Sometimes you only care about getting search engine traffic. For example, you may want to generate leads and then sell those leads to other sources. Or, you might have a shopping cart that resides on one main site, but you can send traffic to it from a series of “feeder” sites. If this is the case, and you don’t have any concerns related to branding, then using a .net or .org domain extension can be a profitable way to get search engine traffic.
Why does this work? The main reason is that Bing and Google have a soft spot for exact match domain names. This behavior is known is some circles as “navigational search” and it implies that search engines know people are looking for specific sites (like a brand name) so they show results that contain matches on the search query. In many cases you can rank for long-tail terms just by having a little content on a site with an exact match domain name, and if the clicks you get are good converters, then the site can justify its own existence in a short amount of time. You can even occasionally get results with a .info domain name on a good website, but exotic domain extensions don’t appear to get the same consideration.
Obviously, a better website gets better results, but the appeal of exact match domains is that you can often snap up .net and .org domain names for the cost of registration, though some are listed as premium domain names by speculators. As an added tip, you can generally bargain down the price of a premium domain name since speculators may be carrying a large inventory. If you doubt the power of .net and .org domains, then you should consider the brisk sales in the domain name aftermarket for names that match some of the higher-end words and phrases in all fields of online commerce.
The pros and cons of .net and .org domain names should always be addressed in the context of the site’s goals. For one thing, buying names along this line usually indicates that you aren’t concerned about branding and name recognition as much as you care about traffic. A company interested in a brand should secure the .com version of the domain name whenever possible, because people will often just type in the brand name into the browser bar followed by “.com.” Developing a well optimized site on these domains is usually cheaper for the exact match phrase, but will be just as much of a challenge for terms not related to the site name. From a link building standpoint, you can get a better lift even when people just link to your domain name. Observations in the field usually show that .org domains seem to have an SEO edge over ones ending in .net, but not enough to be a roadblock if the .net domain name is the only one available.
As an added bonus, .net and .org sites also become more sellable when they start to crack the top 10. This is especially true in lead generation and affiliate fields where people may be prevented from buying PPC ads either due to keyword content, affiliate status, or previous behavior. While domain flipping is an art and science in itself, it usually works better when there is an actual website involved, and a domain becomes more attractive when there is a site with a current search engine listing. Many companies will periodically buy ranking websites and then refurbish them with the knowledge that particular keyword combinations have enough volume and conversion to be profitable. Choosing the right domain extensions can put you onto the same playing field as companies that spend thousands of dollars per day on paid clicks, and get you some very attractive results.
