{"id":91007,"date":"2026-10-06T13:02:52","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T11:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.humanlevel.com\/?p=91007"},"modified":"2026-10-06T13:02:52","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T11:02:52","slug":"fernando-macia-presents-study-on-geotld-domains-during-search-central-live-google","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.humanlevel.com\/en\/blog\/news\/fernando-macia-presents-study-on-geotld-domains-during-search-central-live-google","title":{"rendered":"Fernando Maci\u00e1 presents a study on geoTLD domains at Google’s Search Central Live Deep Dive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Barcelona, we presented the methodology used to measure whether a domain extension influences its visibility on Google and AI platforms.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our director, Fernando Maci\u00e1<\/strong>, attended from September 30 to October 2 the Search Central Live Deep Dive Europe 2026<\/a>, the technical gathering held by Google’s Search Central team in Barcelona. It was the first European edition of the Deep Dive format, which Google designs as a classroom-style study itinerary intended to teach the search engine’s mechanics and how to apply them to daily work. The three days formed a narrative thread following a page’s journey through Google: the first was dedicated to crawling, the second to indexing, and the third to serving results, ranking, and AI features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The welcome was given by Lino Cattaruzzi<\/strong>, President of Google Iberia. The bulk of the sessions were led by Gary Illyes, John Mueller, and Cherry Prommawin<\/strong> from the Search Relations team. They were joined by other Google speakers such as Erin Sparling, Ryan Levering, Duy Nguyen, and Pablo P\u00e9rez. Community speakers included Carlos Ortega Rold\u00e1n, Lino Uru\u00f1uela, David Carrasco, Juan Segu\u00ed, Noe Rivas, James Powley, Irene Cecotti, and Eduard Blacqui\u00e8re<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program combined two participation formats. On one hand, the Lightning Sessions<\/strong>, held in the main auditorium and lasting seven minutes each. On the other, the Poster Sessions<\/strong>, in which Fernando participated: each speaker presented their work on a poster in the hall, and attendees could approach to learn more about the project and ask their questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Nuestro\n\n\n\n
Our director, Fernando Maci\u00e1 (right), with John Mueller (left), Google Search Relations Coordinator.<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Is it possible to isolate a single ranking factor?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On October 1st, as part of the indexation track, Fernando presented the poster \u201cA replicable framework for running controlled SEO\/AI-visibility experiments\u201d. The title summarizes the purpose of the work: to offer a replicable framework for conducting controlled SEO and AI visibility experiments. This is the methodology we developed for the international study on the visibility of geoTLD domains<\/a> led by Accent Obert, funded by the ICANN grant program, and featured in the newspaper Informaci\u00f3n<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the session, held in the hall, attendees were able to talk with Fernando and ask him questions about the experiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A causality problem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The study aims to determine if geographic and cultural domains (.cat, .barcelona, .eus, .gal, .bzh, .cologne, .koeln, .london, .quebec, .scot, and .wien) see their visibility affected compared to generic ones like .com or their country-code domain, both in Google and in AI responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Correlation studies cannot answer that question because dozens of factors influence any real website simultaneously. To know if the extension has its own effect, a laboratory was needed\u2014an aseptic environment that neutralized all variables except for the top-level domain (TLD).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How everything else was neutralized<\/h2>\n\n\n\n