In January, 2016 my new digital marketing company -- Logical -- needed a Domain name. LogicalSEO.COM was taken, so I opted for a .Net Domain name.
As a Search engine optimization (SEO) company, I worried that my .NET domain may affect my site's SEO value for competitive keywords.
It's been about 9 months and I can say I haven't noticed detractions in site value or domain authority due to this decision. Granted, I haven't run any scientific tests, but for the following reasons I'd theorize the negative affect of a .NET domain name is little to none.
- Logicalseo.NET shows up in search results, more or less, where I would expect given my content, domain links, and site longevity (January - September, 2016).
- Google rewards quality content, not URL characters. Search engines attempt to rank the best content for each given search. That means they take each site (and each webpage) on a case-by-case basis, and judge them on their own merit. There are plenty of .COM websites that are terrible. There are also plenty of .NET, .ORG, .fill-in-the-blank websites that are stellar. Google would be foolish to reward .COM sites and punish the others.
- Times have changed. .COM remains the most widely recognized (or even assumed) top level domain (TLD) available. The way we use the internet, however, has changed. People will likely use search engines to find your brand. Others will use non-branded keywords, and if you produce quality content and spend some time with SEO, you'll probably rank for your important keywords.
If I were to launch another website I wouldn't hesitate to get a .NET domain name (or really any other, for that matter). I wanted to make sure it didn't affect my site's value and traffic so I did a little research, and went for it. After 9 months, I see no indication that our .NET domain has resulted in any SEO issues.
