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Keyword to target: Is it okay to use .us?
curtis1974
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Joined: 30 Nov 09
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01 Feb 10 3:40 pm

Keyword to target: Is it okay to use .us?

Hi guys, I have a delma. There is a keyword that I found. The keyword gets 2400 searches per month and locally 4400 as of last month.

broad search of this keywords 2,780,000 but when put in " " I get 15,000. I also did a domain check and found that .com.net.info.org are all taken. the only available extension available is .us.

Traffic Travis also gave a 4 star rating for this keyword. Is .us ok to use. Should I go after this keyword or not? Hint: this keyword as something to do with GOLD.

Thanks
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Last edited by michellerana on 02 Feb 10 2:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: improve title to describe the post better
 

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michellerana
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02 Feb 10 2:42 am

 We recommend that you get .com for your domain. It is the extension that most people are familiar with. If you use .us, you might lose a lot of your customers since most of them will be typing in "yourgoldsite.com" instead of "yourgoldsite.us". They would arrive at your competitor's site and if the .com competitor site is good, they'll probably keep coming back there and forget about your site.

If the .com is already taken, then it is best to find another domain name with an available .com.
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Michelle
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wollowra
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02 Feb 10 5:35 am

 Hi Curtis,
From my experience if you use a .us then it can rank a little higher in the search engines if the user clicks the country specific button under the search bar.
So if they are in the U.S then a .us domain would be the same as a .com because you do not compete with other .com domains worldwide.
However, you are missing out on all the traffic from other countries.
Personally I try to go for a .com myself even if I have to put one hyphen in.
Hey, try it out.. test it and see how you go.


Hope that helps.

Regards
Troy
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curtis1974
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02 Feb 10 6:16 am

 Thanks guys..I will try that
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covenantguy
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18 Sep 10 4:07 am

 I've got the same problem. How did you go, Curtis-did you use .us or a hyphen?
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robinjackman
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02 Oct 10 5:23 am

 no it is not okay to use .us for keyword targeting.
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michellerana
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14 Oct 10 3:57 am
covenantguy wrote:I've got the same problem. How did you go, Curtis-did you use .us or a hyphen?


There was a research done on a sample size of over one million domains which said that you could possibly lose up to 40% of your traffic when using domains with hyphen. To eliminate any confusion it would be best not to use them on your domain since users are more likely to not type the dash in when searching for your site.
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Michelle
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milansangan
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14 Oct 10 6:28 am

 Hi Curtis. If you're not concerned with type-in traffic, branding or name recognition, you don't need to worry about using. us. However, if you're serious about building a successful website over the long-term, you should think about these elements and while directing traffic to a .net, .org or .us is fine, owning a the .com is critical. With the exception of the very tech-savvy, most people who use the web still make the automatic assumption that .com is all that's out there. We don't want to make the mistake of locking out or losing traffic to them.
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thewholeinternet314
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20 Nov 10 9:21 pm

 .us is a little harder to rank for but if you're site is good it can still outrank others.
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