Do domains affect SEO?

[Jimmy]

I've got a question, do domains affect SEO? Will a site with a .info domain generally rank lower than a site with a .com domain?

 

[Steve]

Well in my point of view domain name affect on SEO.Your domain have keyword then it help in ranking.And your domain have good keyword then it will be good position in search engine.

 

[lowrider.STi]

You can't compare a .info domain with a .com. The .com will definitely rank better.

 

[SeanFace101]

Yes, your domain effects your search engine rankings & how they see your website (domain).
Your domain should'nt be too long & should content words relevent to your website & its genre / niche.
Also, yes, a .com domain will rank higher than several other types of domains.
Before buying a domain for your website, you should do some research first.

 

[lucasbytegenius]

The TLD shouldn't rank the site higher. It's just a matter of preference. Most people go for the .com site though.
Domains do affect SEO though, or at least sometimes. For example, if I were to search for Minecraft, minecraft.net would rank higher than dosfsdfhj.com even if they're both about Minecraft.

 

[Shortie861]

I don't believe that it matters whether it's a .com, .net or a .info to be honest, what matters is if you have keywords related to what your site is about in the domain itself as lucasbytegenius said above.

I myself own a chat forum and in my domain name I have the word chat and people have told me that they searched for a general chat forum and found us a couple of pages through on Google, so I do believe that keywords in a domain help as long as the domain is not too long.

 

[isuit21]

Domains of course affect your website's search engine optimization. Google will definitely show .com and .net domains before indexing a .tk domain. I'd prefer using a subdomain instead.

 

[Shole]

They do in a way, like everything else they take a part in SEO. That's why people chose their domain carefully

 

[Dean!]

If the website has it's main keywords as the domain you can expect a higher ranking for that keyword, Because WebmasterDojo has Webmaster in the domain when we do get out of the sandbox (lul) we should expect high rankings for webmaster related keywords. This will also effect long tail keywords too.

 

[pandaa]

I would think in a backdoor way, yes. The .com will be more popular among people than the .info, and would eventually probably garner more backlinks and traffic, and search engines would pick up on that.

 

[sheble]

its a nice word. i want to say, domain name affect on SEO. If your domain name matched with a high searching keyword. then your domain highly effected and it become popular quickly. it effect 20% to 21% on a domain.... so choice a domain is a too important for SEO...

 

[Yorozuya]

Your domain extension will definitely affect SEO. Always choose a .com || .net || .org (in this order) if possible. Of course you can rank just about any domain if you really want, but it will be much easier with the 'big three'. Another thing that can help you is having your main keyword in your domain name. Exact match domains no longer work as they used to but they are still good to have.

 

[Nymph]

There is a theory I have forged regarding the ranking potential of different domain extensions, specifically between the ".com" and the ".net", ".info", ".org" and the various other domain extensions, based on experience and some research. It would be wonderful if I were to find a specific interview about this with Google or Microsoft, but nothing seems to have been published or suggested in an interview regarding the matter of different extensions.

However, I think the .nets, .orgs, .cos, etc. only seem to rank lower than the .coms, because the .com domain extension has become an internet standard for domain names, meaning there is probably a far larger pool of .coms than all the other domain name extensions combined. This means that it will be far more likely that a webmaster with the .com extension will "out SEO" another webmaster with a different domain extension, simply because there are more opportunities for the .coms to do so. I have occasionally come across the odd extension that ranks on the first page of Google, sometimes the first result for certain keywords, but nothing definitively suggests that these extensions will rank lower.

The .com domain extension has been around a lot longer than many of the newer extensions available today. This means that they have the advantage of domain age and mature SEO that the others do not have right now. However, if more people begin to use the more obscure extensions, I bet we will see that change.

If you think about it, it would not be very fair for a search engine to favor a site based on something as inconsequential as the domain name extension. There is no benefit to it, so I highly doubt this is the case.

 

[jean]

If your site has a .info extension, but otherwise has great content in it which is unique, quality and authoritative, and it gets high PR and authoritative backlinks for related keywords, and the traffic o your site is good, and has other good SEO (on- and off-page) done to it, then SEO-wise your site can rank in the top positions and also stay there.

 

[wasi90lk]

Personally I prefer to own a domain name that is either .com or .net.

I am not a big fan of .info domain names, but if you are short in cash then go for it.

 

[Dr. J]

Depends. If you're providing 'info,' it'll probably be better than if you're providing 'com.' (and no, I'm not sure what they are either )