Redirects

The 13 best TLDs for education institutions and beyond

January 15, 2025
4 min read

When Shakespeare wrote the famous line, “What’s in a name?” he couldn’t have known the answer for web addresses is “a lot.” A well-designed URL doesn’t just let visitors know where to find you. It also announces your brand, industry, and tech savviness—all within a handful of characters.

Because web addresses are so impactful but also so short, it’s essential to consider every aspect. That includes the top-level domain (TLD), which is the part of the domain name that comes after the final dot. TLDs can be customized to signify a user’s purpose, owner, or geographical area.

For educational institutions, this attention to detail is important. A well-chosen TLD differentiates you from other schools with similar names and lends credibility to your website, leading to more visitors and better SEO rankings.

Fortunately, a plethora of good TLD options exist. Here are the 13 best TLDs for educational institutions and those in related fields.

What is a TLD?

TLDs are the last part of a website address and indicate a website’s type or category. The most well-known TLD is probably .com, short for “commercial”. Another popular TLD, .net, stands for network. .Org stands for organization…you get the idea.

TLDs used to be restricted to a relatively small number. Then in 2012, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) launched a program allowing for the creation of new, non-generic TLDs, leading to the creation of over 1,500 TLDs. 

ICANN-sanctioned TLDs fall into five categories. The first one is generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD). This includes the most popular and well-known TLDs, including .com, .org, .net, and .biz. The next category is sponsored Top-Level Domains (sTLD). This is for private organizations and includes universities, government agencies, and museums. The third category denotes countries (ccTLDs); the last two categories deal with specialized use cases like web infrastructure.

The best TLDs will take into consideration the following qualities:

  • Aesthetic: A well-chosen TLD has design appeal. This makes it more appealing to website visitors and improves brand identity much like a vanity URL.
  • Specificity: TLDs can denote a company’s industry, geographic location, or owner. This can make for a more interesting, memorable, and clickable web address.
  • Security and SEO: Websites with TLDs tailored toward their industry can make people feel safer and encourage them to click. This raises conversion rates and benefits SEO rankings.

Customizing your TLD can also let people know you think outside the box since a certain level of creativity is necessary for choosing the right one.

The best TLDs for educational institutions

Qualifying higher education institutions can apply for a .edu TLD. That includes universities and colleges based in the US and accredited by the US Department of Education. 

Many educational institutions don’t qualify for a .edu TLD, but still want to signify their connection to learning. Art schools, trade schools, online programs, and even mentorship programs can benefit from adopting a TLD related to their purpose. Here are the 13 best TLDs for those organizations.

  1. .education: Any organization with a strong emphasis on learning may want to adopt this TLD. That includes businesses providing learning materials, training, or a set program.
  2. .school: This is a great option for organizations that follow more traditional teaching methods, such as hosting classes (both online or in-person) or awarding diplomas and certifications.
  3. .institute: This TLD works well for any place dedicated to a particular field of study. Research centers, training centers, or any company wanting to enhance their professional image may consider it. 
  4. .university: This option works well for institutions that don’t qualify for a .edu TLD but embrace higher learning. Online schools offering several programs may want to explore this choice.
  5. .center: Places of learning with a strong community base may choose this TLD, as it suggests a place for people to gather, learn, and grow. Companies that host events, have online forums, or with a strong social component may want to choose it.
  6. .academy: This TLD has a strong educational bent, and is useful for any organization that provides specialized training. Tutoring services, language schools, art institutions, and more rely on this TLD to represent their dedication to learning.
  7. .club: This is a more casual yet effective TLD that can be useful for organizations centered on communities built around shared interests. 
  8. .camp: This is a great choice for organizations that run intensive or seasonal training programs, thanks to its association with boot camps, summer camps, and other limited-time, focused training programs.
  9. .training: Many types of learning involve training for advanced skill sets. This TLD is a perfect option for organizations that want to emphasize that aspect.
  10. .guide: Some places rely heavily on the teachings of a single leader. This TLD helps point to that person, their practice, or their ideals.
  11.  .coach: Not all forms of learning take place in a formal setting. Some occur in less formal, more intimate contexts, such as one-on-ones with a coach or through a self-guided program that relies on digital teaching materials. This TLD works well for those occasions.
  12. .study: This TLD works well for organizations that want to emphasize the behind-the-scenes work involved in learning. It also works well for tutoring services or places that provide educational materials.
  13. .pro: Any organization that provides training to become a professional in some respect might consider this TLD.

There are also hyper-specialized TLDs that apply for rare use cases. For instance, .science works for training programs emphasizing that field of study. The best TLD for your educational institution may vary depending on your niche; consider exploring your options.

Other considerations when designing a URL

The best TLD can serve your organization’s best interests by making your web address brand-specific, memorable, and trustworthy to visitors. It’s also worthwhile to consider other aspects of your web address, such as:

  • Prepend usage: Every web address once had to start with www. Nowadays, web addresses can forgo that prepend. This article explores the pros and cons of prepend usage so you can decide whether to use one or not. 
  • Domain name: A well-composed domain name can alert visitors to your website’s purpose or brand. 
  • A vanity URL: Vanity URLs are customized short links that integrate well with smart QR codes and other digital campaigns. This article explores the ins and outs of adopting one.

SiteDetour can help you some aspects of setting up a web address, such as creating a vanity URL. It can also seamlessly redirect visitors to any domain of your choosing. The platform’s easy-to-use interface enables users to streamline their web presence in a matter of minutes.

Get in touch to learn more about our redirect services or other capabilities.

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Redirects

The 13 best TLDs for education institutions and beyond

April 3, 2023
4 min read
TLD

A redirect is a tool used by websites for “rerouting” or sending a visitor to an alternative webpage. An example of a redirect would be when you type “example.com” in your web-browser, but are taken to a different website, like “new-example.com.”

URL redirects are an extremely common practice employed by webmasters and content managers to ensure visitors to their website are reaching their desired content.

When would I use a redirect?

  1. A page has been relocated within your site
    Let’s say your website has a page by the path “/t-shirts” – The “t-shirts” page has been a part of your website sitemap for years, and is one of your most frequently visited pages. Suddenly, you need to build out a more general page on your site that has t-shirts, and dress shirts. Your goal is to have the new page be accessible by a shorter, more general path, like “/shirts”. In this situation, you would want to use a URL redirect to ensure that traffic for the page “/t-shirts” is successfully rerouted to the new “/shirts” page of your website. Without a redirect in place, you could run the risk of visitors still accessing the old /t-shirts page, even though you want to drive all traffic to the new /shirts page. Due to the nature of SEO, it’s possible that there are many links throughout the Internet that still point visitors to the old URL, and it is the job of the URL redirect to ensure visitors still make it to the appropriate page.
  2. Your domain name is changing!
    Changing a website’s domain name is a drastic decision which must be handled with the utmost care. Let’s say your website has always been www.abc-brand.com. Due to a rebranding effort, you are changing your brand from “ABC” to “XYZ”, and thus your website’s URL will need to be adjusted to reflect the change. In this scenario, it would be critical that you 301 redirect all traffic requesting “abc-brand.com” to the new and improved “xyz-brand.com”. Furthermore, you would want to ensure that all pages within the abc-brand website are also redirected, like abc-brand.com/my-page being redirected to xyx-brand.com/my-page
  3. You have alternative domains that you wish to serve as “shortcuts” into your website
    It is a common practice for businesses to buy dozens of domain names that:
  • Are spelled similarly to their business name – consider “gogle.com” that redirects to google.com
  • Are variations of their name that visitors may otherwise know them as – consider “joes-tees.com” that redirects to the main business website, “joes-shirts.com”
  • Are shortened, easily typed versions of the primary domain name – consider “shirtsale2019.com” redirecting to “joes-shirts.com”. It is common to find this shorter, more memorable URL variation on physical advertisements because people are more likely to remember them. As such, a URL redirect would be used to reroute the alternative domain name to your primary domain name of your website.

How does a redirect actually work?

When you request a web-page from your browser, there is a server somewhere on the Internet that is receiving your request and responding with the appropriate content. Fundamentally, a redirect occurs when a web-server's response contains a special piece of data (an HTTP response header) instructing the browser to reroute the visitor to an alternative location.

The technical details aside, a browser works by requesting a URL and rendering the page that is returned by the website. If the website wishes the user to be redirected, the server will respond differently than if it was serving a page; it will send an extra piece of data indicating that the visitor should be redirected to a specified location.

Without going into too much of the technical details – a redirect is a behavior performed by a web-browser whenever it receives a response containing a flag (an HTTP header) to do so.

What are the types of redirects available?

301 Redirect

Commonly referred to as a “permanent” redirect.

Indicates to search-engines and web-browsers that the requested page has permanently relocated to a new location.

Note: permanent redirects are often cached by web-browsers like Chrome and Firefox. Therefore, it may be tricky to retroactively update a 301 redirects target location once it has been established. Any visitors who have already received the 301 redirect response for a URL will likely be served a cached response from their web-browser when visiting the same URL again.

Suggestion Only use a 301 redirect when you know that the target location will not change.

Common Uses

  • A 301 redirect is appropriate when a website is changing it’s domain name. In this scenario, the site should be 301 redirecting all traffic for it’s old domain name to the new website URL.
  • Another common use-case for a 301 redirect is for pages within your website that have been permanently moved to a new URL

302 Redirect

Commonly referred to as a “temporary” redirect.

Useful for general-purpose redirects within your website, where you do not want visitor’s to cache the redirect response permanently.

Suggestion Use 302 redirects for pages that have changed URL, but are subject to be updated in the future

Common Uses

  • A page is temporarily being moved to a new URL
  • Conditions where the destination location of the redirect is subject to change
  • Navigating the user away from a page during an error

307 Redirect

Uncommon due to legacy browser support

Used for technical scenarios when a visitor’s HTTP request method should be persisted when they are redirected. For example, if a user submits a form, the browser normally issues a POST request to the form’s action URL. If the server responds with a 302 redirect response, the client’s web-browser would typically issue a GET request when handling the redirect. However, if the server responds with a 307 redirect response, the client’s web-browser will POST request to the redirect destination. Please note, form-data is typically lost when redirecting via POST request.

When do I need a redirect?

The most common use-cases that would require a redirect are:

  1. Changing your domain name
  2. Restructuring website pathing, resulting in URL changes for content within your website
  3. URL shortening – having a shorter, more memorable alternative to your primary domain name.
  4. Sending traffic from additional/alternative domain names (Example: gogle.com redirects to google.com)
  5. Sending traffic from your DNS zone apex / naked domain name to your “www” sub-domain (Example: domain.com 301 redirects to www.domain.com)

Important considerations when redirecting a URL

  1. Ensure your URL supports HTTPS connections! Otherwise you may have visitors who are receiving broken links.
  2. When redirecting a specific path within your website, you may want to match paths based on a pattern or Regular Expression, as opposed to a single path.
  3. Seriously consider whether you should use a 301 or a 302, based on the information above.

When Shakespeare wrote the famous line, “What’s in a name?” he couldn’t have known the answer for web addresses is “a lot.” A well-designed URL doesn’t just let visitors know where to find you. It also announces your brand, industry, and tech savviness—all within a handful of characters.

Because web addresses are so impactful but also so short, it’s essential to consider every aspect. That includes the top-level domain (TLD), which is the part of the domain name that comes after the final dot. TLDs can be customized to signify a user’s purpose, owner, or geographical area.

For educational institutions, this attention to detail is important. A well-chosen TLD differentiates you from other schools with similar names and lends credibility to your website, leading to more visitors and better SEO rankings.

Fortunately, a plethora of good TLD options exist. Here are the 13 best TLDs for educational institutions and those in related fields.

What is a TLD?

TLDs are the last part of a website address and indicate a website’s type or category. The most well-known TLD is probably .com, short for “commercial”. Another popular TLD, .net, stands for network. .Org stands for organization…you get the idea.

TLDs used to be restricted to a relatively small number. Then in 2012, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) launched a program allowing for the creation of new, non-generic TLDs, leading to the creation of over 1,500 TLDs. 

ICANN-sanctioned TLDs fall into five categories. The first one is generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD). This includes the most popular and well-known TLDs, including .com, .org, .net, and .biz. The next category is sponsored Top-Level Domains (sTLD). This is for private organizations and includes universities, government agencies, and museums. The third category denotes countries (ccTLDs); the last two categories deal with specialized use cases like web infrastructure.

The best TLDs will take into consideration the following qualities:

  • Aesthetic: A well-chosen TLD has design appeal. This makes it more appealing to website visitors and improves brand identity much like a vanity URL.
  • Specificity: TLDs can denote a company’s industry, geographic location, or owner. This can make for a more interesting, memorable, and clickable web address.
  • Security and SEO: Websites with TLDs tailored toward their industry can make people feel safer and encourage them to click. This raises conversion rates and benefits SEO rankings.

Customizing your TLD can also let people know you think outside the box since a certain level of creativity is necessary for choosing the right one.

The best TLDs for educational institutions

Qualifying higher education institutions can apply for a .edu TLD. That includes universities and colleges based in the US and accredited by the US Department of Education. 

Many educational institutions don’t qualify for a .edu TLD, but still want to signify their connection to learning. Art schools, trade schools, online programs, and even mentorship programs can benefit from adopting a TLD related to their purpose. Here are the 13 best TLDs for those organizations.

  1. .education: Any organization with a strong emphasis on learning may want to adopt this TLD. That includes businesses providing learning materials, training, or a set program.
  2. .school: This is a great option for organizations that follow more traditional teaching methods, such as hosting classes (both online or in-person) or awarding diplomas and certifications.
  3. .institute: This TLD works well for any place dedicated to a particular field of study. Research centers, training centers, or any company wanting to enhance their professional image may consider it. 
  4. .university: This option works well for institutions that don’t qualify for a .edu TLD but embrace higher learning. Online schools offering several programs may want to explore this choice.
  5. .center: Places of learning with a strong community base may choose this TLD, as it suggests a place for people to gather, learn, and grow. Companies that host events, have online forums, or with a strong social component may want to choose it.
  6. .academy: This TLD has a strong educational bent, and is useful for any organization that provides specialized training. Tutoring services, language schools, art institutions, and more rely on this TLD to represent their dedication to learning.
  7. .club: This is a more casual yet effective TLD that can be useful for organizations centered on communities built around shared interests. 
  8. .camp: This is a great choice for organizations that run intensive or seasonal training programs, thanks to its association with boot camps, summer camps, and other limited-time, focused training programs.
  9. .training: Many types of learning involve training for advanced skill sets. This TLD is a perfect option for organizations that want to emphasize that aspect.
  10. .guide: Some places rely heavily on the teachings of a single leader. This TLD helps point to that person, their practice, or their ideals.
  11.  .coach: Not all forms of learning take place in a formal setting. Some occur in less formal, more intimate contexts, such as one-on-ones with a coach or through a self-guided program that relies on digital teaching materials. This TLD works well for those occasions.
  12. .study: This TLD works well for organizations that want to emphasize the behind-the-scenes work involved in learning. It also works well for tutoring services or places that provide educational materials.
  13. .pro: Any organization that provides training to become a professional in some respect might consider this TLD.

There are also hyper-specialized TLDs that apply for rare use cases. For instance, .science works for training programs emphasizing that field of study. The best TLD for your educational institution may vary depending on your niche; consider exploring your options.

Other considerations when designing a URL

The best TLD can serve your organization’s best interests by making your web address brand-specific, memorable, and trustworthy to visitors. It’s also worthwhile to consider other aspects of your web address, such as:

  • Prepend usage: Every web address once had to start with www. Nowadays, web addresses can forgo that prepend. This article explores the pros and cons of prepend usage so you can decide whether to use one or not. 
  • Domain name: A well-composed domain name can alert visitors to your website’s purpose or brand. 
  • A vanity URL: Vanity URLs are customized short links that integrate well with smart QR codes and other digital campaigns. This article explores the ins and outs of adopting one.

SiteDetour can help you some aspects of setting up a web address, such as creating a vanity URL. It can also seamlessly redirect visitors to any domain of your choosing. The platform’s easy-to-use interface enables users to streamline their web presence in a matter of minutes.

Get in touch to learn more about our redirect services or other capabilities.