This factor reports whether a search result’s top-level domain is something other than .com, .net, or .org. It returns 1 when the parsed TLD falls outside those three and 0 when it is one of them — a description of URL structure, not a measure of content quality or a cause of ranking.
| Factor ID | RG-SRP-031 |
|---|---|
| Family | Search Result URL |
| Measurement | Binary presence (0 / 1) |
| Measured zone | Parsed result URL |
What it measures
The factor looks at a single component of each result’s address: its top-level domain. It answers one narrow question — is the parsed TLD not one of the three most common generic extensions, .com, .net, or .org? Results on newer or specialized extensions (for example .io, .ai, .co, .dev, or a country-code TLD) fall on the 1 side; the three classic generics fall on the 0 side. Nothing about the page’s words, links, or authority enters this measurement.
How RankGear measures it
RankGear parses the result URL, lowercases the extracted top-level domain, and compares it against a fixed set. It returns 0 for .com, .net, and .org, and returns 1 for every other parsed TLD. The output depends entirely on RankGear’s parsed URL components and its internal TLD table — there is no scoring, weighting, or judgment beyond that lookup.
| Value | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 1 | The parsed TLD is not .com, .net, or .org (e.g. .io, .ai, a ccTLD). |
| 0 | The parsed TLD is .com, .net, or .org. |
How to optimize it
Treat this as an observation, not a target. Choose URLs and domains for user clarity, brand fit, security, and stable architecture — the reasons that actually serve people who land on your pages. Do not migrate or restructure URLs solely to match a correlated binary pattern; a value of 1 is not inherently better than a value of 0, and chasing one over the other invites cost without a real benefit.
Important considerations
- This reports URL structure, not content quality or ranking causation — a correlated pattern within a measured result set is not a lever that makes a page rank.
- Values depend on RankGear’s parsed URL components and TLD table, so parsing edge cases can affect the result.
- URL and domain changes can carry material migration risk; weigh that against any perceived pattern-matching gain.
- A value of 1 is not inherently preferable to a value of 0.
Related factors
Part of the Factors reference · how RankGear measures · glossary.