I'm thinking about purchasing a domain name, the one I want .com is taken but .net is available. I was wondering in regards to seo and just general google listing as well as other search engines does not having a .com name make it more difficult to achieve a high status for your site?
Does not have much, or any, effect on search engines. Not having the com affects the memorability of your website name - a lot. The first time you find YOURSELF typing in the .com, you will understand. The fifth time you catch yourself ..... You can have the site name on a .net for the search engines and promote a more memorable .com, with a 301 redirect to the net. A bit more hassle, but it works.
noway... TLD's dont have any SEO relation.. the advantage of .com is - they r popular, easy to remember and easy to browse (ctrl+enter )
the domain extension does not affect the seo in anyway.. as everyone pointed out.. it affects memorability and ofcourse the ctrl+enter factor
i prefer to use thisdomain+word.com than thisdomain.net btw,i will register thisdomain.net but only promote thisdomain+word.com.
I have seen a lot of good web sites with different domain name extentions. I think that this issue doesnot influence on the SEO etc.
Makes sense, anytime someone says oh check out thissite it's always assumed to be thissite.com and there is never any thought about it. I guess I will have to continue trying to find a domain name close to the one I want. Do you think it's better to have the site name spelled differently (incorrectly) as a .com than correctly as a .net?