Article Updated: Feb. 2015
Domain name buying, selling, and brokering can be big business. People will scoop up the good ones and hold them ransom or auction them off to the highest bidder. Your whole business model may be cut down when you are forced to buy ‘i-wanted-this-in-a-dot-com-but-they-only-had.org’. But how much will it affect business?
Generic Top Level Domains (gTLD)
According to Google, if you want to compete in search engines, having a gTLD is important. This becomes even more important is you are a worldwide brand, as these domain extensions don’t target a specific country.
Here is a list of those Generic Top Level Domains:
.aero
.biz
.cat
.com
.coop
.edu
.gov
.info
.int
.jobs
.mil
.mobi
.museum
.name
.net
.org
.pro
.tel
.travel
Luckily, from a search engine optimization (SEO) perspective, there is no difference. All domain extensions are created equal. The same onsite and offsite factors integral to good rankings apply across the board. However, .com is the accepted norm when it comes to domain extensions for businesses. 75% of all websites use a .com extension. This means that if your customers were to try to remember your domain, it’s likely they’ll assume .com unless truly engrained in their memory otherwise.
Social Pull on Domain Extensions
Why the SEO value of the domain extensions may be equal, society has put different meanings behind these extensions. For example, it is very possible that a shopper who is searching for shoes may be more likely to click on a .com link than any other, why if you were looking for a church, you are more likely to click on a .org link.
The same things could be said about many of the domain extensions above, such as .edu, .gov, and .biz. Though the branding may be different, the basic SEO involved in getting the website to rank is the same.
For more information about choosing the right domain name for your business, check out our latest article on the topic. Ready to ask us even more questions? Contact the skilled Internet marketers at Sales & Marketing Technologies today for a free consultation for your website or marketing strategy.