I'm planning on creating a new website like.. today. But I was curious rather then having to spend $7 on a .com could I just grab a .info domain for $0.70 instead and still do the same job? I'm not going to be competeing for anything to competitive (not that it would really matter would it?). Can I still get the same search engine position with a .info domain?
TLDs are all like the same. For website promotion and rankings, you need high quality one way links. Domain names are simply web addresses and destinations that may have no privileges on their own.
In my opinion the only domain tlds that you give you an advantage are country specific tlds that may help your rankings in that country. For US rankings, all tlds are pretty much equal. People believe .com has a slight edge, but I have not seen evidence of this. It just seems that way because the more established domains are usually on a .com as that is the default and most known tld. The keyword research website in my signature is a .info and I'm gradually climbing up the rankings without a problem.
.nets seem to perform as strong as the .com's , but I have to agree that the more established one's use .com so your more likely to beleive thats the case. So in one way by buying the .com name you are buying the positive stigma that comes from those.
If .info is treated exactly the same, why is that one hardly ever see's it at the top of the search results? You would have thought that most people, upon seeing such a so called good monetary saving, would all be using .info -there's a good reason though why this is not the case, namely, you hardly ever see them or .biz or others like them on page one of Google. In short you can use one yes, but then your time expended in promoting it will be much more time consuming and expensive, is it really worth it, to save just a few dollars? Shoot me a pm and I'll give you a hand to find a good .com, I'm a professional domain name searcher, I've worked with some of the top domainers in the business offering my services and since this is just one domain and not the thousands I would normally have to find, I'll do this for you for free without charging you a cent, just to help you out. If on the other hand you are going to be geo targeting your site to a country specific audience, in that case I'd recommend that you go with a country extension domain name, for example, if you are targeting the UK market, I'd suggest opening up your options by going for a .co.uk Get in contact by pm if you need to, I'm well experienced in keyword research and will do my best to find an available domain with low competition and a high number of monthly searches, which will cut down your SEO work considerably. If you don't take me up on this free offer of assistance, that's ok, I just wish you all the very best locating the domain that will serve your needs very well.
I wouldn't rely on £££ for any kind of services. He is extremely rude and unprofessional. Do not trust him. It is obvious why you don't see many .info domains at the top of searches. Google puts a lot of weight on trust factors, including domain age. So older .com naturally have a slight advantage over other newer tlds. The older websites typically have stronger link profiles as they have been marketed for years. So .info/.biz domains are just playing catch up. In time you will see more of those tlds near the top of searches. .com is obviously still the first choice tld. So most serious companies will still opt for a .com as this is what customers will assume the tld is if they forget. It doesn't make sense for .com's to get any kind for rankings boost though. They don't need it as they have an age boost.
some country related tlds may be preferred by google regional search, then they are different to general tlds like com,net, org and etc.
One point is if Google gives the same to all TLD, but one different (but equal important) is if THE USER feels the same on each TLD. Until now, i guess people trust more on .com .net and .org and in regional TLDs of the country they lives. Maybe in a future people just accept the same other, but for now, i feel that people see it as exotic and no much trusted. Just my opinion.