does it matter what domain extension you use?

.com and .org for google, you can get some traffic with a .net domain, and .info can also be used with some success....but if at all possible a .com is what you want to try and get.

Joel

From SEO perspective its all the same. People are more used to .com and stuff, so some might be suspicious of .info domains. I think for trust and convenience always aim for .com

You can get any site to rank if you know what you are doing. I would always choose .com over any other extension though mainly because it is basically the "default" extension. .com has far more name recognition.

It depends on your market!

If you're aiming a product / service at the USA or globally, I'd say go with a .com. If you're specifically targeting the UK, though, I'd certainly have no issues with seeing a .co.uk entry in my search results.

I'd say play safe and go with .com - but why not just try something different? Domain names are cheap enough these days that you can try a few different ones, and see what happens.

And after all, most of your traffic won't be purely down to an amazing domain name, although it certainly helps

Does not really matter at all unless you are going for type-in traffic.

Some may point out that you see more .com's in search results. This is true because more .com's exist and actually have sites on them. It does NOT mean they are better. They are just more common.

Re's
Rob Whisonant

Short answer: (.com) must be used for your "money" sites.
Reason being is that your average person is already programmed to associate any web address with (.com).

Long Answer: It totally depends on what you are trying to achieve.

(.info) domains are great for testing the waters. At $0.99 you just can't beat them. I use these domains to run initial ppc campaigns to test markets. Get in, get out, analyze results. If the results show potential then I look for a branded (.com) domain to create my money site. However, if you intend to focus on ppc or anything other than SEO for your traffic you can just stick with a good (.info) domain.

(.com, .net, .org) all can do very well with SEO, but the short answer still applies here.

(.mobi) is crucial if your venture will be promoting any type of mobile alternative aside from your (.com) or as it's primary address if you plan to only target a mobile audience. Still, you should also get the (.com) version of your URL as well.

Everything else (.biz, .name, .ws, etc., etc.) is pretty much a waste of your money simply because the extensions just look spammy and have very little credibility.

One other thing is to consider specific country extensions like [.uk.co, .asia, etc.].
These extensions should definitely be used if your marketing efforts will include various international markets. Again, these should also be used in coloration with a strong [.com] as your foundation.

Buy Insurance:
Another important thing to point out has to do with protecting your brand. When selecting your domain names if your chosen domain is available as a (.dom) and it is something like "www .yourname .com" or "www .yourbrand .com" then you should also register the [.net, .org, and .info] extensions as well as the plural version of your name of brand if it makes sense to, as well as any common misspellings. Easiest way to figure that out is to get four of your friends, give them your name of choice and have them type it 50 times in a row as fast as they possibly can, with No hesitation, No stopping for corrections. The results should give you a pretty clear idea of how people may misspell your name.

This is strictly insurance from squatters capitalizing on potential traffic you missed out on, by not registering these versions before they did. If your budget won't allow that, at the very least get the [.net, .org, and .info] of your primary domain name. All in all it should cost less than $40.

Hope that helps.
* sorry for the weird formatting, I'm new here and still have url restrictions on my posts.