Will a .us extension rank well

[jordanwarrior]

This question has been nagging me forever. Will a .us domain rank as well as a .com and .org when setting up a new blog?
I CANNOT find an answer anywhere, and all the related information I have found is WAY outdated.

[Darius Greindl]

Country related domain extensions like .us, .de, .uk.co are ranking much better in the countries that the extension belongs to. Like a .us extension will rank good in the US... etc. but it's harder to rank well internationally.

.com domains are the best ones when it comes to SEO. They outrank all the other ones.

[jordanwarrior]

I would like to purchase a keyword domain name with high traffic and the only extension available is a .us.
All the sites in the SERP's are .com and I was wondering if that site will even stand a chance against those in terms of SEO.
I am also only interested in US traffic at present so that's a plus.
Thanks for the reply Darius.

[J.Cox]

well there are many times that Google ranks .org better than .com

[jordanwarrior]

Does anyone know anything about .us domain extensions?
Are they generally well regarded for SEO purposes or are they NOT?

[euhlir]

They aren't used nearly as much as TLD's, but I can't think of a single time I've ever seen a .us domain in search results.

[bgmacaw]

Once again, the TLD doesn't matter for SEO purposes except in certain country specific searches as Darius mentioned. Even then, there are country specific domains, like .TV, that have become virtually generic in terms of their affect on search results.

I've only bought a few .us domains though, primarily because you can't use private registration with a .us domain.

[jazbo]

The TLD is absolutely irrelevant for general SEO benefits. For regional searches, yes it helps, but even then there are ways around that.

Different TLD's having better/worse ranking potential is for me, on the evidence of my own testing, another forum "jungle drums" falacy.

[jordanwarrior]

Hey everyone, I really appreciate the input on this.
Everyone says that it doesn't matter, but I have personally never seen a .us domain of any consequence in the SERP's.
I didn't want to, but here is exactly what I would like to attempt. It's a long shot of course.
I would like to purchase a domain related to people search that has 45,000 exact match searches every month. There are no sites anywhere near page one with any keywords in the url, etc, etc. HOWEVER, the sites that are at the top are obviously big names like zaba search. The average PR is 5. Now before anyone writes this off, I have gotten a site indexed the first week against 29,000,000 broad match and 137,000 phrase match. And it has managed to hold its own against PR 3 and 4.
This new one however, is a different story. Broad match is 278,000,000, and phrase match is 1,140,000.
Is there any chance this domain will even get on page 1 when I do the initial launch with the usual SEO, etc. I realize this is all speculation, and that's fine.
Any input or advice is appreciated.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by jordanwarrior

Everyone says that it doesn't matter, but I have personally never seen a .us domain of any consequence in the SERP's.

Well, there was del.icio.us until Yahoo injected them with enough cash to buy delicious.com. You'll also find several others that use the 'us' to form a word in a similar fashion.

Of course, a number of cities and other governmental agencies have .us domains since they have a special format side aside for these.

[jordanwarrior]

Very true. I suppose that makes it pretty clear.
Thanks for clarifying.

[warrior49]

Personally I would prefer a COM NET or ORG, US could be ok for a US specific site, but still is not embraced like co.uk / de

[markiliz]

I'm actually trying to rank a site with the .cz.cc extension (which is Czech) I'll see how it goes.

[jordanwarrior]

Originally Posted by warrior49

Personally I would prefer a COM NET or ORG, US could be ok for a US specific site, but still is not embraced like co.uk / de

I guess that's pretty much where it's at. I will go ahead with the site and try and update this thread as I go.

I would be very interested to know how the .cz.cc extension works out for you markiliz.

[noble]

What TLD you use has zero impact on your search rankings. .COMs of course look pretty and are more brandable/memorable but that's about it...

[helperhand]

Extension does not have any thing to do with SEO. Dot com extensions is the most common that there is out there. It is more important to get a popular key word for the domain name than be very concerns about the extensions for search ranking. If you are going to pass out the domain name my month, flyers or business cards then using a I could see using a more common extension like dot com or dot net would be better than dot us. Simply because of the fact that most people will automatically put in dot com because they are use to it.