Planning to buy a new domain or migrate from blogspot to your own domain ? Then you’re sure to come across this question. Let’s see what is best for us.

SEO and Domain names
Search Engine Optimization and domain names have a long friendship to share. Though, sometimes I feel that people take it too seriously. So the question everyone asks is – Does domain name extensions have any effect on SEO ?

That’s a fair question. Its like you are building your new house and you want to select the best plot, so you would definitely want to go through the best choices.

Normally, we have three choices. .com, .net and .org

From what we have seen, out of the three domain name extensions,  .com and .net TLDs do well on the SERPs.

Now, don’t take it as a statement. Normally, I think Google wouldn’t think twice if it spots a .com or .net domain name, provided it has the authority and backlinks.

But when it spots an .org or regional domain name (like .in or .nl) then it might think about more variables to decide whom this website will best fit. Although, I’m not sure what exactly these variables are. We have clues though.

An Example to illustrate which might be a preferred domain name
Let’s say the query on Google is “Indian culture” (Assumption)

And we have more than two sites with a possible match.

Site A – www.red-indians-community.us

Site B – www.indian-culture-stories.in

Site C – www.indian-culture.com

Lets also assume that all sites have the same number of backlinks, from the same sites, same page rank, same authority etc. (That would make things tough, yet an example is an example)

Now, which site would show up on the SERPs ? Before generalizing it, also think about from where the search is made. Let’s take three options here.

Guy A – Searching from the US

Guy B – Searching from India

Guy C – Searching from the Middle East

Now, Guy A would get a SERPs similar to -

Rank No.1 – Site A

Rank No.2 – Site B or C


Now, Guy B would get a SERPs similar to -

Rank No.1 – Site B

Rank No.2 – Site A or C


Now, Guy C would get a SERPs similar to -

Rank No.1 – Site C

Rank No.2 – Site A or B


This is just a pure sample, and all I want to explain is how the SERPs might change according to where the search is made from.

Typically, .coms tend to be popular among users, so more backlinks and traffic tend to associate with them rather than the regional ones. And Google I suppose should think about a lot more variables before ranking a site over another based on TLDs.

So essentially,

- If your content is intended for all and you want a worldwide audience go for .COMs
(In the preferential order of .com > .net > .org > others)

- If you want to focus on regions, go for regional domains like .ins

Apart from this, a lot more factors go into considering what is a preferred domain on the SERPs. Like the number of backlinks, which TLD’s link to them, your server co location advantage and the n number of other variables.

So rather than asking which is better, you’d rather ask – What do you want to be ?