Google Hates .me Domains
- 23 Lashings
- Dropped Feb 24th, 2009 by Ted Murphy in marketing
It’s been five months since I launched this blog and it is still nowhere to be found when you search for “ted murphy” on Google.com. Google’s algorithm gives so much weight to site age, back links and apparently domain extension that superior content and relevancy don’t seem to matter.
I have owned tedmurphy.org and tedmurphy.net for many years. While neither of them are regularly updated with original content anymore both of them outrank this site. My Vimeo, Twitter , LinkedIn and Facebook profiles also outrank Ted.me for my name. All of these social media profiles link back to this blog yet Google.com doesn’t seem to recognize it as an authority. Ted.me does not rank in the first 100 Google.com search results for “ted murphy”.
I started wondering if I was doing something wrong. Is this blog configured improperly in some way? Tedmurphy.org is a simple Tumblr blog, a platform that doesn’t have any of the SEO bells and whistles you can install with Wordpress (I use the All in One SEO pack among others). I looked through Ted.me and didn’t see any glaring issues. The site is indexed just fine and I rank for terms I don’t care about.
The only thing I could come up with was my .me domain extension. I went to Google.me and sure enough ted.me is listed #5 (with tedmurphy.org outranking it).
Beware of .me Domains
I have to admit I had second thoughts about purchasing a .me domain. I was drawn to it because ted.me is so short and unique… it’s not often that you can grab a 5 letter domain. I knew international domains were penalized on Google.com but thought I could overcome it with good content that people linked to. It appears I may have been wrong.
Am I screwed? Will ted.me never reach the top of google.com for my name because of the .me extension? It sure looks like that may be the case. In my opinion Google hates .me domain extensions. While ted.me did show up on Google.me it was still outranked by my .net domain, which means even Google.me favors traditional U.S. domains like .com, .net and .org. Unless you want to rank for Google in Montenegro I would stay away from .me domains for now.
If any SEO experts can weigh in on their experience with .me domains I would greatly appreciate it.
Trackbacks
- Ted Murphy über .me Domains & Google « IT, Sex, IRC & RL posted on September 15th, 2009
Well what about using it as a redirect and transferring the site over to tedmurphy.org or whatever. You tell people to go to ted.me and it 301s them to tedmurphy.org.
There was a mass interest in .me domains when they came out. I grabbed ZAC.ME, but doubt I will ever do anything with it. I imagine as this site grows in size, content and link backs…Google should finally give it the listing it deserves.
Oh great! I have a new .me site launching later this week! It’s 3 months in the making. Ugh!
@Debby Phillips:
I could be wrong Debby. I am just sharing my personal experience.
It’s because .me is usually reserved for Montenegro, and you unfortunately can’t geotarget it to US in Webmaster Tools. It’s not the end of the world though, I’ve got some .me’s that get US search traffic. Try searching for “please dress” (not my site, but just to show you that it’s doable). You just need to show Google that it’s a US site and deserves to rank - you’re already on US hosting which is a good start, try building more links from US sites. Give it time and you’ll start to see some more traction in the search results.
I am also using my .me domain to blog at, and it does not show anywhere in the top of Google when searching for my name. But interestingly, if I search for my name without a space between the first and last, then my .me shows up on page 3.
It may not be as good as a .com, but I still like the unique feeling of using a .me.
I know a guy that may be able to offer assistance. He works near you and all he does is SEO (-:
Thanks for the advice. I just bought johnraser.me last week. Maybe I’ll auction it off on ebay…
Ted, it seems dumb that Google’s search and ranking algorithm can’t do something simple like scan a domain to see if it’s content is in English, and then list it in the regular Google.com search engine listings. I’ve never (and never will) understand Google’s ranking system or PR. But I guess that’s what the old RankSpank site was all about. I just have this terrible Love/Hate relationship with Google. Love the apps, hate the ranking / Adsense / marketing side of Google.
@The Raging Tech:
I’m with you brother. From Google’s perspective the more they confuse people the more money they make. If there was a sure fire way to be listed in organic search results they would be out of business.
I think you’re crazy dude. This site is BRAND NEW. It has nothing to do with .me domains… it has to do with TIME. You should know better! Give it time… you will be rewarded.
Why not 301 the other posts to this site?
I forgot to ask….what part of TED.ME leads you to believe it should rank for “TED MURPHY”?? Just curious…..
Good thing you scrapped those plans of rebranding IZEA to run-off a .me domain huh?
Jon
http://blog.legendarylife.com
“Me” thinks you just need time for the site to get traffic.
Or maybe Google is upset as they love and have a great affiliation with TED.com - for the TED conferences
But I can tell you for a fact that GOOGLE does not hate ME, well maybe “ME”, but not DOTME - they registered brands in the extension, something they do not do in other extensions
2 great new ME sites are getting major traffic. Notify.me, which launched in January get nicely indexed on Google and has an Alexa of about 100 K
The online dating site, YOUAND.ME which launched 10 days ago is getting a decent ranking, and it’s actually right up there with Match.com latest creation http://www.downtoearth.com, which launched 6 weeks before YOUAND.ME
So, give the site time, have some compelling content, let your tribe know about you TED.ME and you will start to get a higher ranking - at least “ME” thinketh..:)
When you do a search for - google “.me” domains seo - this post is #1.
@Chris:
Well that is pretty ironic isn’t it!?!
@Chris:
Maybe it used to be… isn’t anymore. Matt laid the smack down
hmm same problem here from my hunde.me domain (in english hunde = dogs) my site is not in google index, but i dont know why?
Just wanted to revisit this with an update. Your site now ranks #2 on Google.com for “ted murphy” right behind your .org - I guess it’s all about time?
Not only is your ranking for .me going up, but Google now allows geo-targeting
http://www.namemon.com/component/content/article/43-search-engines/64-google-permits-geo-target-of-me-domains
come on! you rank quite well for ted murphy. In fact the reason i think you are on page 3 google for ted is because you haven’t linked back with that name. So stop giving scaring people. You almost had me worried about my Kenya safari .me extension.
Just did a search for “Ted Murphy” on google.com. Your ted.me domain is ranked #2 in the results. Looks like your theory about .me domains was wrong.