I own a catch-all (general purpose) .org domain name and over the last year I've ran more than a few offers on it (putting the niche name I'm running in the subfolder.) Even though I've had hits and misses for my camps, I've often wondered if the .org domain has either positively or negatively affected my conversion rates. Because it's a good name, the .com has been taken so I can't test the exact domain against it.
Has anyone else ever bought both the .com and .org and split tested to see if there's a real difference in conversion rates for the standard affiliate offer?
I don't know of anyone who has split tested this before. I do assume that there will be little difference in terms of CRs.
It would be very interesting to see a case study for this. Even though based on niche/angle there might be an effect whether people care more about domains (security/trust) compared to other niches.
I used to split test this back on the days I was doing a lot of PPV.
The difference was minimal , around 5% in favor of the .org.
But I suspect if I ran more traffic they would even out.
I can't come up with any details about TLD extensions on paid traffic, but for organic, I haven't noticed any difference. I had a pretty big portfolio of sites that were only receiving organic traffic over around 4-5 years, in terms of CR rates (although for organic they're obviously higher than paid) I haven't noticed any difference dealing with .com / .org / .net / .info at all.
I have noticed small performance increases when you are trying to look more editorial or selling a certain angle....
but the domain name imo has more of an effect than the TLD....at least from my data.....but overall either one isn't a huge improvement to the bottom line better off testing dif traffic or a new headline/angle....
Yep, not really large improvements. For a farticle I'd get a "trick" domain like www-news.com (using www-nbc.com or similar is just asking for trouble) - other options: www2-news.com, www.news.com-reports.is/?storyid=553 - nobody knows "is" is an extension...