domain extensions

I was wondering if google sees a diference in .com, .info, .gs. and .vg etc.. domain extensions.
And is it true that if your domain name is exactly the same as the search term that you automatically pop up in the TOP 10???



Eiso Kant

 

I think this is entirely possible for the TLDs .com, .net, .info, .org, .biz. I've been experimenting with this recently and would like others opinions on it. So far I've put 2 sites in the top 10 for TLD's alone. cellularpoker.com stepped into the No1 and No2 spot across all search engines for "cellular poker" with just a single link from my main site ! Next up I created caribbeanpoker.net as a test to see if it can be done with lesser domains (same format as cellular). Seems it can because this one went straight in to No2 on MSN for "caribbean poker" - again no links to speak of. This is a fairly competative term - certainly more so than cellular. Looks like I'm sandboxed by Google and Yahoo this time, perhaps because it is a more popular term. Either that or it's not listed as it's not the .com.

So to answer your question - yes I think you are correct - actual domain in TLD form (not the country codes) carries a lot of weight.

 

So .io .vg. .gs don't have any weight at al?

 

Nope. None.

 

What about .tv??

 

There doesn't seem to be much of anything on tv worth watching any more, except The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, and Seinfeld reruns...

 

Country domains are worthless for this purpose I think unless you want to target a search term in that country only. But why would you want to do that? The .com .net etc will still domainate. If you look at the top results for competative terms like poker you'll not see a .io, .vg etc for the first 1000 pages!

Anyone else got any experiences with putting sites straight in to top 10 positions. Looks like caribbeanpoker.net has been sandboxed in Google and Yahoo, but not MSN. It's a more competative term than "cellular poker" which may explain the boxing. Longest sandbox I've had is with my main domain texashold-empoker.com which was in the sandbox for exactly 18 months. Guess I'll have to wait and see.

 

I always use .biz for my sites. It works fine with google and other SE´s.

 

Thank you very much for your replies but i am still in the dark about .tv extensions do they wiegh as much as .com and .net etc..??

 

Funny man

(totally agree, btw, although thankfully we also have HBO.)

 

.tv is a ccTLD not a TLD, so the answer would be no.

 

Is that really true? If ccTLD's (country code top-level domains) carried less weight, then .co.uk, .de, .fr, au, etc. sites would be at a disadvantage. I may be willing to believe that they carry less weight in the US (google.com), but I can't imagine that's true for google.co.uk, google.fr, and other country-specific engines. If anything, they may carry more weight in those regional/local search engines. This may or may not be helpful depending on your site (market/audience), but it seems like a good reason to have a ccTLD if you can localize/SEO your site for a particular language or country.

LC88

 

It depends on your market. If you are targetting the Irish market, for example, then an IE domain definitely helps with the local search.

My reply was more pointed at .tv, which is a "made up" TLD in many respects. It was originally a ccTLD, but has been promoted as a gTLD, which it isn't.

 

Ok, I buy that. If memory serves, .tv was a tiny Pacific (?) island nation that scored big when they realized they could make money by being an open registrar from their "assigned" domain name. I suppose G could easily consider sites under .tv as most likely not having localized content (not much population to localize for ) and thus downweight their relevancy
LC

 

I don't think that was .tv -- IIRC, .tv was intended for sites for TV web surfers (a dumb idea from the start but I still see visitors in my logs from .tv domains)....

 

.tv was originally for Tuvalu. I forgot what it was but it was a huge amount they got. The info used to be here http://www.tuvalu.tv/ but apparently the site has disappeared.

 

Thank you everyone, no i have one more question how does google treat the extensions you register at UNIDT.com as ccTLD's??

 

Those aren't ccTLDs. They can't be viewed unless either your ISP supports them or you mess about with your PC's settings.

Not really viable at the moment and reminds me a bit of those other weird extensions another company tried to introduce a couple of years ago.

 

Taken from Alexa.com, hope this helps:

How accurate is this? I don't know, pretty accurate I guess.

 

I don't think it's accurate at all. It may well depend on the search term you use and where you are searching but for the type of searches I do I often see .org, .net, .ca, .com.uk, and etc. at the top of the results.