chess.com player ratings

I'm fairly new to playing chess online, and have never played in competition.  I have a rating currently here of 1556 (after only six games, mind you, and all against lower rated players - so I'm not sure how realistic that really is).

My question is:  how does this rating compare to an OTB rating like FIDE or USCF ratings?  Is it fair to assume that it would be comparable, or are they completely unrelated.  I don't even know how ratings are established to be honest.

Thanks!

They are not comparable. It's a performance rating based on who you play, so it is only really relevant within the pool of players it was generated from.

There are couple of articles floating around explaining how the ratings work. I don't have links right now, but there is one in my blog, and one in the help section (search for  ratings).

My chess.com rating has been anywhere from 300-400 points higher than my USCF rating since I started playing OTB chess.

Technically, they are non-comparable due to different players in each list exc.

I do actually look at people's chess.com ratings and OTB ratings, and chess.com's is normally 300 points higher.