Dori has done this test multiple times throughout her career and decided to do it again when she was teaching the Basic On-Page Course this spring. In the beginning (2001), the .org had always won until she did this test maybe 4 years ago and it totally came up inconclusive. But she only tested the 5 major extensions - .com, .net, .org, .info, .us. For this test, she gets a couple of other domain extensions to check, which is the best.
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What is the best domain extension to use? So, okay, the basic on page course I did this spring... I thought it was pretty interesting so I included it here. I’ve done this test a lot of times in my career because I’ve bought a lot of domains in my career.
In the beginning in 20001 for 10 years or something it seemed like the .org had always won. Just it always won. I was even an affiliate with Brad and Matt Callen and we were doing the Amazing Selling Machine. We bought a bunch of domains in the .org and we actually over ranked everybody using that. But we did a lot of different things. But that's still one.
A couple years ago, I did test it again and in a lot of different ways and I used five major extensions .com, .net, .info, org, .us. I totally got inconclusive results, which happens. It's kind of like the image thing. It does come up inconclusive, which was okay and actually .us was on top and .dot info was on top a lot of the time. But it wasn't there enough for me to say: Oh wow, that that is the extension I'm gonna use. I couldn't call it.
So the test set up… since there's so many different new domains out there I did go beyond the 5. I even got a .health. I did the keto diet beginners. This would be an affiliate. I really thought that this one (.health)here would would out beat everything. Because of the keyword in the URL, not the keyword, but the topic..
This is where I go into that topic stuff too; topical. Keto-diet-beginners. Keto diet is a health related. So that's where I'm like, okay, this is topical. This is going to win and all the results totally surprised me .
First off .tips and the .io were the first to index. Then the.org and the .guide indexed . The dot org was on top and I thought YEA! It is again. Here we go.
It's just a rendition of years gone by with the .org. But then the .org disappeared. The .us appeared on top and then we got others index. The .net came, the .info came, but there was no sign at all of the .com, the .co or the .health, which is the one I thought was gonna win because it was health-related. We also lost the .io along the way. We never saw the .health, .co or the .com.
Here's another. You know the .us. .guide is in here a lot. The .guide held in there the entire time and it's here still today today. I checked it and it's still there. Now the .me is on top , but what does that mean? I mean here: here's like two pages worth the results, because we're using these sites as test sites. Now so the .me is a test site. The .co is a test site. The .net. I don't know if we used it yet, but I accidentally clicked on the.net, so I don't know if that's why it's above.
But I have to give credit to the .guide. I mean, if I'm doing a Keto guide, I think I might just buy the .guide. Because I’m doing the pipe ends in between, it's not a branding thing, this is obviously an affiliate play. It sounds like the .guide might be the thing, especially because this would be a guide for the keto diet beginners, which I wouldn’t have known if I haven't tested this.
Does that mean I'm gonna go out and buy .guides for everything? Hell, no. I mean I'm still gonna go get a .com for my projects, or any of my projects that are branding. I want the .com version of that, but you know for an affiliate play or something really quick, use HTML and by the.guide. I'm even completely sad that my .org kind of went away now.
I want to also comment on these things are still indexed. The.com is indexed and the other ones that didn't show up for the keyword, they are indexed. If you do a site:domain search qualifier, they do come up.
They just don't come up for the keyword that we were testing for. So what does that mean? I don't know, it's kind of strange. Would it happen every time? I don't know that either. We'll have to test it again but that would not deter me from buying my .com or .org for my branded sites. I like the .orgs because of my previous ranking experience with them, and people seem to think that they are information and people go to the internet for information.
So to me, it's like a secondary ranking factor more than a first. That is that on the domain stuff. That’s actually it on the 10 tests.
Info:
We're probably gonna do these from now on on the first Thursday of the month. Instead of the last. We had that big webinar last week on Thursday with the NFG guys for SEORockstars. It ended up my wife and I got the flu.
Our next month, we're gonna continue doing the deep dive on the topical versus non topical linking. That is just that's me getting out my Yaya's. I really want to know plus you know in my PBN business, it’s just really important and I got an axe to grind on that.
We're also going to start out the test on press release services. Simon's gonna help us with that. He has press release services with a different couple ones so we'll be doing different things with that. We're gonna start that up we're gonna come back on the image density and start on also video density too. And see if there's anything there more on sentences per paragraph.
We’ve got tests in the popper, for you know, age domains versus vs. new domains and where to place your table of contents and we're going to do a deep dive into PBNs and linking in general, so that's all coming up in the next month. Oh, we're also testing Colinki to see how that works as an indexer.