.Org is more trusted by the public.
Public Interest Registry released the results of a 1,000 person survey today about trust and top level domain names.
Not surprisingly, .org was named the “most “trusted†site for information” more often than other top level domain names. If a company or organization were to publish identical information across .org, .com, .info, and .net, 41% named .org as most trusted and 22% .com. 25% said they trust all domains equally.
That all makes sense. But two percent said .net and four percent said .info as the most trusted. I’d like to meet those people or understand how the question was asked.
The numbers get stranger during a time of crisis. According to the press release:
During a time of crisis, 39 percent of Americans turn to .ORG for information, while 25 percent turn to .COM, 20 percent to .NET and only five percent to .INFO.
20% turn to a .net? What are they, systems administrators?
Of course people have played off .org as being trusted for a long time. Technically it shouldn’t be more trusted since anyone can register a .org and use it as they please.
.org says
Nice to hear that.org was named the “most “trusted”.
That’s why I have received a number of messages-inquiries of interest in InfoMedia.ORG domain name.
Also I have noticed Google rank higher (PageRank) .org domains. Obviously, non-profit organizations do not sell high PR links.
Just Another Domain Investor says
5% go to .info????
I’m not so sure I believe that it’s that high.
Josh says
That is interesting.
I wonder if he people trusting of .info could be non-internet users.
One anecdote: I have two sites which are nearly identical in content. One is synonym+topic.com, and one is synonym+topic.info. I used the same design and same content (rewritten) on both, but the bounce rate on the .info is nearly 70% while the .com is under 40%.
Off-topic but related:
I’m surprised Google shows any SEO favor at all to .info domains at this point after so much spam being published on them in general throughout the years.
In my experience, .info names rank much easier than some of the other lesser extension, like .us and .biz. I have a .us ecommerce site that has what consider good products at fair prices with decent original product descriptions. It is on a product keyword domain that I think would sell for upwards of $100k if it were a .com. It has hundreds of backlinks and PR comparable to or better than the sites on page 1 of Google for its keyword. My site is on page 8, though, and has been for months. Looking at the sites that outrank it, I have little doubt that Google discounts the value of .us sites based on the extension alone…
Steve Jones says
I agree – seems odd .info could be a first choice for anyone, even if the question is “where would you expect to see information on a topic?”
I think .org is most trusted for a couple reasons:
– It had a noble start such that nearly all registrants were non-profits, and while anyone can register them now, many average people don’t realize a .org site may NOT be a non-profit (and of course non-profit is often associated with “not out to screw us/take our money”).
– Wikipedia…similar sites as well, but Wikipedia is so huge for information and is trusted to the point of ridiculousness (considering anyone can potentially contribute to the pages) that people have a bit of transference of that to other .org sites.
We focus heavily on .org due to the trust/authority factor and the studies that have shown it outperforms .net in SEO, and our sales of them have always been strong.