.tld confusion

[WhiteWebServices]

I've heard that one of the liabilities of using a non-.com domain is that you'll lose traffic to the .com. A certain percentage of the population just aren't web-savvy / smart enough, and will type .com no matter what .tld your site is really at. I have two questions:

(1) How big a problem is this?
(2) How, without owning the .com, can it be minimised?

I guess that the answer to (1) depends on how you generate traffic for your site. If you rely on direct navigation, either from speculative type-ins or repeat visitors, for a large proportion of your traffic, then this will be a serious problem, though I don't know how much of one (might you lose 1% of potential traffic this way? 5%? 10%?). If you get your traffic from people clicking links on other sites or search engines, then your non-.com tld shouldn't be so much of a problem.

Assuming that losing potential traffic to a .com is a problem, how can it be avoided? I have a couple of ideas, but would like to hear any others.

First of all, make sure your .tld fits your site, and make it obvious to your visitors that this is the case. Visitors will find it easier to remember that you're a .org rather than a .com if you're a non-profit organisation, and if you remind them that you're a non-profit organisation. If you're a .net that sells stuff, then visitors will find it much harder to remember which strange tld that isn't a .com you use.

Second, incorporate your .tld into your site name. Whenever you refer to your site, include the tld. You don't want to be known as "Site Name", you want to be known as "Site Name .tld". Reinforce this at every opportunity.

Third, encourage visitors to bookmark your site. Repeat visitors that try to remember the name of your site might go to the .com by mistake; repeat visitors that bookmark it won't.

Any other ideas, anyone? And is this really a big enough problem that it's worth spending thinking about solutions?

 

[sm]

yes you're right. This is a problem with type-in traffic. In the long run though, as the site gains in popularity, people will tend to remember the tld.
One way of constantly reminding visitors that yours is a .net or a .org site is to incorporate the tld into the logo... a picture is worth a thousand words. notice how godaddy incorporates the .com into it's logo .... a similar approach will work.

 

[Nerz]

Those points you raise are all excellent ideas for pushing your non .com domain forward and hopefully lodging it firmly within the minds of your regular visitors. Id also say that i think if you have a non .com, then you have take link building, and achieving a high link popularity even more seriously than you would with the .com.

Theres no doubt that a non .com domain leaves you at a disadvantage and you have to work harder to get your site to the top of the SERPS. Once you get there, the tld doesnt matter as much, because according to repeated statements from Google reps, the tld makes no differance in there calculations for serp position.

The domain name certainly plays a role if your keywords appear within your domain, but not as much as many people think (its like a factor of less than 5% in calculating the SERPS). Off course that changes if your domain has keywords within it that dont have a great deal of competition..at that point you can automatically expect a reasonable SERP position in a relatively short amount of time....(like KEI 100+ perhaps)

I really hope net users become more sophisticated and take the time to explore other tld's...Perhaps a few really high profile non .com sites will move that trend along. After all, there isnt much point coming up with all these new extensions if nobody is prepared to use them, and nobody is prepared to visit them..

 

[sm]

BTW, I still type in dmoz.org instead of dmoz.com and dmoz.net... even though the latter two work. This is an example of promoting the tld along with the name to such an extent that people inadvertently type in the correct tld.

 

[mole]

First of all, make sure your .tld fits your site, and make it obvious to your visitors that this is the case. Visitors will find it easier to remember that you're a .org rather than a .com if you're a non-profit organisation, and if you remind them that you're a non-profit organisation. If you're a .net that sells stuff, then visitors will find it much harder to remember which strange tld that isn't a .com you use.

Second, incorporate your .tld into your site name. Whenever you refer to your site, include the tld. You don't want to be known as "Site Name", you want to be known as "Site Name .tld". Reinforce this at every opportunity.

Third, encourage visitors to bookmark your site. Repeat visitors that try to remember the name of your site might go to the .com by mistake; repeat visitors that bookmark it won't.

Good post ark, rep added.

For point 2, try http://www.billboard.biz for an example of this.

 

[WhiteWebServices]

Thanks mole, and thanks sm; good point about logos.

Theres no doubt that a non .com domain leaves you at a disadvantage and you have to work harder to get your site to the top of the SERPS. Once you get there, the tld doesnt matter as much, because according to repeated statements from Google reps, the tld makes no differance in there calculations for serp position.

*slightly confused*

This last part seems right--tld doesn't effect SERPs--so why do you say that it's harder to get non-.coms to rank well?

 

[wildbest]

BTW, I still type in dmoz.org instead of dmoz.com and dmoz.net... even though the latter two work. This is an example of promoting the tld along with the name to such an extent that people inadvertently type in the correct tld.

Very often I type dmoz.org, however, out of habit hit the Ctrl+Enter and here we go to dmoz.org.com

 

[aronbrasha1]

I've heard that one of the liabilities of using a non-.com domain is that you'll lose traffic to the .com. A certain percentage of the population just aren't web-savvy / smart enough, and will type .com no matter what .tld your site is really at. I have two questions:

(1) How big a problem is this?
(2) How, without owning the .com, can it be minimised?

I guess that the answer to (1) depends on how you generate traffic for your site. If you rely on direct navigation, either from speculative type-ins or repeat visitors, for a large proportion of your traffic, then this will be a serious problem, though I don't know how much of one (might you lose 1% of potential traffic this way? 5%? 10%?). If you get your traffic from people clicking links on other sites or search engines, then your non-.com tld shouldn't be so much of a problem.

Assuming that losing potential traffic to a .com is a problem, how can it be avoided? I have a couple of ideas, but would like to hear any others.

First of all, make sure your .tld fits your site, and make it obvious to your visitors that this is the case. Visitors will find it easier to remember that you're a .org rather than a .com if you're a non-profit organisation, and if you remind them that you're a non-profit organisation. If you're a .net that sells stuff, then visitors will find it much harder to remember which strange tld that isn't a .com you use.

Second, incorporate your .tld into your site name. Whenever you refer to your site, include the tld. You don't want to be known as "Site Name", you want to be known as "Site Name .tld". Reinforce this at every opportunity.

Third, encourage visitors to bookmark your site. Repeat visitors that try to remember the name of your site might go to the .com by mistake; repeat visitors that bookmark it won't.

Any other ideas, anyone? And is this really a big enough problem that it's worth spending thinking about solutions?

I have many non . com specific keyword gTLDS and a majority are currently ranking higher.