, so leaking them is a real cost, even if it isn't an algorithmic one.

Links

Other sites link to you more readily if your domain looks trustworthy and is easy to remember. A confusing extension won't block links, but it can add a little friction when people write about you or cite your work.

Email Deliverability

Your domain is also your email identity. Some spam filters weigh the sender's TLD, and extensions with a history of abuse can attract extra scrutiny. This doesn't affect Google rankings, but if your sign-up emails or newsletters land in spam, your business suffers. Proper SPF, DKIM and DMARC records matter more than the extension, so set them up regardless. See how to prevent email spoofing.

Country Signals You Didn't Intend

If you pick a ccTLD that Google doesn't treat as generic because you like how it reads, for example a two-letter code that spells a word, you may be telling search engines your site targets a country you have nothing to do with. Check the extension's status before you commit, especially for international sites.

Technical Quirks of Some New Extensions

.dev and .app Require HTTPS

.dev, .app and several other extensions run by the same registry are on the HSTS preload list built into major browsers. That means browsers will only connect to them over HTTPS, and there's no way to opt out. If you use one of these extensions:

You must have a valid SSL/TLS certificate before the site works at all.
Plain HTTP links to your site are upgraded automatically.

This is good for security and has no negative SEO effect, since HTTPS is already standard, but it catches people out during set-up. You can confirm a site serves HTTPS correctly with curl:

curl -sI https://example.dev | head -n 5

HTTP/2 200
content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8
strict-transport-security: max-age=63072000; includeSubDomains; preload
date: Mon, 26 Oct 2026 09:00:00 GMT
server: nginx

If the request fails with a certificate error, browsers will refuse to show the site, and so will search engine crawlers.

Political and Policy Risk on ccTLDs

Generic-use ccTLDs like .io and .ai are controlled by the registry for that country or territory. Pricing and policy changes are outside your control, and in the case of .io, changes to the territory's status have raised questions about the extension's long-term future. A change that forced you to move domains would carry real SEO risk, because every migration carries some risk. It's not a reason to avoid these extensions, but it's a reason to own a fallback.

Renewal Pricing

Several popular new extensions, .ai in particular, cost noticeably more to register and renew than .com. Losing a domain because a renewal was missed or became too expensive would be far more damaging to SEO than any extension choice. Turn on auto-renewal for any domain your rankings depend on.

How to Check How Your Domain Is Indexed

Whatever extension you use, the fundamentals are the same. A few quick checks:

Confirm a single canonical host. Your site should resolve to one version, for example https://www.example.io, with every other version redirecting to it.
Verify the domain in Google Search Console. Use a domain property, which is verified with a DNS TXT record. See how to verify domain ownership with a TXT record.
Use hreflang for multi-country sites on generic extensions, so search engines understand which page serves which audience.

You can test that all variants redirect to one canonical URL with a short loop:

for url in http://example.io http://www.example.io https://example.io https://www.example.io; do
  printf "%-28s " "$url"
  curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code} -> %{redirect_url}\n" "$url"
done

http://example.io            301 -> https://www.example.io/
http://www.example.io        301 -> https://www.example.io/
https://example.io           301 -> https://www.example.io/
https://www.example.io       200 ->

Protecting a New-Extension Brand

If your main site uses .io, .ai or .dev, it's worth also registering the matching .com when it's available and affordable, and redirecting it permanently to your main domain. This captures visitors who type .com by habit and gives you a fallback if anything happens to the primary extension.

Here's an nginx block that sends the .com to a .io primary:

server {
    listen 80;
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name example.com www.example.com;

    ssl_certificate     /etc/ssl/example-com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/example-com/privkey.pem;

    return 301 https://www.example.io$request_uri;
}

The equivalent in an Apache .htaccess file on the .com host:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^(www\.)?example\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ https://www.example.io/$1 [R=301,L]

For a wider strategy, see should you register multiple domain extensions.

Switching Extensions Later

Many companies start on .io or .ai and move to .com once they can afford it. This is entirely possible without losing rankings, but it's a full domain migration, not a cosmetic change. The essentials are:

Map every old URL to its new equivalent with a 301 redirect, page by page, not everything to the home page.
Keep the old domain and its redirects in place for the long term, ideally permanently.
Use the Change of Address tool in Google Search Console.
Update internal links, canonical tags, sitemaps and your most important backlinks.

Expect some ranking fluctuation for a few weeks while search engines process the move. The full process is covered in how to move your website to a new domain without losing SEO.

FAQ: Domain Extensions and SEO

No. Google treats .io as a generic extension, so it isn't tied to the British Indian Ocean Territory and can rank internationally like a .com. Any effect comes from how your audience perceives it, not from the algorithm.

.ai has no direct ranking advantage or disadvantage. Google treats it as generic, so it works for international sites. It's a strong brand signal for AI products, but it usually costs more to renew than .com.

No. Google doesn't use the extension as a keyword signal. A descriptive extension might make your result more appealing to click, but it doesn't improve your position.

.dev is on the HSTS preload list built into browsers, so they force every connection to HTTPS. You need a valid SSL/TLS certificate in place before the site will load at all.

Use a ccTLD if you mainly serve one country, because it's a strong local signal and is trusted by local users. Use a generic extension, such as .com or a widely used one like .io, if you serve an international audience.

A carefully planned move with page-level 301 redirects and a Search Console Change of Address usually keeps rankings, though you may see temporary fluctuations. Problems usually come from missing redirects or letting the old domain lapse.

Conclusion

Domain extensions like .io, .dev and .ai aren't a ranking factor. Google treats new gTLDs and a list of popular two-letter extensions as generic, ignores keywords in the extension, and evaluates sites on their content, links and technical quality. Only true country-code extensions carry a meaningful signal, and that signal is about which country you target, not how well you rank.

The real effects are human and practical: how much your audience trusts the extension, whether they remember it, how email filters treat it, what it costs to renew and how stable its policies are. Choose an extension your audience recognises, protect the matching .com if you can, and focus your SEO effort where it counts.