Hi i'm new here. I have a little question. I'm about to start on another site and I was wondering how a .com and a .org differ from each other in terms of ranking on search engines and for a sales site. I'm wondering this because I can register a domain with the exact competitive keyphrase of the niche I will be selling with a .org. Does having the exact keyphrase in a domain name help a lot with SERPS? And would a .org be the better way to go in this situation than a .com which wouldn't have the exact competitive keyphrase? Thanks.

Well the extension .com or .org makes no difference in serps.
The .org is supposed to be a non-profit based website if I remember well, but not sure, better check this out before you buy the domain.

Jocelyn is on the money with SERPS and domain.

.COM - to be used for commercial and personal sites
.NET - recommended for companies involved in Internet infrastructure
.ORG - recommended for not-for-profit organizations

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I've been told that by a few people that having a .org extension is alright for a sales site, and that they have .org sites and are making profit with them. I just don't want to make the mistake like you said in buying the domain name and then finding out that I can't sell anything on it. Also the site will be an affiliate website so there won't be any products actually selling on the site itself but I'm not sure if thats still considered a site making profit. Also when you type in a searchterm in Google or Yahoo the first site is usually "searchterm.com" or is usually high in the SERPs. So thats why I want to get this .org domain name before someone else buys it. But I have to make sure first that I will be able to use it like I want to.

I think you can do that until someone with a more legitimate non-profit reasons to have the domain complains. Can't remember where I read this... was about the new dudes that will police the .org . I have a .org that I will play with soon. Adsence told me it's ok to have adds on them but did not do it yet.

Ahh I see. So like you said, adsense will let you put ads on a .org website. So with that you'd have some sort of profit coming from the site. I would imagine having an affiliate website would be ok then. Maybe they just don't want any actual business websites selling products through .org domain extensions.

Just to clarify, there is absolutely no benefit nor hinderance to having a .org ranking wise, however there is a benefit to getting your kw in your domain.

The downside to a .org is that it goes against natural tendency so branding is less applicable, people remember your domain name and then inherently put .com after it, I do this 50 times a day and then go o shit thats right its a .net or worse a .ws lol so its a tossup, if viagra.org was available I'd honestly buy it lol but thats an exceptional case heh

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