Does the domain extension (TLD) affect my search rank?

[monsterpill]

im thinking of going for .ws but i dont want to buy it before im sure that i wont be ranked lower because its not one of the most polular ones like .com and .org

[Pedent]

Google doesn't care about your tld, although there are other things to think about (e.g. will you lose traffic to the .com because of users typing the wrong domain into their address bar).

[MHes]

If you have a non country specific tld and hosting outside the country you are targeting you will suffer. For instance, a .biz domain will not rank well for many competitive searches in the UK if the site is hosted in the US.

[LifeinAsia]

IMHO, a domain with a .ws extension is not perceived as serious as a .com domain. It's pretty much just an issue if you're trying to sell something (e-commerce).

[monsterpill]

my site is a resource center, not selling anything :)

[monsterpill]

should i get a .com domain then?the market is outside my country...

[Pico_Train]

Get the .com.

What do you think when you see a .ws domain?

Personally, I see .ws and move on rather quickly, but I am not the average user.

.com is also worth more if you decide to sell in the future.

[trimmer80]

The way I see it, if google can find a correlation between quality and an attribute (such as the tld) then they will use it. If on average .coms are less spammy then others I believe they are likely to use this in their rankings.

[MHes]

>should i get a .com domain then?the market is outside my country...

You could get a .com and host the site within the country you are targeting. This will help you appear for country specific google searches. Alternatively, you could get the actual (if possible) country tld and host anywhere.

The difference between clickability is imho that a specific country tld will be less clickable for people outside of that country. People within that country may well be inclined to click it rather than any other tld, even a .com. I tend to click .co.uk domains rather than .com because it gives me confidence that the site is genuinely targeted at the UK. Other tld's I avoid.