.BIZ domains - what's the latest?

Seeking feedback

[austtr]

I can't recall ever having seen a .biz domain name appear in search results. Even a search on .biz returns hardly any .biz domains. Perhaps there are so few of them in comparison to .com and all the various country .com

Do all the major search engines treat them just the same as any other domain name? Is there anything about them that a webmaster/seo should be aware of before going out a buying up a parcel of them?

TIA

[msr986]

> Do all the major search engines treat them just the same as any other domain name?

Yes, no difference.

There has been a lot of comments that the '.biz' domains sound "cheap", suitable only for multi-level marketing.

I don't share that option!

.biz seems to be slow to catch on, but offers a good alternative to other tld's such as .org or .net.

[toolman]

>>>>going out a buying up a parcel of them?

Be very careful in how you buy domains. Whois can be an industrious webmasters weakest link.

>>>>Do all the major search engines treat them just the same as any other domain name

I can't see why they would treat them any different. I see them here and there...mostly affiliates who buy hyphenated keyword domains. I don't really see a lot of "branding" with the .biz's.

[Ove]

Hehe
<mostly affiliates who buy hyphenated keyword domains>

Maybe i must be one of them :)

I think .biz .org and .nu is a great way to get good domains there is alot of them avalible.

And i dont get why people are so afraid buying those domains.

/Ove

[austtr]

toolman...

>Be very careful in how you buy domains. Whois can be an industrious webmasters weakest link.

Sorry...too cryptic for me. More detail?

[toolman]

If you buy a lot of domains all with the same whois info and then link those sites together (which is your right to do so) there's a good chance there will be somebody who will turn you in to somewhere for "spam"...especially if you're ranking above them. ;)

[austtr]

toolman

thanks ... understood.

[mayor]

Toolman, isn't it getting much harder to search Whois for common ownership these days?

As you suggest, if one links their sites together, a competitor can follow the backlinks and check each one for a common owner, but is there some database where one can enter the name/address of a site owner and get a dump of all the sites they have registered?

[Chris_R]

There is a guy at harvard that publishes a list of the top US and BIZ holders.

You can search BIZ listings for owners - which i know of no way of doing with .com, .net, and .org without having to go throw someone who has basically broken someones tos by doing a whois on millions of domains and putting them in a database.

I like us, biz, org, net, and com as they all are under us law and rules (same with some of the other specialty names like .edu, ,.mil ,.gov [and newer ones like .aero](but I don't think I have a good chance of getting one of those)).

.nu, .cc, .md, .tm, .tv is actually a different county (I forget the name), but I don't want to lose my domain, because King Meshoeshoe (a real kings name I believe) decides he doesn't like my site. I don't think there would be much you could do without having to go through that countries legal system.

Just my 2 cents.

Google indexes the names the same. Some other SEs are rumored to place more emphasis on things like .edu and punish things like .cc.