August 16, 2010

.com vs .net vs .org vs.info domain extension tld

Choosing which domain name extension can often be confusing to someone new to selecting domain names. The most popular is of course the .com extension, with the .net and .org following relatively close behind. Originally intended to have more specific uses for technical sites or organizations, the latter two extensions became popular for general usage as the .com versions of the desired names became more scarce.

If possible, in almost all cases, the .com version should be selected. This is the defacto standard for web addresses and anyone typing in a web address without the extension is likely to end up there. (Not always, but often). .Com just seems like the default web address extension to non internet marketing people and is a default unless given to them specifically as .net or .org. However, in search engines and indexing .net and .org both seem to get their share of the love as well.

In my personal experience the differences between these three domain name extensions is minimal from the impacts on SEO, search rankings, and indexing. Since I am writing an article on this, I must choose, so in order based only on anecdotal experience, my ranking based on preferred would be .com, .org, then .net from first to third preference.

Go with the version that is available in your chosen keywords with the above ranking of the top 3 extensions as your guide. In my opinion, stay away from almost all of the other domain extensions like .biz (more on .info in a minute) as in general they don’t seem to fare as well although with the right work, content, and linking they also could likely do ok, but be aware it will be many times harder with that working against you.

Based on the article headline, you are probably wondering about the .info domain. The .info domain appears to be a bit of an enigma. In doing keyword and site research, multiple .info domains have showed up in the top 10 of Google so it definitely can rank well as an extension. And at under a dollar a pop at some registrars for the first year, they can seem attractive from a cost standpoint.

This is how my first .info domain was picked up. I needed a few more domain names to get my free private registration so I added a few .infos to my cart for a buck each. From that has developed my experience that getting these .info domains indexed and ranking in Google is more challenging than the above mentioned (.com, .net, .org) extensions. I have a .info domain with over ten original posts on it written by me on an area of personal knowledge that has a few links back to it that is still not indexed by Google. Not even for just the homepage. It is still less than three months old, so maybe it is just stuck in the infamous “Google Sandbox”, but based on indexing experience with other sites, it should at least be indexed by now. Yahoo and Bing don’t seem to have the same issue, as the site went in to those two engines on approximately the same timeframe as other sites have done.

Armed with this information about domain name extensions, I hope you can go forth and make a better informed decision on a domain name selection. And if you decide to go with a .info domain and have a better experience, please come back and share it in the comments.