How important is domain extension for search ranks?

Re: How important is domain extension for search ranks?

Domain extension doesn't play any role in the search engine ranking because to rank well in the search engine depends upon a search engine's algorithm which gives more important to those web pages who has good quality and fresh content.

Re: How important is domain extension for search ranks?

Domain extension is more of a personal preference than anything to do with ranking.
The extension .com is considered to be the first preference, followed by .net then .org - but the preference is largely influenced on the resale value of the domain name.

Search Ranking:
Your main keyword in your domain name plays a part in your search ranking.
Also having the keyword at the start of the domain name is better than having it at the rear.

Good Example:
plumblingsuppliesNYC.com - [keyword] plumbing supplies, NYC = New York City

Bad Example:
SmithandSonsNYC.com - based on the name of the business - this site will rank better for Smith and Sons than it will for Plumbing Supplies.
They people searching for this term would be repeat customers who know the business name as opposed to new customers.

Getting your Domain Name:
Recently a new extension was released .CO which is considered an international domain extension not specific for any county like .CO.UK for England/UK.

Advantage:
Opens the opportunity to obtain your keyword in the domain name - keyword.co or from the above example plumblingsuppliesNYC.co

Disadvantage:
Open to typing errors and people used to typing .com, you could lose some people going to the wrong website due to this.
However, losing a few people because you’re now ranking on page 1 as opposed to getting no traffic because your on page 10; is probably worth living with this small issue.

Re: How important is domain extension for search ranks?

Basically .com extension is very much accepted by people and search engines as well. If your website has general information than you can use.net extension or any other which is perfect related to your site. You will need to get recognizable with further search engine strategies if you use any other extension which is country specific, it would be more challenging to rank well in search engine.

Re: How important is domain extension for search ranks?

i assume you're talking about the part of the url after the '.com/' - it is moderately important to have a standard naming convention for your url extensions. for example, if you have a shoe website, the page for green tennis shoes could look something like /tennis-green.htm and similarly, for blue tennis shoes, you would want it to be /tennis-blue.htm. keep it simple and standardized, and don't use a lot of ebay type urls where there is a ridiculously long string of characters.