Choosing a domain name

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Chantal Van: Hi! Im choosing a name for my blog. However the preferred name has been registered already. Im wondering what would be best now:
  1) choose the same name but with a different extension. This would be .net or .tips (i prefer .tips cause it suits the intention of my blog)
  2) add one word to the preferred domain name, like the word 'blog' for example. ;
  Im leaning towards option 1 however ive read somewhere (not the most reliable source) that Google gives less value to 'exotic' extension, is this true and would .net be considered as exotic? What would you advice?
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  Edwin Jonk: I am not sure either, let me ping +Richard Hearne ;
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  Alan Renberger: I would look at it from the user point of view.  ;Various extensions are just hard for a user to remember.  ;I would stick with a dot com.  ;If you are a super blogger and adding a huge amount of content you may beat the other site with the dot com in the search engines but users trying to remember who you are or what you do will have to remember "dot whatever"
  
  The only thing that would change my opinion is if you are a well known "personality" and need the use the name.  ;Hopefully the person using the site url dot com is not also well known.
  
  Since so many urls are taken it is quite a challenge and you may have to pick up a .whatever but look for the .dot com first and make it simple and easy to remember.
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  Chantal Van: Im not a well known personality unfortunately :) However the .com and .nl (cause its a blog for the Netherlands) are both not in use, only registered so beating them in the search engines is not an issue (yet).
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  Chantal Van: I agree with your issue of different extensions making it harder to remember the name, however I guess this is also the case when I go for option 2 and add a word to the preferred name like blog. What do you think about the issue of Google giving less value to 'exotic' extension, do you think that is the case or not?
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  Alan Renberger: From what I can gather google doesn't much care about the extension it is more content related for search.  ;It should not take away or add to rankings.  ;Below are a few links to look through if you have time. ;
  
  interesting read and some good info. However it is hard to really tell what google will do in each iteration and they don't disclose much except in a general way.
  http://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors
  
  again take with a grain of salt but some interesting info
  http://neilpatel.com/2015/04/14/17-seo-myths-that-you-should-never-follow/
  
  has less to do with .com but it is from reliable source as he did/does work for google and interesting.
  http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2286477/matt-cutts-be-careful-about-how-you-choose-your-cctlds#
  
  Focus on your content and you will be best off.  ;Curiously what is your blog subject?  ;It might make a difference on user trust.
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  Chantal Van: Great, i will look at those articles! Blog subject is travel.