Hi there,
I am designing a website but not sure which domain to host it with (I own both).
GuitarTab.info - exact match for top keyword search in Google but not .com
GuitarsTab.com - not exact match for top keyword in Google but is a .com
What domain should I host with? And I suppose I should put a redirect on the other domain name.
Thanks for your help,
Matt.
.com is a lot easier to remember than .info, so I’s use .com.
As a guitarist I would search for exact phrases such as ‘Brad Paisley Nervous Breakdown tab’ I wouldn’t necessarily bother which domain its on.
However guitarstab is a bit odd it actually reads Guitar Stab…
Personal preference would be guitartab.info
I’d be more likely to remember .info than to remember to put the “s” in the .com domain name. 
(Indeed, chances are I wouldn’t read the spelling of the domain properly in the first place and then would be confused if I went looking for it again. :o)
I agree.
I see what you mean. I realise people will remember GuitarTab more easily.
One further thing…the website will initially just be information. So .info might be best in this respect too.
Saying that…if the website does well (a lot of hits etc.) I might start selling from it too. Then .info might not be best, if it does well.
What are your thoughts?
Matt.
I think of .info as one of several ‘also ran’ domain extensions for those who could’t get the .com extension. If someone hears about your site, you are doing well if they can remember the name of the site. It’s easier if they con’t have to remember the extension too. .com has become the default. Mind you, as others have said, these days you can google the site name and find it anyway, but still, I would only use .info if I really had to (there being no .com, .net, even .org options).
The other problem with .info is I rarely see a .info domain named website in Google search results at all!
Yeah, they don’t seem to be that common. It’s a bit of an ugly extension, too, IMHO. Those who are moving away from .com these days tend to go for more trendy extensions like .tv and .io. (I have some reservations about that, though. They are more expensive, and you can’t be sure that the countries allowing such usage will continue to do so indefinitely.)
Despite the issues with .info I think I will go with the .info domain name because it is an exact match domain name. If it is not successful, I will change it to the .com name which is not an exact match domain name.
I will auto-redirect the .com to the .info domain name. There is no benefit from hosting the same site on both domain names as that would be duplicate content in the eyes of Google, right?
Yes, no point in that at all, and it would be duplicate content. Google would probably ignore the content on one of the sites.
Just as an aside, though, did you try the hyphenated version of the domain name? At the start of this thread, I didn’t realise that the .com version you were proposing had an extra s in it. Sorry about that.
The hyphenated .com is taken. The hyphenated .co is available but I’m not keen on .co!
Hyphenated .org is available, as well as .me. I guess .org might seem a bit strange, though it’s fair enough to use it. .me is a little neater than .info, but more expensive. Or maybe you could go for .xxx 
I would recommend you to use .com because it is easy to remember too.
Edit:
(hey 1st post) 
A .info can rank highly on the 1st pg of Google and depending upon the SOC (strength of competition) can even outrank all others (being a .com/.net/.org doesn’t guarantee a high or even 1st pg position!), with great content and a few well-placed strong backlinks your .info could be in the top 3 and could even be #1 if your seo etc was better than all others.
A TLD would always be your best choice with regard to value and trust (some people don’t even bother or trust other extensions), the order of value is .com / .net / .org those are the top level domains, next would be .info and then .biz.
After those I’d probably go with a hyphen.com (tho I wouldn’t unless HAD to) and next, going further down the value chain, .us and maybe .co (honestly, today I don’t even know where the .COs fall, they were fairly popular b4 but probably are around .biz nowadays) a hyphen.net or .org wouldn’t even be worth it if you have that kind of demand for that KW from your competition, elsen’ you’d probably have to work your butt off trying to outrank them.
The .com you have (the plural version of KW) would still rank for your target keyword with the normal SEO targeting of that main KW.
If you are keeping the site for yourself it would likely behoove you to go with the .info, if you will be looking to sell the domain at some time in the future based off its success, you may want to go with the .com simply because the .com is the #1 coveted domain and some people won’t even consider a .info.
With all things being equal and you got either site to rank highly on Google your .com domain (even though it’s plural) would still likely attract more buyers than the .info.
Google looks at much more than EMD these days and if your site is strong, SEO wise, your plural version will still rank for that main KW because it is within your domain - and actually is only off by the one letter- so you will be in good shape.
Conclusion, if keeping for yourself probably go with the EMD.info, if plans to build up and sell likely the plural version .com would be best.
Hope it helps
SC -
[ot]
Very nice first post, SC! Welcome to the forums. [/ot]
Thanks Ralph!