Domain Question
-
Hello fellow SEOmozers!
I'm trying to register a domain name that contains keywords for my business, however the .com is obviously taken (however its just a parked domain without a site) so I have an option to get either .co .us or .net
I wanted to know if the domain extension makes any difference for the search engine or does having .com gives you an advantage over having .co .us or .net?
Thanks for your input!!!
-
Thanks for a quick reply, I made a mistake in my previous post. The domain names that I was referring to were itsupportla.net and itsupportla.com ...
-
Hi Igor,
Although keyword rich domains do seem to hold weight with Google, I wouldn't recommend going so specific as to include the location (itsupportla)
To me itsupport.net is a great domain name, it's short, it's professional, and it tells both Google and your users exactly what you do.
If you have that domain, then it sounds like a winner to me.
Saying that, if itsupport.com is available but only showing a parking page, it might be worth finding the owner via WHOIS and seeing what it would take to get them to part ways with it. I've had some success with this in the past, often the domains belong to people who simply never got around to finishing projects they started, and are delighted to let them go for a few hundred dollars.
Best of luck
David
-
Hello EGOL,
Yes that is on my to do list.
Thank you!
-
David, if I may ask for your professional opinion in regards to domain names. I provide IT services to small and medium size business, haven't advertised online or did any kind of marketing in the last 5 years. I currently have a website (which I am in the process of completely redesigning and optimizing for SEO) which is 911PCTECH.com
I did a little research of my top competitors for similar services and found out that IT Support LA is a very high volume keyword phrase with very low competition. I went out and got the itsupport.net and itsupport.us (itsupport.com is not available and there is no website built) My services are locally based (southern California mostly) from the 3 domains which would you recommend I use? I read the article that Kevin suggested above, and it recommends to use keyword rich domain names, so do you think its better for me to switch sites and start using itsupportla.net or .us? Thanks again!
-
Contact the registrant and see if you can buy it!
-
Thank you David for the clear explanation!
-
Thank you Kevin! The article did clear things up for me.
-
Hi Igor,
The quality of the domain extension will only play a minuscule role in your overall SEO efforts, so it's not something that should keep you up at night. However, you should take note of the following points:
-
If you are looking at localised TLD's (.us, .co.uk etc), you will essentially telling Google that your site is primarily directed at that country, and it means you could struggle to rank elsewhere. I would therefore suggest always using a multi-national domain (.com, .net etc) if you intend to market your site globally
-
From a user point of view, a more recognisable domain extension indicates more trust in a site, and correlation data suggests that Google reflects this in their algorithm. By this, I mean that if a user looks at your domain and thinks 'that looks a bit spammy', then it would be justified to think that Google would think the same.
This doesn't just mean the domain extension, but the domain as a whole. There are occasions where people are so desperate to get a .com they get a ridiculous domain that no one would trust.
Look at these domains, which seems more trustworthy:
www.your-product-online-4u.com
**www.yourproduct.net **
You want your overall domain name to be short, memorable and as clean as possible.
Although people will generally trust a .com over a .net, don't make the mistake of sacrificing the entire domain for a better extension (as it the example above)
Thanks,
David
-
-
SEOmoz has some best practices: http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/domain (further reading http://www.seomad.com/SEOBlog/do-different-tlds-affect-seo.html)
Top-level Domain (TLD)
Top level domains (like .com) are the extensions associated with domain names. For best ranking results, avoid uncommon top-level domains (TLDs). Like hyphens, TLDs such as .info, .cc, .ws, and .name are spam indicators.
IMHO, I do believe it is better to have a .com. But ultimately, this is just one factor of hundreds...
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
If I get multiple links from one domain, will that help my rankings?
Hello, I have developed a relationship with a blogger in my niche. He has published a guest post of mine with a link back to my site. Does it make sense to keep providing him with content to build different links from different pages within the same root domain? Thanks! Ricardo
Link Building | | myriad_ricardo0 -
Domain Authority
I am very new to SEO. I've built a dog grooming website for a business that my wife and I have established. www.petsalonbarkavenue.com When I try and check the metrics out, it keeps showing I have a 1 on page authority, and a 1 on domain authority. When I check a competitors site, they have certain anchor text that Moz has identified. I am pretty certain that our business is listed on the same directory as this competitor, yet Moz doesn't identify my site's anchor text. Am I doing something wrong? or is my site so new, that Moz hasn't been able to find it? Craig
Link Building | | cback0 -
Just bought a PA 22 domain ¿301?
Just bought a domain PA 22 and DA 16 domain related of my niche, here you can see the authority
Link Building | | mozismoz
What to do?
A) Make a 301 to my money site?
B) Make a mini Blo?
My website is DA 22 and PA 31, will it benefit my site?
thank you :))
0 -
Educational and Governmental ref. backlinks/domains
I have two question in my mind, decided to first time post and ask the community for better information. 1-How important Educational and Govermental Ref Domains/backlinks are? Shell we try to gain them? Or they are just like the others backlinks/domains? 2-When we break down the backlinks to Images-textlinks. What percent of backlinks should be images? (for info my website has 97 percent textlink and 3 percent image backlinks)
Link Building | | FRUTIKO0 -
Blogspot blog on sub domain
Hi, I have a blog on the blogger platform from Google and it currently sits on a sub domain which can be added into the settings. But I got a feeling Google wont see this as part of the website because when I add the sub domain into the main websites sitemap it kicks an error for it. So basically what I got is a website and an external blog. The external blog gets a post a day with an anchor text link back to the most relevant page on the main website but I have read on the SEOMOZ website that smashing one external blog is not anywhere near as effective as syndicating the content across a range of blogs. So I have an external blog with pr4 and 100 backlinks, I have to say I did not set this up it was handed over like this and I cant move the blog onsite either. I'm thinking it would have been better to have 10 blogs with pr2 with 10 backlinks on each instead. I need to double check this before I action this from now on.
Link Building | | activitysuper0 -
Yahoo Directory unable to access a domain for submission
Tried submitting a website to Yahoo!'s directory but each time no matter how i input the domain i get the following error: We were unable to access your web page. Please double-check your URL. Is there anyway to contact Yahoo! to request a manual submission?
Link Building | | EAOM1 -
Are backlinks to a domain that redirects useless?
I am working on trying to get backlinks. We are currently redirecting a few Domains to our current domain name. One of the Domains that is redirecting is the main Domain, we will be advertising in the near future. Can I send backlinks to the redirected URL or does it only carry link juice if it is to the main Domain?
Link Building | | hfranz0 -
Link Building Question
Hello, Here is my situation - i'm number 10 for a moderate keyword and i want to rank higher . Using the Open Site Explorer i studied the links of 12 competitors and noticed the following : There are only 2 sites that are doing 100% white hat - one of them is on first page only because has a big,big domain autority, the other because is a brand name. The rest of my competitors are on first page using directory submissions (i discovered 200+ directories - and not counting those that are not indexed.), buying links (for ex check these 2 :http://www.dentistsburbank.com/links , http://www.dentistinaustin.com/links/ - there are 50+ more sites like this), spam forums and article submissions. For my site i tried to get only quality links, tried link bait, quality articles - etc(and this for more that 18 months). Unfortunately it seems that my efforts are not enough(seems that links from military.com are not enough to beat 200 low quality directories) and i want to ask the community what should i do. Shall i invest in directory submissions (it will cost around $1500) ? If not in directories in what shall i invest the money ? Are there any companies able to create successful link baits ? Shall i report the paid links hoping that Google will take action ? Any other ideas 🙂
Link Building | | allyteal0