It’s one of the most commonly asked questions from beginning webmasters across the net but one that no one seems to have a solid answer to.

The Question: From the top TLDs, which domain extension has superior SEO Value? Are they weighted equal in the eyes of Google?

The Theory: COM Good – INFO Bad

The most common response is probably that the SEO benefit of .com domains outweigh other TLDs. And, contrastly, .info domains are at the bottom of the spectrum, often considered to be spammers choice due to their cheap price tag, thereby making them equally disliked by Google and other search engines.

The Author’s Opinion

I think its up for debate but from what I’ve seen personally, .com is only truly superior for branding purposes. As far as SEO goes, they’re all pretty much the same. I’d still consider getting a good .com over a great .info because I like to always hold onto the idea of branding a site in case it takes off.

I had one domain I never thought would do well but a month or two later it was pulling $1000/day with little to no work and it stayed that way for 6-months. If it had been a brandable domain from the get go, it could have taken more hold and maybe be doing even better today. Alas, it left the Search Engines as fast as it got there and was never heard from again. Thanks, MSN algorithm change!

But, because Google, The King of Search Engines is also King of Secrets, nobody knows the answer to the forever weighed question.

The Experiment: A Live Study

The only real way to find out the answer to an ongoing debate is to introduce some empirical data into the equation. But, fact is, running tests like this take time and patience, two things most online marketers often lack!

But, the owner of the SEO Empire blog decided to run a little experiment of his own!

I’ve taken the liberty of pulling a little data for our readers. You can see the entire experiment at the following link…

http://seoempire.org/seo-test-11-com-vs-org-vs-net-vs-info/

The site author states his Google rankings from the test:

…all with the same content put out approximately the same time, same wordpress blog template, etc. Only major variable being the domain TLD.

The experiment began during the end of July, 2009…

The Results: You be the Judge

All things remaining unchanged, we might have something to go off of, the only real variable left up to debate would then be the varying dates each domain was 1st published to the web and possible effects it may have on duplicate content penalties.

Overall results could have been more solid if all domain content had been published online at the exact same time, not days apart.

Also, the test doesn’t take into account possible backlinks and other off-page factors that might be tugging at the strings.

Now, 2 months later (Oct 2009), the scoring has changed…

Final Analysis

The one thing that appears remotely solid is that .com seems to be holding the top spot which is on queue with what the majority of SEO hobbyists and professionals alike, might expect.

If I based my opinion off of this test, it may result in a little added bump to my previous instinctual tendency to lean toward .coms but, not so much that I’d go all in and bet my whole stack of chips on it.

It would need quite a lot more testing to be 100% certain, a test group and all the angles covered, something this single test didn’t do. Still, its one step in the right direction.

Digging Deeper

I decided to do a little further testing on this just to be sure…

Upon running a backlink analysis comparing the 4 domains, here is what we found.

Number of Backlinks to each TLD

This would explain it pretty well IMHO.

The .com domain had backlinks pointing to it as early as January 2008, probably by a previous domain owner or some other unknown event. The .net domain picked up a link early on from another site and picked up a few more a month later and the .info never received a link at all from anyone, ever. Never ever.

Which raises another important point…

Brandability

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, the real value of .com domains is the brandability that comes along with it.

Most web authors, bloggers and everyday Joe’s across social sites, Facebook, Twitter and the rest of ‘em, have become comfy with .coms. So, when they link, they link to .coms.

With Google, backlinks are the most important factor of all and if I had to bet the farm on any theory, that would be my take.

So, rather than worrying about which spamtastic domain extension you want to drop in your cart next time you visit godaddy, just remember, get something brandable. The price tag may be a couple dollars more but, the payoff may be well worth it.

If You Care, Please Share!

I’ve often considered Google to be much like a credit bureau.

They look at every imaginable condition and apply a positive + or negative – mark for each, and end up with a final “credit” score that they apply to your sites.

This is your Google Credit Score and it comes about through a very systematic approach.

By setting your site on their “desk”, you’re essentially asking for a loan and the Google Loan Officer is going to run a quick background check to determine whether you qualify.

So, here goes. Here are some possible things the Google Creditor may watch for:

1. New domains – Age is important. New, fresh domain names receive only limited love.

2. Questionable TLD’s – Certain TLDs attract spam. .info domains, for example, are inexpensive. Cheap, in fact. And, the money-conscious blackhat marketer has purchased hundreds of thousands of these domains at 99¢ for the purpose of spamming the search engines. There is speculation that Google *might* give a minus mark for certain TLD’s, such as this, but the verdict is still out.

Personally, I don’t buy it. But, that’s for you to decide.

3. Too much, Too fast – So, sir, you have written 500 new articles on ‘Viagra in the last 24 hours, eh? Very impressive. Let me give you a Gold Star!”

NOT!

It often amazes me to think about. I’ve made similar poor judgment calls myself many times in the past. But, Google is in the business of indexing quality content. If you want on their good side, do NOT post a 500 page deep site in 5 seconds and expect to not wear a big red, written-in-lipstick sign on your forehead that says, “SPAMMER!”

Anyway, I’m going to have to end it here as I have a lot of work to do. There is a new video coming out later today that will cover all the udpate changes to WordPress Cloaker.

Oh yeah, there is an update for WordPress Cloaker coming out within the next 24-hours with lots of new features…

P. S. I’ve really wanted to write an article on the Google as a Creditor for awhile now, so I’ll plan on adding to this article over time… I know I’m leaving it hanging there a bit for now.

If You Care, Please Share!