Should you buy that .net, .info, or .biz domain name if the .com is taken?
It depends.
If your site is a business site, keep searching until you find a .com that will work. Dot com is the global Internet standard, an industry phrase, and your IE browser automatically completes a domain name with www. at the beginning and .com at the end if you hit Control-Enter. Most people looking for your web site will use the “brain default” which is .com, even if it’s one of the other TLDs (Top Level Domains).
So why am I SEOdiva.net, you ask? Because a) this is not a business site, b) I REALLY wanted to be the SEO Diva, and c) although SEO Diva .com is taken, it’s not being used. However, I’d still love to have the .com version.
.biz tends to come across as an also-ran. The .info works best for information and article sites, as well as directories. Organizations typically use .org, and .edu denotes education (you have to be in the educational field to register this domain). You must be a government agency to use .gov. The other U.S. TLDs are .us, .tv and .mobi for mobile.
Search engines don’t care what your TLD is. The .com designations seem to rank better, but perhaps that’s because a good number of them are older. Nevertheless, for marketing purposes, whenever you can, stick to .com for your business. Even Del.icio.us bought delicious.com as a hedge, and it forwards to the .us site.
Popularity: 19% [?]
Tags: .biz, .com, .edu, .info, .net, .org, choosing domain name, domain name, registering domain name, tld
