Does it matter which top domain I use?

Some people claim that there is a difference in how Google looks at different top domains. For example .com ranks above .to and so on.

If anyone have any evidence or can show in some way that this is true I would be happy to look into it.

I've never seen any difference myself.

 

Well if u use .com .net .org then these extensions are considered global where as county level domains like .in are given more preference when people from local country are searching

 

What do you base this on? Can you show something that demonstrates that this is a fact?

I thought the difference in ranking was because of the language used on the site, not the top domain.

 

Well lets take this example

Go to http://www.google.co.uk -- Google UK - search for "jobs"

After that

Go to http://www.google.com/ - Google Main search for "jobs"

 

OK, I see your point but this only proof that Google list country specific top domain higher in results for results from the country specific Google domain.

How can I know that .to is getting lower on google.com just because it's a .to and not a .com?

What if it's just the .com(and others) domains that is punished in the country specific search?

 

If you get high traffic its going to be on top everywhere .. or even enough backlinks but by default when u go to google it will redirect you to the country specific search like in india if i go to google.com the will redirect me to google.co.in

.com always has a preference coz u may even loose ur traffic for many typos people have a mindset if ur sites name is Fooble people will tend to type Fooble.com

 

So far I'm only convinced that country specific domains receive higher rankings in at Google country specific search/domains. That part was more or less proven by what you wrote above.

Can anyone proof that .com ranks higher than .to for example?

 

This is an ongoing discussion and you're going to get so many different opinions on this. I personally don't think there should be a preference in extension but I have found some extensions more responsive in the SERP's than others. That's a conditional statement so my results are not exactly typical of anyone else's..

But ask me what I really believe and you'll be shocked..

 

What do you really believe?

I like beeing shocked. I'm shocked all the time.

 

As far as I know it Does NOT matter which domain extension your site is! You only get to see a lot of .com's on the SERPS of Google because it is the most registered TLD in the world!

 

It does seem to matter for search in Google country specific sites. .se domains rank higher for google.se etc. The question is....does .com domains rank higher in google.com in a similar way? What about .net and .org in that case?

It seems like someone must have done some experiments regarding this?

 

This is an ongoing discussion and you're getting so many different opinions on this.
I don't think it does matter which domain extension your site is.

 

Hi there

Just get the best domain that suits ur fit, instead of worrying about which domain ranks highest !

The reason why people prefer .com is because they are more memorable simple as that and more people buy these domains, dont mean they have an unfair advantage and no one can prove that either, so your asking a question that doesnt really have an answer.

Some people will say .coms are the best some will say it doesnt make any difference !

Woc

 

If you are going to relate what does domain extension mean, then you might get things clear.

.com = commercial
.net = network
.org = organization
.uk = uk site (geographically)
.info = information

Many sites with this extensions ranked and doing very well, mostly because of their contents, backlinks and many other factors that meet to Google algorithm criteria. Ex. if you have a .to car site, you can outrank any other car site of any extension domain if your site meet what Google algo is looking for.

 

It's an interesting thought. Do you think Google has anything about this included in how they rank results? If so, can this be proven in some way?

Someone said that it don't matter which domain I chose...that I should just pick one that I like. The problem is that number 1 or number 5 in search results might very well be the difference between success or failure. If the only difference is .com or .to it's important to pick the right one.

 

Sorry - but really, what we all want is ROI. Somebody remembers your domain name but forgets your TLD - OH - dot com - no brainer for this if you ask me.

 

Well, you can have both and redirect the .com to the country specific domain...in case you get better results using country specific domain...but we still don't know this for sure...or do we?

 

The TLDs are considered as global extension. Where are .co.uk, .co.in are considered as Country Targeted. That's why they call ccTLD.

 

From what I've heard via Cutts, Google checks the domain TLD, but also the physical location of the servers, as well as the language of the website, to determine search placement.

Basically, if you can register it with godaddy, it won't affect your placement in a negative way.

If you're hoping to get better placement because of a certain TLD, that's not going to happen.

 

When I search google.com and google.co.uk I get higher results for .uk domains in google.co.uk. As shown by poster above in thread. It seems to me that I would get a better placement with a .uk domain when people use .co.uk?! I could still have a .com domain as compliment in case people only remember the .com.