If you target only Australian customers then .au is better... but regardless of domain extension, your site will climb there at google's top if SEOed well..

I have some biz domains that ranked high on google... domain extension doesn't matter..

Don't go for the .com.au versions, then, I'd say.

In cases of doubt, probably the .com is best? If you don't register it, someone else might, and you can lose future traffic to them.

Domain extensions don't affect SEO at all, in any way, so "ranking" isn't a consideration either way (many people will tell you differently, and they're wrong). But two other things are:-

(i) Resale value (higher on a .com, normally, other things being equal)

(ii) Risk of loss of future type-in traffic to someone else (again, probably best avoided by using the .com).

I use a lot of ".info" domains, myself, for information sites, because I asked my customers and subscribers which they preferred/thought looked better, and the majority actually preferred ".info" for an "information site" (which mine are). So I use those, but also usually buy the .com too, and redirect it to the .info I'm using, just to make sure nobody else buys it.

Just my perspective.

Awsome answers Alexa I will take heed of your advice and thanks to you also Adie.

Cheers Rob

.com is best for the world wide traffic.

If you do not use this type of domain you must lost a lot of traffic from all over the world.

Alexa Smith is absolutely right. I like that post. It is really fantastic.

The extension doesn't matter at all in regards to SEO. The search engines don't care one bit if it is .com or .info. or .co. It just doesn't matter in regards to search engines.

What it does matter though is in terms of PEOPLE that are using the search engines. So your .info may be discriminated against by people, but not search engines.

I am in Aus too, I mainly use .com but if you are targeting only other Australians a .com.au is the best option.

For SEO, .com is the best to target the global market, .net is another good one (if the .com is taken). Even the .org and .info extensions work very well.

I can't comment on .biz as I haven't personally tried it, but I do know people that optimize .biz domains so they must be ok.

Hope this helps,
Dave

There's a lot of speculation about whether one extension ranks better than others, but I've not found much difference in my experience.

I think it is more a public perception thing... Domains with .com, .net, and .orgs just seem to have a better trust factor than .biz, .infos and the like. And perception should be a major consideration.

There are more .coms that have been registered than .info so of course you see more .com rankings.

But by your logic and way of thinking, there are more .com sites that ARE NOT ranked, than .info

I guess .com is the best way out to get more traffic

dot com, dot net, and dot org for SEO purposes. Dot TV if you have a ustream or youtube channel hehe. just thought id throw that in there for fun.

Dot com as long as you can find your keywords in it

But I think a day will come when Dot com will become obsolete. I have no reason to say this but lets say it's a premonition I had. It will be numbers with no extensions, all web sites will be numbers, not like an IP... like site number 296677749906.

Take care,

Bernard St-Pierre
Marketing Consultant
Copywriter/Teacher

I prefer com, org, net domains. If I target a specific country I would go for the country tld if available.

It doesn't matter AT ALL for Google, in fact i ranked *.biz or *.info VERY HIGH
This is an ancient "SEO myth". The extension doesn't matter.

I think you should try to get .com for your domains because your niches are worldwide