In THE END anybody got TESTED PROOFS that domain extension does NOT matter?

[myob]

tweedle dum tweedle dee ... meanwhile we keep buying up .info for the TLD ... and on it goes ...

[thecableguy]

No recorded proof here and I seem to be in the minority, and yeah Matt Cutts says it doesn't matter, but I'll stick to the com, net and org, then hyphens before going to different extensions. Not going on what I'm hearing, but from what I've experienced. I've been registering EMD's from back in 2006 when they were magic (kinda) and I've tried (actually put up sites not just registered them) hundreds of .info, com, net and org (also biz, mobi, tv, us extensions, but not as much). And if you group them - com, net and org vs info, biz, mobi, us, tv the percentages of getting ranked aren't the same (yeah I know that's just me), but back in 2006 when EMDs were sorta magic I'd guesstimate around 15 - 20% (in non-competitive niches) of the com, net and org extensions were hitting page 1 or 2 of Google while the rest were in the mid to low single digits in percentages.

I've searched thousands of EMDs and almost 100% of the time the com and net is taken first followed by org and info. IMO the .info is largely due to the price if not why the huge difference in the other biz, mobi, us extensions, and why not register those as well. IMO if the extension wasn't a factor the EMDs for all extensions would be taken, but a large majority of the time it's only the com version that's taken.

Doing keyword research in the SERPs the com, net and org seem to take up the majority of the listings (yeah I know they've been around longer), but for Google I'd prefer a com. net or org (even if Matt Cutts says it doesn't matter), not so much so with Yahoo and MSN JMO

[Tsnyder]

The biggest unanswered question I have on the subject is
why anyone thinks Matt Cutts has any reason to lie about it.

What motivation could he possibly have?

On the one hand, I have a gaggle of anonymous posters on
various forums making unsubstantiated claims. On the other,
I have Matt Cutts saying it doesn't matter.

Like Alexa, I think I'll go with Matt Cutts for the win.

Tsnyder

[JMichaelZ]

There is no scientific evidence in the way that term is usually used.

That would mean basically that a person had purchased a number of domains with various extensions and put up exactly the same content in exactly the same way at exactly the same time on exactly the same ip address and on and one with every other possible variable being the same except for teh domain tld.

Like backlinks, fonts, meta tags, what time you put up the site. What font you used, really every single thing that could be diiferent would have to be the same and the only thing that could be different was the extension.

And even then the only thing that would make the evidence of that experiement hold any weight in future situations would be if the experiment was repeatable with the same results (statistically speaking anyway) by anyone else anywhere in the future.

If you don't do it that way, all you really have is a report of someone else's experience in a particular set of circumstances which may or may not have any relevance to your situation at all.

I personally believe based on my own experience that ranking these various domain extensions is a process unrelated to the tld.

As far as domains appearing to have some secondary meaning based on someone's opinion, you do not have control over what they think.

[Underground SEO]

I have to disagree with what seems to be the majority in this thread. I will always sticks to hyphens and .com's, .net's and .org's simply because that is what you see in the search engine results 9 times out of 10. Yes, .info appears sometimes, but .me and all of those other country code domains (exception .co.uk) rarely get a look in.

When someone can find numerous examples of .me's etc ranking highly for competitive keywords, I don't mean ridiculous long-tail keywords then I may start thinking about other extensions, as I've never seem them in my experience.

p.s. I'm not actually asking someone to do that!

[Bruce Wedding]

To answer the seller's actual question, yes, here is one test which shows com vs net vs org vs info:

SEO Test 11: .com vs .org vs .net vs .info | Search Engine Optimization SEO Empire

They mysteriously finish in the order that "rumor and speculation" would place them in:

fulldragon.com at pos 2 25th of July
fulldragon.net at pos 3 26th of July
fulldragon.org at pos 5 3rd of August
fulldragon.info at pos 10 28th of July

[thecableguy]

Originally Posted by Bruce Wedding

To answer the seller's actual question, yes, here is one test which shows com vs net vs org vs info:

SEO Test 11: .com vs .org vs .net vs .info | Search Engine Optimization SEO Empire

They mysteriously finish in the order that "rumor and speculation" would place them in:

fulldragon.com at pos 2 25th of July
fulldragon.net at pos 3 26th of July
fulldragon.org at pos 5 3rd of August
fulldragon.info at pos 10 28th of July

That's interesting. What's surprising is that Google has identicle listings on it's first page. I once had a similar result with Yahoo. I thought I was the only one that was silly enough to test the com, net, org and info against each other

[Dave Rodman]

Why test to see if other extensions rank as well as a .com, when you can just buy a .com in 2 minutes.

If you plan on having the domain in 3 or 5 years, get a .com. Don't know if you'll have it for 3 or 5 years, then get the .com.

.info and .us extensions are for throwaway domains. At least in my book.

[Underground SEO]

Originally Posted by Bruce Wedding

To answer the seller's actual question, yes, here is one test which shows com vs net vs org vs info:

SEO Test 11: .com vs .org vs .net vs .info | Search Engine Optimization SEO Empire

They mysteriously finish in the order that "rumor and speculation" would place them in:

fulldragon.com at pos 2 25th of July
fulldragon.net at pos 3 26th of July
fulldragon.org at pos 5 3rd of August
fulldragon.info at pos 10 28th of July

thanks for posting this, confirms many people's thoughts

[CaesarSEO]

Thank you warriors.
I appreciate all your inputs.

Now I'll need some more time to decide lol

[paulgl]

I've said it before, I'll challenge again. Go and buy any friggin dot com,
and beat prchecker.info

Since pagerank is google's baby, wouldn't it make sense that if there is
some reason to discount a dot info, then CERTAINLY in THIS case google
would make DARN sure that no lame-a$$ dot info is going to rank for
their own product. (well, Stanford U.'s, actually, but it's still a google-baby)

But the dot info does. It has google love that many of us are envious of.

That site alone is proof, once and for all, that google loves dot infos as
much as anything.

People perceive dot infos as being not as good, soley on the basis of not
seeing them regularly in search engines. It stands to reason. More people buy
dot coms and more people SEO them. But the ones that people choose to do
the exact same stuff for, in their niche, see the same results that any dot
com would, all things being equal.

My host sells both dot coms and dot infos for the same $9.99.

There is no way that any test would ever be 100% valid. Nothing is
ever equal.

Paul

[thecableguy]

Originally Posted by paulgl

I've said it before, I'll challenge again. Go and buy any friggin dot com,
and beat prchecker.info

Since pagerank is google's baby, wouldn't it make sense that if there is
some reason to discount a dot info, then CERTAINLY in THIS case google
would make DARN sure that no lame-a$$ dot info is going to rank for
their own product. (well, Stanford U.'s, actually, but it's still a google-baby)

But the dot info does. It has google love that many of us are envious of.

That site alone is proof, once and for all, that google loves dot infos as
much as anything.

People perceive dot infos as being not as good, soley on the basis of not
seeing them regularly in search engines. It stands to reason. More people buy
dot coms and more people SEO them. But the ones that people choose to do
the exact same stuff for, in their niche, see the same results that any dot
com would, all things being equal.

My host sells both dot coms and dot infos for the same $9.99.

There is no way that any test would ever be 100% valid. Nothing is
ever equal.

Paul

And I'll say it again, go take your .info a go beat google.com or ebay.com. What's your point? Try to beat a ranked site just to prove a point? You have your opinion and other people have their's. ANY ranked site would be tough to beat it doesn't matter the extension.

Identicle EMDs and pages gives some weight to the THEORY...IMO

[Kay King]

(I've bought the .com as well, but I've chosen to use the .info).

I've done that, too, for feeder sites - or to use in testing a potentially good niche when I don't know quite what I want to do with that niche yet.

[nelaffiliate]

My advice is that you use a country specific domain extension if you are targeting a particular country, but if not.... use any domain and simply make sure you do the right on-page and off-page SEO work.