Domain Names

Do Domains ending with .com receive better rankings in SE

[bsand715]

Hi gang:
1st let me thank all for sharing their knowledge of the web.
I have learned more here and through the great lins that have been referred in the past few weeks that in the last two years of study.
My Question is on Domain names:
Are Domains ending in .com better for search Engines and is Keywording the Domain still the thing to do?

[fathom]

>> Are Domains ending in .com better for search Engines

No. However, from a branding point of view (direct) with dot.com if a person remembers your domain name but not the extention they will USUALLY type Dot.com

>> Keywording the Domain still the thing to do?

You will get a variety of perspectives on this topic.

My opinion only

In January 2002 had the same thought - purchased both

Keyword rich and a brand name domain

hosted on separate servers and placed a 1 pager up for each linking back to my main site

Statistically the keyword rich domain immediately out performed the brand.

Analyzed the differnces and posted complete web sites.

The catch - although traffic at the keyword rich domain (at 99% SE driven) out performed even our 1995 - 500+ page web site the sales conversion of this site is next to zero, while the brand name site has few visitors (avg. 30 per day) almost 40% are converted to sales each day.

In closing - brand infers trust

Recommend - if cash flow premits do both since the performance of keyword rich domain helped develop longer term ranking and PR in the other.

In addition, keyword rich domains can easily be disposed of after a year if no performance or value and it's a really cheap strategy.

[bsand715]

Thanks Fathom. In "do both" are you talking about the same site with two domains? Would this be considered spamming? Or just create two different sites with different content.

Also would like to create a state specfic site with just the name of the state added.

Could this be submitted to the same SE or
dir.?

[startup]

No!
Domain names ending in .com have nothing to do with SE ranking.
Keywording a domain name is another topic. You are now into branding and viral marketing. Search this term on any SE "Pogo". I know what they do and so does my wife and six year old, who by the way will type in Wcubed. pogo.com if it is not already stored in the history file.

[fathom]

check our main site at the bottom you will find our affiliate site?

If it doesn't look like spam, doesn't get booted like spam, gets indexed in gg, dmoz, yh, av, lycos atwa, highly ranked, visitors and fair sales conversion ... maybe its just good marketing.

[fathom]

>> Also would like to create a state specfic site with just the name >> of the state added.

>> Could this be submitted to the same SE or dir.?

The short answer, Yes.

Try looking for variations in your market. Niche markets that are more specifically defined that a broad focus market.

Keyword rich domain - is generally a broad focus

Branding should be very specific.

If you use identical content you probably will be spam.