.biz and .xxx and the latest and greatest.co

[webindustry]

We are designing a .BIZ site where we will push a high percentage of  the traffic ourselves. In other words, we aren't relying heavily on SEO for being found.

I have a two part question:

1. Is there really any reason for a young start up .biz company to buy a $100 / year .XXX extension?

2. We don't have the .com (and can't afford it at the moment) but we do have the .co

Does the .co have any upside to it that the .biz does not in SER?And do we get penalized for using the .biz? In other words, do SEs prefer the .com and nothing else will do quite as well?

Thanks!

[RyanKent]

Search engines do not have any preference as to the extension used for your site. A .com has no advantage over a .net or .info from a search engine ranking perspective.

Users have a strong preference towards .coms. A .com site is viewed as a sign of legitimacy. If you take the name of almost any major company in any such as McDonalds, Facebook, IBM, BankOfAmerica, etc. and you add .com to the end, you wind up on the company's website. Even if you rank well for your site, some users are prejudice and are less likely to click on uncommon TLDs.

If you purchase a non-.com extension there is a high likelihood at times you will lose traffic to the .com. You can explain to users your website is watches.biz but a percentage of them will go to watches.com when trying to get to your website. This issue can impact your business.

With respect to the .xxx domain, I would not recommend acquiring that TLD for business purposes except to protect your brand. Many filters will likely block all .xxx TLDs.

[Thos003]

As I understand it, the .XXX TLDs are pushing for exclusive adult use. Therefore if your site has no adult content then you may be in violation of the terms for that TLD.

As Ryan stated, the search engines have no real prefrence to the TLDs, except for in the fact that the users trust them more. Therefore, your CTRs will be higher, which in turn would effect your rankings. When possible .com is the best for most websites.

The .co's have a benefit of being shorter, but they have a huge downside for being too similiar to the .com and that they are not yet widely recognized. Put a .co on the side of service truck and the majority of people are bound to think that you simply forgot the 'm' for the .com.