Hi, Do you think a .ws domain name would carry less weight when being ranked in Google compared to a .com for example? I have had a .ws domain name for about 5 years now - it has never ranked very well against my competitors. I always thought it would make no difference but now i'm not sure. I think my SEO is pretty good and thought the age factor of my domain would carry some weight in rankings. I also thought it might rank better in google.ws but I don't think it does.
The search engines won't give or take any weight just because a tld is something other than .com. It all depends on the normal SEO stuff.
Agreed, but I'd always go with .com over another for the simple reason that the general public has a '.com mindset' - they hear an address and just assume it's a .com. This can really bite if you've got the www.neat-url.whatever and a competitor has www.neat-url.com because 50% or more of your marketing efforts will wind up benefiting your competitor. .com - it's the way to go... All the best, Ian C
This is very true. Perhaps 1% web users know .ws can be associated with a domain name. If you use www.yourdomain.ws, you will have a very hard time telling people your web address. More than likely, you will be sending visitors to www.yourdomain.com. SEO is only a small piece of internet marketing, so is domain name. By all means, go for a .com name.
Most people bookmark pages anyway, I really think .com's are overrated. People are hopefully smart enough to realize theres gazillions of different extensions. I mean how many .nets or .org's are out there? many goverment sites are .orgs
the only TLD i'd think make a difference are .ac or .gov or .k12 other than that they are all the same if you're talking about buying thought i'd always go with a dot com if possible
No, I don't think it makes a difference. Of course going for a .com is better if you can get the same thing in a .com
I've even given up solid .net and .org domain names when the .com was taken. Maybe I'm just being old fashioned, but I do like the .com TLD.
As I said, i've had the domain name for 5 years. The .com was taken when I registered it. Knowing what I know now, I would have chosen a different name to get a .com But as long as it doesn't make a difference in google that's good. These days I always look at getting a .com - my most successful site is a .com
In my experience ( i have both .com and "exotic" TLD ), google doesnt penalize your other (no .com) TLD. A case extreme would penalize free domains (tk, ...) , or low price (.info), and some .info or .tk are ranked very well. I think that a .com is best if the user assumes a .com domain, or no knows the TDL, but if you put enphasis in the .ws, people will remind the .ws, and you name server will be reminded more easy; sometimes is a good idea to turn a TLD into a "brand name" with generic domain names, (ex: marketing.ws, cars.ws, ...), and this type of names are disponible only in more or less "exotic" TLD.. Its more difficult to remind/differenciate a .net or .org than a .ws?? (TLD blindness??