Earlier this week, Matthew talked to our friends over at Fourth Source about the recently published applications for the new round of gTLD (generic top level domains), which could indicate the start of a second “gold rush” for domain names with generic, commercial keywords in them.

He talks a bit about the history between gTLD’s and SEO, before explaining why he thinks buying domains for SEO isn’t a good idea. The main reason being because of the constant changes in search engine algorithms and how the signal for domain names is seen as less important compared to how they were in the past.

Matthew considers what happens with the new gTLDs once they are approved and go live as registrars –he’s still expecting a rush to buy those domains that are considered quite valuable. He believes that many companies will do an audit of new names, to see whether they need to compliment their new expensive top level domains with new second level domains and that others will buy out of fear whether it’s to protect their brand names or if they think they’ll get an SEO edge.

Matthew suggests that it is ultimately a pointless exercise as it’ll get harder, almost impossible to hold a bunch of second level domains for every possible gTLD.

You can read the full article on Fourth Source’s website.