The ICANN Grants Program supports a pioneering study on the impact of geolinguistic domains in search engines, led by .cat
Does having a linguistic or geoterritorial domain harm my search engine visibility? How do AI-powered search engines handle these types of domains? These and other questions are at the heart of the project “Assessing GeoTLD’s performance for enhanced Internet accessibility: An open source methodological approach” (in Catalan, “Com avaluar el paper dels GeoTLD per fer Internet més accessible: una metodologia oberta i reutilitzable”), led by the .cat domain and submitted in May 2024 during the first call for applications of the ICANN Grants Program, with the support of ISOC-CAT, the geoTLD Group, and 11 other linguistic, cultural, and geoterritorial domain registries.
In 2025, this project was selected as one of 19 initiatives to receive support from ICANN’s Grant Program. ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) is the international non-profit organization that, since 1998, has ensured a stable, secure, and unified global Internet by coordinating key elements such as IP addresses, domain names, and protocol parameters.
A grants program focused on Internet sustainability and inclusivity
Through this grant program launched in 2024, ICANN supports projects in two key priority areas:
• Enhancing Internet unique identifier systems to improve long-term usability and sustainability of the DNS, strengthen its security and stability, and promote Universal Acceptance to ensure fully multilingual and inclusive systems.
• Advancing a more inclusive Internet, ensuring that everyone, regardless of language or location, can fully participate. This includes ensuring interoperability across systems and services, building resilience to unforeseen challenges, and contributing to the smooth operation of the Internet at local, national, and global levels.
A clear and ambitious goal: understanding the role of GeoTLDs
The .cat team will lead this project with a clear goal: to develop an open, replicable, and open-source methodology to analyze how both traditional and AI-powered search engines handle linguistic and geoterritorial domains.
A comparative study will be conducted involving 12 participating domains, listed alphabetically: .barcelona, .bzh, .cat, .cologne, .eus, .gal, .hamburg, .koeln, .london, .quebec, .scot, and .wien. Specific methodologies will be designed to analyze how these domains perform across both traditional search engines and AI-driven platforms, generating a precise and rigorous assessment.
Open, multilingual results to foster a global debate
With a total budget close to €320,000, the project will present its findings during the first quarter of 2027. The conclusions will be translated into 10 languages and published both globally and individually for each participating domain.
Beyond the specific results, this unprecedented study within the industry aims to open a much-needed global conversation with major Internet stakeholders about linguistic and cultural diversity online. The ultimate goal is to empower users from minority language communities and diverse territories by providing them with tools and knowledge to make informed decisions about their online presence and visibility.
