Using .info's, .uk.com's, .cc., etc.

Are They 'Search Engine Friendly' Now?

[markd]

It's some time since I considered recommending that clients use domains other than .co.uk and .com's for SEO.

My understanding was that the major SE's did not like, and therefore did not rank, pages which used uk.com's, .info's etc. as a domain.

Has this situation now changed?

If so, how does an engine such as Google, Fast, MSN etc. geofilter a domain like a .info?

Would I be at a disadvantage in ranking against a .co.uk or .com?

Hoping you may be able to shed some light on this...

[choster]

I don't know much about SEO, but was it ever really a question of the engines? My main concern has always been that .com (and its country-code analogues) is user-friendlier; not only do users instinctively look for companyname.com but some of the alternatives don't look like domain names ("visit us at metro.museum"), and others (myself included) are somewhat wary of .cc, .to, and other cheap variants that we have come to associate with hobby sites or low-cost/low-quality/spammy-looking gateways and fly-by-night garage firms.

[herlaar2303]

I have seen no indications that there are preferences between international domains and country domains.

There are however differences between the country domains.

So will a .de domain with the same optimization rank higher in Google.de than a .co.uk domain.

[hartlandcat]

So will a .de domain with the same optimization rank higher in Google.de than a .co.uk domain.

Probably, but only if the searcher selects the search only pages from Germany option.

[Shak]

think of the user .

however we have seen stuff like .cc rank #1 in a matter of days for very competitive industries.

Shak

[makemetop]

OK for international searches - useless for regional searches which filter by TLD if that is a concern.

[markd]

Thanks MMT

Does this mean that if there was a scenario where a page from a .info or a .net or a .uk.com was equally well optimised as compared to a page from a .com the former would not be 'penalised' because of its use of one of these domains?

For example, if the .info (or others) was hosted in the UK would it compete equally with a .com in international searches?

Conversely, would a UK hosted .info be ranked lower than a UK hosted .co.uk in a country specific search?

Thanks

[choster]

markd, have a look at [webmasterworld.com...]

[Herath]

We have built our business around a .info and now it has a PR 7. It's performing just wonderfully on search engines.