better domain extension for mainstream SEO - .biz or .us
 

Which do you think attracts more clicks for the following when they show up in the rankings?

finance .us or .biz domains
insurance .us or .biz domains
dating .us or .biz domains
travel .us or .biz domains
weight loss .us or .biz domains

There are some decent domains available for both these extensions.

I'm leaning towards .biz .....

neither

.com
if the .com is parked get the .net
if the .net is parked get the .org


If all are gone, move on.

This. It REALLY drops off after .org, unless you're targeting specific countries and using that country's extension. It's not worth bothering with other extensions.

I would say though there are some times when .org is better than .net. In the categories you posted, I would go with .org over .net for finance, weight loss, and possibly insurance...anything health is good with .org and many financial areas benefit from the trust/authority factor of .org. We focus a lot on .org and have always done well in sales of .org's in all 3 of those areas.

well I'm about to find out.
 

I just regged some .biz and .me sites for local lead gen. My guess is .biz will do well for small local. I think nationally though you really need to put up the $$ for the .com .

In general, between a gTLD and a ccTLD outside of the ccTLD's country, the gTLD would probably do better, even if it's a crappy one. Prominent ccTLDs like .co.uk and .de might be another story but I would think .biz would outperform .me. Maybe the only area it wouldn't is social media since there's a lot of .me sites in social media and Google probably notices that.