Get the .com if it is free or cheap. If it is taken, a .plumbing or a .contractors is a fine name to run a business on. Google has put it in writing that the ending itself gives you no lift and no penalty in search.
What Google actually put in writing
Google’s Search Central blog ran a question and answer post on new domain endings on July 21, 2015, written by John Mueller. The line most contractors need is short: “Overall, our systems treat new gTLDs like other gTLDs (like .com and .org). Keywords in a TLD do not give any advantage or disadvantage in search.”
The same post handles brand endings the same way. Those “won’t have more weight or influence in the way we crawl, index, or rank URLs.”
Now the limit in that evidence, since you should not take it further than it goes. Google prints a banner across the top of that page: “It’s been a while since we published this blog post. Some of the information may be outdated …” That is Google warning you about Google. It is still the plainest written answer on the question that Google has published on its own site, and it is eleven years old. Weigh it as the best answer available, not as proof of how ranking works this year.
Nobody can sell you a domain ending that lifts a ranking. If someone tries, that is the moment to walk.
How many endings exist, and which trades got one
IANA keeps the master list of every ending in the root zone, and anyone can download the plain text file. The copy pulled for this article is version 2026082600, stamped 26 August 2026. It lists 1,438 endings. Go count the lines yourself.
Some trade words are in there:
- .plumbing
- .contractors
- .construction
- .builders
- .repair
- .solar
- .glass
- .tools
- .equipment
Checked against that same file, these are not:
- .roofing
- .hvac
- .electrician
- .plumber
So a plumber has a trade ending waiting for him. A roofer does not. An electrician does not. That is worth knowing before you spend an afternoon planning around one.
ICANN’s delegated strings page shows PLUMBING entering the root zone on 14 November 2013, the same day as CONTRACTORS and CONSTRUCTION. That page carries no update date, and ICANN says on it that the page “is not being updated in real-time.” Its newest entry is 4 April 2022, so treat it as history rather than a current list.
The IANA record for .plumbing names the sponsoring organisation as Binky Moon, LLC, care of Identity Digital in Bellevue, Washington. Registration date 2013-11-08. Record last updated 2025-10-07.
Why .com still holds the habit
The Domain Name Industry Brief, which Verisign sponsors, put out its quarterly figures on July 23, 2026. The second quarter of 2026 closed with 401.6 million domain registrations across all endings. The .com base alone was 166.6 million as of June 30, 2026. The .net base was 12.5 million. Every country ending in the world added up to 148.6 million.
Do the division. One ending out of 1,438 holds roughly four of every ten domains on the internet.
That number says nothing about ranking. It says something about habit. A customer who half remembers your name types it and adds .com without thinking. A man reading your truck at a stop light does the same thing.
Be honest about what that figure does not prove. It counts what people registered, not what people click or trust. No source here shows a customer picking one ending over another. If someone quotes you a trust percentage for .com, ask them for the document.
When a trade ending is the right call
A trade ending earns its place in a few plain situations:
- The .com of your name is parked and the holder wants four figures for it.
- The .com belongs to a real business two states over with the same name.
- The trade word sits in the ending, so the part in front can stay short.
One caution before you buy. Do not pick a name that carries another company’s brand just to catch their searches. ICANN’s Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy has been adopted by every ICANN accredited registrar, and it lets a trademark holder file a complaint to get a name canceled, suspended, or transferred. ICANN’s page shows the current version updated 21 February 2024.
This is not legal advice. Naming rules and the paperwork behind a business name differ from state to state, so if you are not sure whether a name steps on somebody’s mark, ask an attorney in your own state before you pay for it, not after.
The case where you should buy nothing at all
If you already have a .com, it is painted on your trucks, printed on your invoices and stuck in your yard signs, and customers reach you at it, leave it where it is. There is no search gain waiting on the other side of the switch.
Google’s own post treats a domain move like any other site move, then adds the part people skip: “domain changes can take time to be processed for Search” and “it’s generally best to choose a domain that will fit your long-term needs.”
A domain move also drags things along behind it. Your email address on the old name has to keep working. Your new name needs its own certificate on day one, or visitors get the warning covered in what to do when your site says not secure. The mechanics of a clean cutover, and the order things have to happen in, are the same ones in changing hosts without going dark.
None of that is a reason to never move. It is a reason to not move for a search benefit that the evidence above does not support.
What to do next
- Check whether the .com of your business name is free today.
- If it is free, register it, and register it for several years at once so it cannot lapse on you.
- If it is taken, add your city or the word your customers actually say. A trade word and a town name together usually read fine as a .com.
- Only after those come up empty, look at a trade ending, and confirm your trade even has one on the IANA list.
- Say the finished name out loud on a phone call before you pay. If the person on the other end asks you to spell it twice, pick a different name.
- Whatever you land on, run one name and point everything else at it. Two live names split your links and confuse your customers.
Once the name is settled, the work that moves the needle sits inside the site, not in the ending. That is the website build itself. If you want to see where you stand before spending anything, the free scan asks AI assistants what a customer in your trade asks and writes down who gets named.