Do top level domains matter in SEO? Can a .biz or .info website rank as well as a .com or .org?
As far as I can tell, it doesn’t really matter what top level domain you use for your website. My favorite pagerank checker is one I found through Google and it uses .info: Check PR
You can find PRChecker.Info under a variety of search terms, and the reason is no big surprise. Its a dang good tool. Its fast, its always online, and its one of the first ones updated when Google published a new PR push or changed the way it handles queries. People like it because it does exactly what it promises, and then they end up linking to it like I just did.
Are surfers biased against non-traditional domains? Maybe. Human psychology is a pretty wide-open field. Some people are probably convinced that a website is always worthless unless its .com or .org. Some people might like websites that use “different” domains.
I’ve found in my own experience that you can rank well on these “secondary” top-level domains (TLDs). This site right here is a good example, if for nothing else but because it can bring me traffic that converts into significant sales and revenue.
Heck, I even get searches related to the “biz” keyword! Is “com” one of your keywords? Probably not – it is much more likely that you’re posting articles about business and casually minded people will think “biz.” Maybe your site is informational – then there’s a good chance that “info” is one of your potentially traffic-generating keywords!
I say, get your keywords in the domain and keep it short. If you have to go Biz or Info to accomplish this, then go for it!
hey John,
Interesting question that I have pondered also. I think google puts a lot of weight on domain age (or so it seems) and most of the older domains tend to be .com, so they rank better, but not because of the “.com” – it’s because of their “.age”. If there is a preference for any domain ending, I would guess it is small and can be made up for with other factors (if a person can’t get the .com).
I’d say if you can get your personal website (.info) to outrank the .com version, that would prove something.
~ Steve (aka the trade show guru)