.com or .info?

You are going to get so many mixed responses for this. But in my experience, .info domains are just as easy to rank as TLDs.

It doesnt really make that much of a difference what domain extension you go with. The only thing that really matters is how you market it in the end.

Short answer:

No; for SEO/ranking purposes, the TLD you use really doesn't matter, in my experience.

No - it doesn't even matter any more/less than .com.

Domain extensions don't affect SEO.

There may be other, non-SEO, reasons why either can be better than the other, though. Personally I use a lot of .info domain-names because my customers prefer them and think they look better (I asked them - customers think differently from marketers, and they're the ones who matter to me), but I typically buy the .com as well, to make sure nobody else does, and just re-direct it to the .info I'm using.

I am a big fan of .info with a few of them and only one pretty bad .com, I think you can still get some high quality domains in the lesser extensions which would be next to impossible to find otherwise since everyone is looking at .com

Don't be tempted to shove random words and phrases into a domain simply to get it in a TLD, go for the exact match if you can every time.

I have "Karaoke Machine" that cost me $2.17, if I had bought it in .com I would be looking at an outlay of thousands I simply cannot afford. It is a great name and even in .info it is great, there is no way I can justify shoving random words there just for a overpriced .com

If you are primarily looking at search engine traffic then I don't think the extension matters when it is top level, or to a lesser extent a superior country code like .de or .uk

Try to avoid where possible lower tier extensions like .cc or .bz though, they are nothing but a waste of money if you are not buying elite keywords or product domains

In all honesty, I can't say I have any evidence to back up my opinions - because that's really all they are.

Back in the late 90s, I purchased a .ca domain which cost me $27 per year. The advice going around then was that it must be a .com to get top recognition in the SEs. Personally, I didn't notice any difference, especially in more recent years.

In your case, I agree with Alexa - people probably feel more 'comfortable' with .info sites because they tend to appear more "official". If I'm looking for information, those are the ones that get my attention first. Of course, that concept could all change if too many people create junk .info sites. Then, they'll be in the same bracket as .com sites.

So I guess if there's no difference from an SEO perspective, as people have suggested, and since the price is right, I'd go with the .info option.

Sylvia

OK I used to write this and jump on all of the people that said TLD didn't matter. I found this website with Matt Cutts where someone asks this question. He says that they do have a filter for .info domains because they are more likely to be spam as they used to be free a while back. Take this for what it's worth. I have had no issues with ranking .info domains.

If your site is mainly informational a .info is the best option.

The short answer is that it doesn't matter, if all you're wanting to do is rank websites to get organic traffic, especially for your Amazon sites. Don't obsess over this, the more important factor here is to acquire the TLD which offers you an exact match for the keyword you're trying to rank for.

Paul

.com is the most recognizable for branding purposes but otherwise it should not matter if you use a .info, .co, .net, .org, .com , etc. for SEO

The .info domain is still work, it can climb to top 10 at search engine, but people and marketers do not like it too much because it doesn't look professional. So for long-term, you can use .com, and for short term or check the market you can use. info to save your money.
Hope it helps.

Domain extensions DO affect SEO, and they do so in a very decisive way.

For international and generic top-level domains, such as .com/.net/.org/.info, the value of SEO is even across the board. You can effectively rank a .info domain just as you can a .com domain extension, locally AND internationally.

However, this all changes the moment that you begin to use country-coded top-level domains, such as: .us, .co.uk, .com.au, .de, and so on. Google makes definite geographical associations based on your domain extension, especially when it is country coded. It is best to make sure that the extension you choose will benefit your business plan...based on the geographical location you are targeting.

So don't assume that if you purchase a keyword.co.uk extension (because the keyword was available in that extension) that you are going to rank in the U.S. (assuming that is your target market) the same as you would if you had purchased a .com and were using local hosting. And yes, Google does consider the I.P. address of your site for ranking geographically as well.

You may target specific countries in Google's webmaster tools, however, there are limitations to this function. One of them is the fact that Google isn't the only search engine, and I'm not sure about all of you other webmasters, but I only get about 75% of my natural search traffic from Google for almost any given keyword that I rank in position 1 for on their search engine. I personally wouldn't want to give up the other 25% of my natural search traffic because I chose poorly in my domain selection process.

I know that some of you are extremely resistant to empirical data, so here is a link to webmaster central that might add to your knowledge about how all of this actually works.. About Geotargeting

As a side note: If you would like to see geo-targeting in action, the go to google.com, google.co.uk, and google.com.au seperately, and then do a search for the keyword 'hotels' - a very generic commercial keyword. Look at the extensions that are ranking in each of these countries. You will notice that .com/.net/.org rank in all of them, as well as that country's specific country-code TLD. You should look several pages deep in each set of results.

So just remember, for generic TLD's, you have equal SEO value locally and internationally, but once you begin to delve into the country-code TLD's, your site will automatically be more targeted for the country that that TLD represents. Optimizing in Google's webmaster tools will only help you for Google's search results.

Someone would have to be fairly idiotic to believe that a .co.uk domain will rank well in the US when no other SEO work has been done to ensure that David lol