Domain Question

[igor.pinchevskiy]

Hello fellow SEOmozers!

I'm trying to register a domain name that contains keywords for my business, however the .com is obviously taken (however its just a parked domain without a site) so I have an option to get either .co .us or .net

I wanted to know if the domain extension makes any difference for the search engine or does having .com gives you an advantage over having .co .us or .net?

Thanks for your input!!!

[KevinBudzynski]

SEOmoz has some best practices: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain (further reading http://www.seomad.com/SEOBlog/do-different-tlds-affect-seo.html)

Top-level Domain (TLD)

Top level domains (like .com) are the extensions associated with domain names. For best ranking results, avoid uncommon top-level domains (TLDs). Like hyphens, TLDs such as .info, .cc, .ws, and .name are spam indicators.

IMHO, I do believe it is better to have a .com. But ultimately, this is just one factor of hundreds...

[mrdavidingram]

Hi Igor,

The quality of the domain extension will only play a minuscule role in your overall SEO efforts, so it's not something that should keep you up at night. However, you should take note of the following points:

• If you are looking at localised TLD's (.us, .co.uk etc), you will essentially telling Google that your site is primarily directed at that country, and it means you could struggle to rank elsewhere. I would therefore suggest always using a multi-national domain (.com, .net etc) if you intend to market your site globally

• From a user point of view, a more recognisable domain extension indicates more trust in a site, and correlation data suggests that Google reflects this in their algorithm. By this, I mean that if a user looks at your domain and thinks 'that looks a bit spammy', then it would be justified to think that Google would think the same.

This doesn't just mean the domain extension, but the domain as a whole. There are occasions where people are so desperate to get a .com they get a ridiculous domain that no one would trust.

Look at these domains, which seems more trustworthy:

www.your-product-online-4u.com

**www.yourproduct.net **

You want your overall domain name to be short, memorable and as clean as possible.

Although people will generally trust a .com over a .net, don't make the mistake of sacrificing the entire domain for a better extension (as it the example above)

Thanks,

David

[igor.pinchevskiy]

Thank you Kevin! The article did clear things up for me.

[igor.pinchevskiy]

Thank you David for the clear explanation!

[EGOL]

Contact the registrant and see if you can buy it!

[igor.pinchevskiy]

David, if I may ask for your professional opinion in regards to domain names. I provide IT services to small and medium size business, haven't advertised online or did any kind of marketing in the last 5 years. I currently have a website (which I am in the process of completely redesigning and optimizing for SEO) which is 911PCTECH.com

I did a little research of my top competitors for similar services and found out that IT Support LA is a very high volume keyword phrase with very low competition. I went out and got the itsupport.net and itsupport.us (itsupport.com is not available and there is no website built) My services are locally based (southern California mostly) from the 3 domains which would you recommend I use? I read the article that Kevin suggested above, and it recommends to use keyword rich domain names, so do you think its better for me to switch sites and start using itsupportla.net or .us? Thanks again!

[igor.pinchevskiy]

Hello EGOL,

Yes that is on my to do list.

Thank you!

[mrdavidingram]

Hi Igor,

Although keyword rich domains do seem to hold weight with Google, I wouldn't recommend going so specific as to include the location (itsupportla)

To me itsupport.net is a great domain name, it's short, it's professional, and it tells both Google and your users exactly what you do.

If you have that domain, then it sounds like a winner to me.

Saying that, if itsupport.com is available but only showing a parking page, it might be worth finding the owner via WHOIS and seeing what it would take to get them to part ways with it. I've had some success with this in the past, often the domains belong to people who simply never got around to finishing projects they started, and are delighted to let them go for a few hundred dollars.

Best of luck

David

[igor.pinchevskiy]

Thanks for a quick reply, I made a mistake in my previous post. The domain names that I was referring to were itsupportla.net and itsupportla.com ...