Sites with .com rank higher
This is another common myth that is untrue. The only time a domain extension can
affect your
ranking is if the search is based by country. The country-specific
TLDs (e.g. .co.uk) will have priority over non-country specific TLDs (e.g. .com
or .net).
One observation many make is that .coms tend to rank higher then other domain
extensions. They assume it is because .coms are given preferential treatment.
This is a poor assumption. .coms seem to rank higher then other extensions
because they are by for more popular then any other
domain
extension (there are more
.coms
than .net, .org, .biz, .edu, .gov, and .info combined) so they naturally have a
greater chance of ranking higher vs other domain extensions through sheer
quantity alone. .coms also tend to be older sites so they have had a chance to
establish themselves whereas newer domain extensions have not. They have also
used this time to acquire more backlinks which is an important factor in search
engine algorithms.
It is also commonly believed that .gov and .edu sites are given preferential
treatment from
search engines. This is also
untrue. Web pages on .edu and .gov domains tend to rank well because they
contain quality content and many webmasters will link to their content as a
result.
Both of these are key elements in SEO.
But the fact that they are .edu or .gov domains does not benefit them directly
in the SERPs.
