Would you invest your time in a .org or find a good .com?

Discussion in 'Domains, Hosting and Servers' started by Brandon, Dec 21, 2011.

  1. Brandon

    Brandon Regular Member

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    We had a member post a feedback thread here and one of my replies was that I will consider a .org as serious competition.
    I personally would never invest to much time into a .org, especially when there are so many .com's out there to be used or purchased.
    I'd much rather have a good .com name, vs the best .org name you could find.
    The issue I see is that a majority of the people around the world, or at least around the US will automatically add a .com to anything they search.
    I'm not a fan of dashes - but I didn't have a choice with this site or my other, both are .com's and I feel both will rank better then any .org counterpart.

    Do you run a .org or other TLD domain, why didn't you get the .com or a similar .com name if the one you're after was already taken?
     
  2. Cerberus

    Cerberus Admin Talk Staff

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    I would never use anything other than .com because of the huge SEO advantage it gains over all the others. Maybe if you bought like every possible one and redirected the others .org and such to the .com, but other than that never would I buy anything, but .com
     
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  3. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    Ya, and if anything I'd go with the .net if the .com wasn't available. I don't see any point in getting a .org. It would take a lot more time to get it ranked and everything else. I personally think .com and .nets get more love from the search engines - well, in my experience. I've competed against some .orgs and they couldn't top my rankings and I always wondered why, and I think this is why.
     
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  4. karoshio

    karoshio Regular Member

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    .com, .net and .org are no different in terms of SEO. Yes it's true people probably go to them in their browser before another but technically they will not reflect SEO in any way, at all.

    I agree that a .com is much better as to why I moved my forum from a .org to a .com but it wasn't because of having no point in a .org they can be easily as successful.

    If you're set on a name and there's only a .org you will be fine.


    Websites are not about the TLD they're about the quality content that is provided and the community. Obviously exceptions often when people see sub domains, etc but when it comes to .com, .net and .org whilst .com is preferred by I am sure everyone you can easily be just as successful.


    Thinking search engines care about if it's a .com over a .org is just silly.
     
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  5. Creaky

    Creaky Regular Member

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    I would always try and get the .com version of any domain I wanted. If I could get the others would just point it at the .com anyway.
     
  6. Sejper

    Sejper Regular Member

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    I have always and probably always liked .com the most and have used that, often I bought other tld's to and redirect them to the .com one.
    Ofcourse there is often an exception to stuff and for me it was some years ago when I built a pretty successful community with a .org domain but that was because the other tld were taken but not used and I really liked the name I came up with.

    And now I am working on a pretty big project and my first completly own swedish community and therefore I am considering using .se instead of the .com I already bought.
     
  7. Marc

    Marc Checkmate - Game Over

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    This! :thumbsup:

    Not really true. Domains aren't a factor when it comes to ranking pages in search engines.

    Err.. Huge? :sleep:

    No no.. A sub-domain is just as good as any TLD.

    http://forums.digitalpoint.com/
    Wasn't that a good enough example?
     
  8. Dan Hutter

    Dan Hutter aka Big Dan

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    I've always been a .com person. I wouldn't nessecarily count out a community that's under a .org, .net if it were relevant to me.

    As for SEO value, I doubt the TLD has much to do with anything unless it's a .gov or .edu domain which seem to have more weight due to the requirements to get them. Type in traffic, yes by default people go to the .com.

    When I first started out I made the mistake of buying a .info and .biz for different sites. I couldn't gain any traction SEO wise then I realized all the .info spam. That was around the time GoDaddy was running a .99 cent sale on .infos.
     
  9. karoshio

    karoshio Regular Member

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    Sorry by sub domain I meant free hosted websites such as proboards, zetaboards, forumotion, etc, etc.

    Those are quite often never taken seriously.
     
  10. Iconic

    Iconic The Original

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    I have done all of my work on a .org, I just bought the .com 2 days ago (because it was not free before hand).
     
  11. Cerberus

    Cerberus Admin Talk Staff

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    Umm who do you have doing your SEO?? LMAO Domains are not a factor???? You do not know much about SEO then.. Domains a re HUGE factor. One of the biggest when it comes to rankings and SEO. Not to mention a .com is given more value due to the formula used by search engines to rank and such. That is just silly to say domains are not a factor... I am really at a loss to what I should even say here....Thats was like a brainfart on your part I guess.. But yeah Domains are one of the most important parts of good SEO.. And a .com carries more weight because of its top level status...
     
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  12. Brandon

    Brandon Regular Member

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    The extension don't matter in terms of SEO unless you're trying to target a particular country IMO.
    With that said, I'd still rather have a .com over any other extension.
     
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  13. cpvr

    cpvr Regular Member

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    Especially with the name, its a lot easier to rank if you have your keyword in your domain. Personally, I'd always go with the .com or .net over anything.

    @Brandon

    I agree. I couldn't have said it better.
     
  14. Marc

    Marc Checkmate - Game Over

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    Right.. :rolleyes: Next you're going to tell me that toolbar PR is actually worth something.. You might even kick in the Alexa Rank story as well...
    Tell me, what do you see as the 1st result when you do a search for "page rank checker"?

    Then you might say something like there are more .com domains outranking domains such as .net, .org, .info, etc..
    This comes into play once again:
    Then again, we have WikiPedia, with a .ORG domain although their content and let me say it again, CONTENT, is very useful, ;)

    Err.. Then tell Amazon, eBay, Digital Point, v7n, FaceBook, theGeneral, IGN and every keyword-less domain (you know what I mean) that they're doing it all wrong, :P
    There's a good chance if you have the keyword in the page itself. Better if you use anchor text with your keyword when linking to the page.
     
  15. Dan Hutter

    Dan Hutter aka Big Dan

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    Content is king but the TLD and domain name does play a role in ranking.
     
  16. Marc

    Marc Checkmate - Game Over

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    I'm not 100% about keyword in the domain name. Here's what Matt Cutts have to say :
    Fast-forward to time: 2:20. ( I'm unable to stick in "?t=2m22s" to get the video to play from 2:22 and have it embed on this page )



    Panda has been rolled out and a lot of webmasters with keyword domains with low quality content were b*t**ing at Digital Point and other webmaster forums, :whistle:
    However, a friendly URL structure has a minor factor, ;)
     
  17. Cerberus

    Cerberus Admin Talk Staff

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    And the video proves everything I said. The CURRENT algo for google DOES give more credit to(which is an advantage) to Keyword laden domains. Now he is talking about MAYBE they will change that, but they have yet to do so. So until it is changed, domains DO MATTER ALOT. Neener neener neener :P
     
  18. Carlos

    Carlos Regular Member

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    I'm sorry, both of you are wrong.

    I have seen a lot of websites over the past 10 years. And likewise, I paid attention to how the domains performed with the extensions.

    I noticed in those years, that most other TLD's rank lower than .com and .net. I remember a time where there were two like domains competing with each other. Guess which one came out on top? The .com.

    In another example, MW3Blog.com ranked higher than the .net domain. And likewise, google is catching the domain's keyword. I have 8,252 google searches for the "mw3 blog" keyword, whereas I have 2,596 searches for the "mw3blog" keyword, and not to be outdone: 1,729 searches "mw3,' period. Those numbers are significant, considering "MW3" is the game's title. The only reference to "Modern Warfare 3" is in the trophies/achievement list, and the game's side strip.

    The only time that I've seen another TLD go on top of the .com, is when the owner is using cheat tactics to get there. That includes getting the said domain name first and then launch the site earlier.
     
  19. Marc

    Marc Checkmate - Game Over

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    I haven't heard Matt talked about any magical formula for .com domains, :whistle:
    And this video was created back in March 2011. Panda went global in April 2011 and then the complaining ( by webmasters ) began, ( 2 x :whistle: )
     
  20. David

    David Regular Member

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    Domains are a small factor, in a large algorithm of over 200 factors (Google). With Panda, Google has shifted focus towards unique content. Even the simple link building isn't enough to get you highly ranked for medium keywords.

    You need that unique content which can be passed off as a natural method of obtaining high ranks (as that's what any search engine's aim should be). SEO is search engine optimization. It's what's on a page (for on-site) which is being ranked, not the domain. The page for the domain is the www.domain.tld. Another page will rank differently depending on its merits and demerits, eg. page.domain.tld.

    And no, the .com doesn't carry more weight. It only is relevant for type-in traffic where it's almost second nature to use .com. Other than that, all commercial TLDs are given equal ability to rank high. How do you expect the .org for Wikipedia to out rank all other pages in almost any common search? What about the .info for PRChecker. Or what about local searches, eg. .net.au for WhirlPool forums?

    Or let's consider a forum that I am active on: Dreamincode.net. They work off a .net, rank beautifully off the key phrase "Programming Help" and their domain has more words not related to programming than related. Clearly the domain isn't what's allowing them to rank first, even beating "ProgrammingHelp.com" in the search rankings.

    Don't get too carried away with your domain. A nice .com is helpful for members remembering your name and ease of use. Other than that, you better get some unique content going otherwise you ain't going to rank well for competitive keywords.
     
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