Is SEO harder for a .info?

[Saluki Guy]

Hi all,

I've heard conflicting opinions about this... Do .com, .net, .org etc have more SEO value than .info?

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

[yukon]

No, .info rank the same as any other TLD.

[James-]

All TLD's are the same in terms of SEO. .info just seems less in terms of quality if you are taking branding into account.

But that is personal opinion.

[InTheMaking]

Originally Posted by James-

All TLD's are the same in terms of SEO. .info just seems less in terms of quality if you are taking branding into account.

But that is personal opinion.

Good answer, James.

[stevenjacobs]

this is one of my favorite topics. I have been doing research on this subject for over three years now I have learned.com's are the best .NET's are the second best and.org are the third best there is not a big difference. there is also a trust factor people trust.com's more than they trust.impose I've also learned info is harder to rank for in Google

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by stevenjacobs

this is one of my favorite topics. I have been doing research on this subject for over three years now I have learned.com's are the best .NET's are the second best and.org are the third best there is not a big difference. there is also a trust factor people trust.com's more than they trust.impose I've also learned info is harder to rank for in Google

Really?

Please share your research then. Not other people's opinions, but actual research.

[stevenjacobs]

I bought 5 exact match domains to the keyword. I used the doamin exstetion, .com,.org. ,net, .biz,.info. I then built 200 back links to each of the domains the exact same linking URL. And did the exact same, content, word press theme, and on page Seo. I then tracked the ranking progress for the different domain extensions for three months. My results showed that .com was best, then .net, .org, info, .biz.
I hope this helped.

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by stevenjacobs

I bought 5 exact match domains to the keyword. I used the doamin exstetion, .com,.org. ,net, .biz,.info. I then built 200 back links to each of the domains the exact same linking URL. And did the exact same, content, word press theme, and on page Seo. I then tracked the ranking progress for the different domain extensions for three months. My results showed that .com was best, then .net, .org, info, .biz.
I hope this helped.

And you built backlinks on the exact same 200 sites to each of the domains? And you made sure the same backlinks were indexed for each site? Then you repeated this test several times to make sure your findings were accurate?

[stevenjacobs]

I did it 3 times and did exact same process.

[xylement]

this thread came up just in time cuz i am planning to buy a .info domain. Thanks TS! ahaha

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by xylement

this thread came up just in time cuz i am planning to buy a .info domain. Thanks TS! ahaha

You should buy it. They rank just as well.

[Targeted Traffic]

These extensions at the end of the domain does not matter at all in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It will not get you a higher Search Engine Position Rank(s). Also known as SERPs. You might see sometimes a .net website outperform a .com website in search engines.It is a matter of branding. If i get tons of high quality backlinks for a .net website, I am sure that i will get it to pass a .com website in SERPs, and this go for all the extensions.

[stevenjacobs]

Info do not rank as well. They are also horible for branding

[stoaf88]

I have had no problem ranking .info domains.

That being said, I always look for .com/net/org first

[FabianSmith]

Every Top-level domain are the same in terms of SEO. so .info just seems less in terms of quality if you are taking branding into account. feel free to optimize.

[UMS]

Originally Posted by stevenjacobs

I bought 5 exact match domains to the keyword. I used the doamin exstetion, .com,.org. ,net, .biz,.info. I then built 200 back links to each of the domains the exact same linking URL. And did the exact same, content, word press theme, and on page Seo. I then tracked the ranking progress for the different domain extensions for three months. My results showed that .com was best, then .net, .org, info, .biz.
I hope this helped.

Let me get this right.

You first created 5 empty WordPress sites:

keyword.com
keyword.org
keyword.net
keyword.info
keyword.biz

Then you created 200 backlinks to each of the sites with 'keyword' as the anchor text?

Did you use the same backlinking sites for each domain?

Then I assume you waited for each domain to be indexed?

Then you added the exact same content to each domain?

Then how long did you wait?

What sort of difference was there in the SERPS?

Did you check the percentage of backlinks indexed?


I know that's a lot of questions, but for your test to have any validity, it's important to fully understand your method.

[addyj672]

I think steven is very right about his findings. As .com is very good for branding and specially it give good global impact then other domains. People trust .com website while click on results from search engine.

Every domain can be optimize for search engine but requires lot of efforts. But .com websites require less efforts then .info websites...

[marksmit]

Personally I feel no. I would like to share my experience. I'm campaigning for a UK university website and my competitor domain is in .info. I think it's very easy beat .info domain. All my experiments are failed and still now I'm is in 2nd position and that .info is in 1st. Quality of link matters not TLD's.

[howinfo]

Originally Posted by stevenjacobs

Info do not rank as well. They are also horible for branding

I think you should say that .info .net and .org does not rank well for YOU, otherwise other people might get an idea that .com has some magical SEO advantage.

[alinpion]

From what i know all domain extensions have the same value in google dot come. If you target geo keywords let's say berlin travel (in german) then you might see some better resultes in google dot de if you use the .de extension but the keywords must be as well in german (main ideea for this example is that german keywords rank better that english one on google dot de)

[junne]

Generally it is seen that .info domains are used by spammers.so Google trust less on .info than others.

[howinfo]

Originally Posted by junne

Generally it is seen that .info domains are used by spammers.so Google trust less on .info than others.

Can you share where have you seen such a statistic and where does Google says that they trust .info less.

[MikeFriedman]

Originally Posted by junne

Generally it is seen that .info domains are used by spammers.so Google trust less on .info than others.

Are you freaking kidding me? Do you know how many spammy .com's and .net's exist? A hell of a lot more than .info's.

There are plenty of keywords you can search and find .info's on page one. When you analyze their backlinks, you can see it is just as easy to rank a .info as any other site.

[imsas]

All domain extensions have the same value.. Some extensions are newer than other and thus the reason you see more .com's,.net's, etc. than .info's since they have been around longer.. I have a couple of .co's and the site's are ranking great..

[jackwebson]

All of the extensions don't really matter in SEO. You can still rank for a .info site just the same with .com

[yukon]

Originally Posted by stevenjacobs

Info do not rank as well. They are also horible for branding

You do realize that's a load of BS (right)?

[bummed.out]

I am outranking .coms with .nets and .orgs. I am outranking .com, .net and .org with .info. From experience, I will say that the TLD does not matter in the eyes of a search engine.

[JMartin]

Yeah, .info domains don't rank. Please leave them alone so I can buy them. Thanks.

I just did a search for Kentucky Derby and the .info is ranking many spots higher than the .org. Guess it comes down what you actually do with the domain (GASP!).

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by stevenjacobs

this is one of my favorite topics. I have been doing research on this subject for over three years now I have learned.com's are the best .NET's are the second best and.org are the third best there is not a big difference. there is also a trust factor people trust.com's more than they trust.impose I've also learned info is harder to rank for in Google

If this were the case, then a 3rd party page on a google product would not
get ranked. But prchecker.info owns the niche for pagerank, pr, pr checker, etc.

I guess neither they nor google got your memo. Maybe google will read
this and prchecker.info will get dropped. I guess the trust factor slipped
through on this one. It's good that you pointed this out and google can
zap that nasty .info.

Paul

[mrshades]

Paul way to be a dick.... but your signature does say it all. I tried 12 domains all on first page still pm if you want a few names, it doesnt matter

[ilyasfut]

I never used an info domain. (I use .com)
But after reading a lot of threads about this subject, I'm planing to use .info domains also.

[JSProjects]

Originally Posted by xylement

this thread came up just in time cuz i am planning to buy a .info domain. Thanks TS! ahaha

There are at least 5 new threads on this topic every day, so that's not a big surprise.

Anyway, I've never THOROUGHLY tested it, but in my experiences .info rank just as well as any other extension. People tend to see less of them in the results, so they naturally think they don't rank very well. But remember, there are fewer .info's registered. And a good portion of the ones that actually have been registered are just sitting due to lazy marketers.

[ilyasfut]

I never used an info domain. (I use .com)
But after reading a lot of threads about this subject, I'm planing to use .info domains also.

[TheFBGuy]

Hahahaha, this is great, I hope this myth continues that it's harder to rank a .info because it benefits some of us, so many EMD.info's available.

Just launched a NEW .info domain which I shared here awhile ago, about 1 month now or so and it's moving up fast, leaping over everyone, already at the top of page 3. I may post it here as case study.

[kashif nazeer]

no. seo does not depend upon .info or .com or .gov etc. google prefer valid information in the website plus code validation

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by stevenjacobs

Info do not rank as well.

This is just plain wrong. TLD extensions don't affect SEO in any way, and never have done.

But long experience in this forum has taught me that there simply isn't a way to prevent people from believing total nonsense of this kind.

There are literally hundreds of threads just like this one in this forum and they're all basically the same, and they all explain the same thing, and they all explain the same reasons for it, and some of them have links to videos in which Matt Cutts from Google explains it, too ... but if people prefer to cling to totally misguided beliefs based on the urban myths of internet marketing, rather than learning something, what can you do?

[GoodnightSweetRatRace]

I own a .info domain, and currently ranking #2 for a keyword which recieves 12,000 exact searches per month (Google Tool)

I'm beating plenty of .com's .net .doesntmatters

It's a myth.

[ronaldmd]

Big NO.

Where did you get the idea that .info is harder for SEO anyway?

[Dano1981]

I am sorry jacobs,

I HATE to be negative. I believe it's not warranted in the vast majority of cases. But this is just absurd and uneducated at best.

So "ONE SAMPLING," or "THREE SAMPLINGS," of unverified, unknown and unsubstantiated pieces of data in your “vacuum,” constitutes "FACT?"

Then hun, why do others rank just fine?

Hun, I'm so sorry to be hard on you, but you can't postulate upon what you've presented. Don't you think those that are far more educated in the areas of research and marketing would have already noticed a disparity and complied data to this affect?

"Note to self, if jacobs makes anymore posts, scrutinize anything and everything he says. He's reckless"

That's reckless hun!

If you said it was your opinion I would say "great! You’re learning." But, when you come across as having conducted unimpeachable research, you stepped over the line. You have no right to come across as some expert hun, with your pedestrian schoolyard proof.

If you like research, take college courses in that vein, and learn marketing, or statistical analysis. See hun, what you wind up doing it to get others (who don't know any better) to believe you. That is the true danger. This is how inaccurate information starts on the web, and spreads.

On the other hand Jacob -- it could be possible that certain consumers may have more trust in .com's than .info's. I do not doubt that such a balance of opinion could exist. However, as the ".info's" become more mainstream and grow in usage, we become more familiar with them as well. Typically, and historically, such dynamics lead to larger acceptance. It's simply the way of the world.

Will they ever garner the level of "trust" that a .com has? That is debatable; for some market segments it would, for others, it might lag to a degree. But to attempt to "parlay" or interconnect that into the other argument discussed earlier? Perhaps someone of great youth may believe such an argument, but, it wouldn't seem to withstand the test of any logical debate.


Danni~

[davidwright]

I have not recommend you not to buy .info domain name, however if you wanna create a lot of mini website that going to rank for a very low competitive keyword, then buying .info domain can be really affordable.

[Josh MacDonald]

Jimmy Eriksson has no problem using them, but I never have good luck with them.

[nicolenattan]

If you know what the proper use of those domain extension then you would not come out in this kind of question. What good for you is to use them on their right ways, either for business, organization, country or government and more. The thing is their is no difference if you use them, its just a division from those extension for clear identification on the first view.

[epathj]

yea,info is harder to seo than .com .net, IMO.
My .info sites are not rank very well.
.com looks more authoritive than .info

[supershoesclub]

I think .info is not popular like .com and .net in the world.So many people choose to use .com.Even though the seo is fair to all domains.But depend on its Popularity.more people would like to link back with .com to gain authority. and if you want to promote a business or product.you's better to choose .com for better seo purpose.

[John Williamson]

Yes, there are indeed many "conflicting opinions."

LINK:
.info or .com for SEO purposes?

[rafay]

Yes it is harder because Google Does not prefer it as its usually use for Spamming Purposes!

[John Williamson]

Originally Posted by rafay

Yes it is harder because Google Does not prefer it as its usually use for Spamming Purposes!

Yea, and Yahoo controls more of the search market than Google.....

[jindalmedic]

No, It's not, SEO is the same for all TLD...

[hgy]

there is no doubt that google rather rank a .com /.net/.org domain higher then an .info doamin.

[Alexa Smith]

Originally Posted by hgy

there is no doubt that google rather rank a .com /.net/.org domain higher then an .info doamin.

This is just plain wrong. TLD extensions don't affect SEO in any way, and never have done.

But long experience in this forum has taught me that there simply isn't a way to prevent people from believing total nonsense of this kind.

There are literally hundreds of threads just like this one in this forum and they're all basically the same, and they all explain the same thing, and they all explain the same reasons for it, and some of them have links to videos in which Matt Cutts from Google explains it, too ... but if people prefer to cling to totally misguided beliefs based on the urban myths of internet marketing, rather than learning something, what can you do?