Are ".net" domains a good choice?

Why don't you get "co.uk" domain if it will be a UK site?

It wouldn't be, for me, Joe. For a UK site I would (and do) use a domain-name that ends in ".uk" and British hosting. Otherwise you're just putting yourself at an unnecessary disadvantage. (I didn't quite believe that it would, but switching my hosting from the US to the UK made a significant difference to me).

Hi Joe,

yes they are good to use. Darren Rowse has his famous blog "problogger" on .net. The only problem with having .net or another one is that when people are specifically searching using the name of the blog/website they may input .com by habit or expectations and then they will land on the .com site rather than yours

I don't think there is any shortage of .com domains if you are creating a brand rather than going for an EMD. I presume you are aiming for a keyword?

Oh, and as Typoo999 and Alexa said, go for the .co.uk if you're aiming for British traffic.

.com will always be better than .net. Someone out there has the .com and if you achieve any kind of success, you will be sending them free traffic (as people often write the .com instead of the .net).

If you're aiming for UK traffic, I suggest that you get both the .com and the .co.uk domains.

Thanks for your responses guys.

@typoo99, That is something I want but the name I had thought of, which was really good and easily brandable, is taken for both ".com" and ".co.uk".

@Alexa Smith, I usually use ".co.uk" domain names, but the name was not available on this occasion, I guess I am going to have think of something else . I am in some shock right now as I never knew that server location affects ranking :O! That has really stunned me, does anyone know a way around this? I've heard you can specific IP's for domain names, I don't want to move all my sites hahha!

@ejullya, I agree with you there. However since much of the traffic for this site would come from social media promotion, I was hoping that would balance it out.

@ElGuapo, I do agree with you, however on this occasion, the domain was two words put together which sounded really nice.

I try to go with the big three of COM, NET, ORG, in that order.

My most successful site is a NET website and I'm on the first page of Google for my term so I don't think it matters SEO-wise. To me NET is one of the trustworthy ones, on initial sight, that there is.

This site I could not get the COM for it, but looking back I don't think I would if I had been able. Sometimes the NET works well for your site's name an image.

Clickbank seems to think so...

Seo-wise .com .net and .org are pretty much the same. The only problem with .net and .org is that you may miss some returning traffic (possibly to competitors) to the .com that has the same name.

I don't think domain extensions really carry much weight anymore. Just depends on the keyword you are trying to target.

Ask the owners of ThemeForest.net if it is worth it

hi joe, i think select domain .com is still the best. although, it's rarity but we can find a good domain name what 's low or medium worth considering by the selection of keyword using adword keyword tool for your domain.

If you can't get .com then .Net followed by .Org are the best choices.
.com works fine for me in the UK

There is nothing wrong with .NET domains, I own and rank a few of them. If you were building a site for online purposes, then there isn't much difference between the main TLDs. Obviously the .COM is the most preferable and you can lose some type in traffic to that extension if someone else owns it. But I wouldn't turn down a good .NET domain if the others were taken, I would just research all the other sites before making a considered purchase.

If I was building an offline business then I would always try get the .COM, and .CO.UK for UK businesses and just redirect the UK domain to the .COM. If the business is already established I would strive for the best domain, but if it was a new idea, I would even go as far as changing the business name just to make sure I owned the .COM.

As Alexa mentioned, always hosts UK sites with a UK host, and a US host for US based sites. Google does use this signal to determine your ranking and it makes sense. There is no point in ranking UK sites in the US and vise versa, unless its some type of authority site. I've just had a browse of the top 200 sites on Alexa.com after reading this thread, mainly out of curiosity. There are some huge authority sites in there so they can't be that bad..

PR8 - http://sourceforge.net

PR7 - http://themeforest.net

PR7 - http://xfinity.comcast.net

The TLD extension doesn't matter AT ALL!!! i have many Dutch sites on .info., .net, .com, .biz and .cc domains and they all outrank the .nl domains... if you find a nice .net name, use it... Google doesn't give you negative or positive props for any TLD extension.

If you build a nice site and do your SEO like you're suppose to. you will have no problem ranking your site, no matter what TLD extension you have

I've been with 5 of those hosts over the years, and most of them were garbage. Hostgator, iPage & FatCow have US based datacentres as far as I know, and just advertise to the UK market.

That's a fake list.
It only lists high paying affiliates. The person who made it probably never used any of them.

Several of those are the same company ... EIG
Fatcow, Justhost, iPage, Hostgator, Bluehost = all EIG brands

That list is crap.

Is that your site? It's an affiliate stuffed list and lists none of the quality UK hosts.

My experience of transferring sites from US hosts to UK hosts was the opposite of Alexa's. It made absolutely no difference whatsover to rankings or visitor numbers.

.net domains are mostly use for networking sites but if your business related with some web related programs than you can go with it but if you are looking for .com you can have just small change in URL with analysis or go with .co.(country specific).

2 reasons I go for .coms - They are worth more when you come to sell your site, and people are more familiar with them. My second choice is .net

Hi.
I think domain dot net or dot com equally as good because they include TLD domain.
My advice if you want to make better use of UK sites dot Co dot UK for being more specific domain.

RoseTrees

No it's an article I found on the net.

Would you care to list any quality UK ones, because in my experience they are all rubbish?

I've never had a problem with ".net" domain extensions before. In fact my very first $200 cheque was promoting a MMO product on a "productnamereview.net" domain.

I haven't used a ".net" for some time but I doubt it makes that much difference. Look at all the brands using it.

I would say it's not as powerful as a ".com". In my experience, they are much easier to rank.

I doubt it matters. Maybe slightly when it comes to SEO, but if you're driving traffic from other sources (like paid advertising)... i see it having no huge impact.

put some money together and buy a .com

i have domain .net for my ecommerce. i'm enjoy with it

1st choice is .com , second is .net and the last is info.
to me .com is more powerful than .net, people used to serch the
domain by .com than .net

I recommend .com domains.

I think the .com domains looks more professional, but also I think it brings more traffic.

Tommy

.com vs .net or any other TLD does not matter when it comes to SEO. If your website is popular, people will know that it is supposed to be .net

Just look at websites like slickdeals

I usually go for .org/.info/.net

I know I don't think less of a site if it has another tld than a .com. But what does surfers think? Do they care at all?

if you didn't find the .com add a suffix or prefix to your keyword