Domain Extension - Does it matter (SEO Wise)

[GoodnightSweetRatRace]

The best domain I can get for my keyword is a .info and I was wandering if this will go against me when trying to rank high in the SE's

[Mike McAleer]

Nope! it should not matter SEO wise. .com's are best for branding though!

[Digital Info Diva]

No - I have built many successful sites on .info domains that I was able to quickly get ranked ahead of other extensions.

Google does prefer .com .net and .org but it's only one of the grades issued when they review your site.

[JMichaelZ]

No. No difference at all. dot com's are often easier to sell and remember but if nobody has to type your link into an address bar from memory, you should be good to go.

[dgridley]

Most traffic will go to a .com first only because the other extensions are not as well known or used. Otherwise, exts make little to no difference. Often .info will help because "info" itself is likely to be typed in a search.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by GoodnightSweetRatRace

I was wandering if this will go against me when trying to rank high in the SE's

Not at all - domain extensions don't affect SEO/ranking.

There are good discussions of this exact subject here, here, here and here.

[carleisenstein]

I've seen anecdotal evidence that .info and .biz domains get lower click-through-rates in the search results, so in terms of getting traffic from search it can make a (slight) difference. Consumers just don't trust those sites as much.

But apart from a single incident when Google temporarily penalised all .info domains by accident (Google Temporarily Purges .info Domain Names | SEO Book.com) and apart from the obvious localisation effects of local TLDs like .co.uk, and .co.za, I don't believe the search engines put any bias on a particular tld either way.

[SeoWizzard]

Actually domain extension does matter. Many people experience more difficulty when trying to rank on .info domains. The best ones are .com .net and .org

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by SeoWizzard

Many people experience more difficulty when trying to rank on .info domains.

That's just one of those highly pervasive old "urban myths of internet marketing", I'm afraid.

Matt Cutts has said very repeatedly, in writing and on video, on his own blog and on Google's blog, that this isn't true, and he's specifically invited people to quote him on it, to try to correct all the misinformation and mistaken beliefs about this.

The problem is that people notice that not many .info domains rank as highly as .com domains (which is true) and they mistakenly imagine that that's evidence of their not being so easy to rank highly (which isn't true at all).

All it's really evidence of, of course, is the fact that there aren't as many of them to start with, and many marketers don't use them for sites they want to rank well. In other words it's evidence of the perception, not of the reality.

"But you try explaining that the young generation of today, and they just won't believe you ..."

Anyway, for anyone wanting to read more and open-minded enough to envisage that they might be mistaken about this simple matter, there are good discussions here, here, here and here.

[rudinshah]

Thanks Alexa..

Very good explanation there..