Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

All other things being equal, would Google care if your site was website.com or website.net?

Thanks!

I think that .org and .edu carry more weight for rankings, as they`re often considered authority sites .... the .com, .net and others, I`m not sure anymore if one carries more weight than the others..


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M Hall
Website Critique Community
International Society of Curmudgeons

.com and .net often have same strengths so I think search engines do not mind what domain extension one prefers.


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Paul Benavides
Business writer / dreamer
Learning business ideas through communication
Profits4Idiots

As is always the case, number of visits trumps domain extensions. Relevance is more important than a name. 

Craig - I of course realize relevance is more important, that`s why I said "all other things being equal".  It was a question of curiosity.

Yes, I know about the things being equal, and thought about it. The problem for me is that over time, it seems a lot of people starting a business get a bit overly concerned about details that really are details. Then the forget or miss "details" that are a lot more important.

You don`t say in your post whether or not someone else already has one of the other extensions, and that too matters. For example, if you intend to sell "products.org" because someone else has "products.com," then it`s my understanding Google (and other engines) will favor the .com extension because it`s more "commercial."

But what if a .com and .biz extension were competing head to head? And "all things are equal" in terms of visits and relevance. At that point, as far as I`ve seen, the extension would be so far down the list of priorities that it wouldn`t matter.

The issue for me is that a lot of people read these topics and, again in my opinion, too many of them get so wrapped up in the domain name they forget to actually start the business. And they miss the "all things being equal" part. :-)

Absolutely go with .COM if you ever intend to give out your URL

I agree with Loren!  If the .com isn`t available, don`t worry, you can still rank above whoever has it - especially if they aren`t doing SEO on their site and you are.

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Long Island Insurance
Long Island Home Insurance
Long Island Car Insurance
Long Island Life Insurance

I don`t think you are all getting the point of the question.  I`m not looking to buy a URL at all, it is just a curiosity question and the main point is ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL.

Then No. Google doesn`t care.