SEO Step By Step Guide– 100. Do domain extensions have any special role to play?

This is one of the crucial questions among the SEO professionals and the responses are more speculative than definitive. This is one of the areas that is not been subjected to enough research. For those who are wondering what we are referring here, all of us would have come across various types of domain names such as .com, .net, .edu, .org, .gov etc as the second part of website’s domain name. Many of us wonder whether these domain name extensions have any special significance to our website’s SEO or ranking.

We can come across a number of varied opinions among the SEO experts. Some of them say that it is just an SEO myth and they do not matter to the search engines. Whereas others say that certain domain extensions have special significance for our website’s ranking. For example extensions such as .edu, .org, .gov etc. are considered to be more authoritative and they seem to get better ranking. However there are others who argue that they are considered as authority sites not because they are of certain TLD extensions but they have more references online making them have stronger online presence and better back link counts.

Certain SEO experts feel that domain names that are specific to countries such as .co.uk, .com.au, .in, etc., may be of special significance to websites that are country specific. If your website sells products or services that are country specific then it is better to go for domain names that are specific to our country. Today we have a longer list of options than before. Though there may be varied views against the TLDs, we will not lose anything by choosing an appropriate domain name. In case search engine’s should make a difference or implement something along those lines we will stand to gain. You must also remember that you cannot purchase all domain types as an individual or as a business owner. For example individuals cannot purchase .gov extensions. Therefore, you must first choose your domain TLD before you start working on your website’s content and design.

However, most commercial sites seem to prefer .com for their domain TLD. Also, when people make random searches for a business, they first search with .com extension and only when they don’t find the site in .com extension they will try to look for other extensions. Since .com was one of the first TLDs that we have known, it is more easily remembered and preferred over other domain extensions though they may not have any special significance on our ranking. Some of the extensions have been noted for their spammy behavior for example .info domain names are notorious for the spam mails that they generate. Incidentally, the cost of .info domains is much cheaper to register so this might have prompted the spammers to go for .info domains.

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