Hi All, How important is it to get a ".com" domain name as opposed to one of the less popular top level domains like .us or .me? I know these days ".com" carries a sense of legitimacy or professionalism, and is certainly the most familiar. People would probably be most likely to accidentally stumble across a website by typing a keyword followed by .com, but probably would never think of trying one of the other extensions. But what about search engines? Would "keyword.com" rank higher than "keyword.us" with all else equal? Thanks for your time!
Dot com is the default top level domain most people automatically associate with the Internet, and for the reasons you stated. But that fact doesn't play such a big role in determining search engine ranking. Dr_Boo: Would "keyword.com" rank higher than "keyword.us" with all else equal? Adding the with all else equal certainly makes that an interesting question. I don't know the answer. But I do know that if two sites accumulated identical scores one would rank above the other. Which one and why, would be anyone's guess I suppose. Hermas
I always get the dot com if I can. If it is not available, I get the dot net, and if that is not available, I get the dot org.
Dr_Boo: Would "keyword.com" rank higher than "keyword.us" with all else equal? This can be debated but I think yes. One of my sites, thought a .com extension, ranks well in local search (google.co.in) than google.com. This shows that Google indeed does take geographical location of the site into consideration. That being said, if you were to buy a .us domain name, it clearly suggests to Google that your site is regionally targeted.
I hope to see more post in this thread. The one part of internet marketing Im still a newbie at is SEO. I have learned how to direct traffic to my site via online advertising but I can only imagine the traffic that will result when I learn SEO. A big part of that SEO is whether to have a dot.com name or not. I have seen the debate for years and would love to see how many others posters answer this thread.
I think '.biz' works fine, Victoria. I had a domain name with '.biz' and it ranked 8th and 18th for a couple of keyword terms. Though there may be some mumbo jumbo about its legal use - i.e. being related to commercial activity (biz => business). If I remember correctly, I had to tick a box for some form of agreement when I purchased the domain extension. Think it was to do with site purpose and whether you intended to use the '.biz' as part of your company name (think you need special permission for that). Anyway, this whole 'domain extension' versus SEO debate is really quite interesting. In fact, this whole SEO thing is a big topic of interest. The word on the street that I've heard is that high quality backlinks are the key, whatever the domain extension may be. Though how important is the whole geographical aspect... maybe we should all apply for a job with google... Good luck guys! IP
Hi Dr_Boo, It's not so much a question of how well the popular domains rank in search engines as it is how poorly some of the least popular domains rank. The .info and some of the other extensions have a reputation of having a higher chance of being spammy and/or fly-by-night operations. As such, they may (or may not) rank worse than the other extensions in search engines. The other puzzle piece is how visitors perceive an extension. Whenever possible, choose .com. Otherwise, choose .net, .org, or .biz as the best alternatives. Additionally, if your domain contains more than one word and the non hyphen version is taken, you might try to reserve a .com with dashes in between words. .us, .ca, .uk, and .au are good choices for marketing to English speaking visitors if the above extensions are spoken for. If that fails, consider a relevant domain name that has some demand but little or no competition. If you've spent a lot of time and effort yet all of the good names seem taken and/or there is too much competition, you'll have to drill down farther into your niche and then choose a domain name. Keep in mind that over-saturation is a myth. There is only having to drill down far enough. Alternatively, you may have to create a new sub-niche. If you really know and love a topic, find a way to make it work. Don't ever listen to nay-sayers. ~Newbie Shield~
as others have said.. .com .net and .org are the top ones to pick.. all the other ones are usually ranked lower by SE(search engines) as they are SUPER SUPER cheap (
I don't think it matters at all to the search engines. What matters are the keywords in the domain name itself. I prefer .com's myself for the hope that my site becomes popular. People always assume .com.
I use .com, then .net, then .info. I also submit to alot of RSS feeds and create backlinks though. .info names are alot cheaper so I'm testing to see how well they do compared to the other ones. Lew
Dr_Boo: Would "keyword.com" rank higher than "keyword.us" with all else equal? I guess only a relatively few eggheads at Google know that. I can tell you that for some articles I've got first page listings for I watch the top listings jockeying for positioning and they will ebb and flow. The keyword dot com is above the keyword dot org one day and below that is the keyword dot net, and then the next time I look they've switched positions, and swtiched yet again the next time. Sometimes my article will briefly get above them all. Of course, all things aren't being equal there, necessarily. ==================== In perception value, dot com takes precedence. Many people tend not to hold dot anything else in as high regard. I'd be wary of buying dot something else when the dot com is not available, since I'm certain I'd end up inadvertently giving business to the dot com, when people, going by memory, directly type in the url and a large percentage would automatically assume I was dot com. My main exception is for when I'm buying a domain strictly as a redirect so I can put a link to an affiliate page on certain vehicles that otherwise don't allow links leading to affiliate pages. In those instances, I get the godaddy first year special that's less than $2, and sometimes on sale for less than a buck.
