.info domains to just redirect to affiliate product?

24 replies
hello all,

I'm probably asking another stupid question but...

I was on the godaddy website a few minutes ago and they are selling .info websites for £0.51 and I am wondering how I can put these cheap domain names to good use.

What I am thinking is that I could create a few info domains on keywords that I have been thinking about, write a few articles and just have the domain redirect to a specific affiliate link, I am specifically thinking about links to amazon products but I might choose other things.

Is this a worthwhile exercise?

I have been doing a bit of reading about selling clickbank products, I am based in the UK and most of what they sell are American based so I have not given it serious consideration just yet, but if I could have these just redirect to products and write ezine articles, it might be worth a go.

One last question, I asked it in another post but it got overlooked. How exactly does copyright of domain names work?

This is how I understand the process of long tail niche marketing to be. You find a product, lets say tv, you then keep going down, so say 'Sony', then 'sony bravia', then maybe model 'br75657' which would mean you create a domain with something like sony-bravia-br75657 and then you create the website around this?

But I am now reading that if you use brand names the companies can either get a court order to get you to close it down or ask for the name to be transfered. How exactly does this work?
#affiliate #domains #info #product #redirect
  • Profile picture of the author getsmartt
    Originally Posted by reillymary56 View Post

    hello all,

    I'm probably asking another stupid question but...

    I was on the godaddy website a few minutes ago and they are selling .info websites for £0.51 and I am wondering how I can put these cheap domain names to good use.

    What I am thinking is that I could create a few info domains on keywords that I have been thinking about, write a few articles and just have the domain redirect to a specific affiliate link, I am specifically thinking about links to amazon products but I might choose other things.

    Is this a worthwhile exercise?
    This is actually done quite often and is a worthwhile exercise

    This is how I understand the process of long tail niche marketing to be. You find a product, lets say tv, you then keep going down, so say 'Sony', then 'sony bravia', then maybe model 'br75657' which would mean you create a domain with something like sony-bravia-br75657 and then you create the website around this?

    But I am now reading that if you use brand names the companies can either get a court order to get you to close it down or ask for the name to be transfered. How exactly does this work?
    Yep this is the way it works (sometimes)...IMHO you are better off getting a site like TVReviews.com (or something) and putting your reviews on their own page so you get something like TVReviews.com/sony-bravia-br75657

    or even using subdomains so you get sony-bravia-br75657.TVReviews.com
    Signature

    Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker

    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371628].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author willbucks
    You are correct if you use a branded name there is a chance you can lose it. This usually doesn't happen until your site gets too popular. I have experimented with .info with some success.

    Using it as a blog or review site seems to be the best choice.

    I also don't recommend godaddy for lot's of reasons, like they are too big for their britches and can take your site offline for the littlest infraction or complaint.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371645].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author kevinhdavis
    How often have you done a google search and actually saw a .info domain come up in the results?

    In our past experience during the adsense days, it was a waste of time and money, even when they are so cheap.

    Kevin
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371664].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Gail_Curran
      Redirects for Ezinearticles, Youtube, etc. are a very good use for .info domains, even if you prefer not to build a site on them. You can get nice short keyword-rich domains that aren't available in .com.
      -
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371703].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author srumsley
        Originally Posted by Gail_Curran View Post

        Redirects for Ezinearticles, Youtube, etc. are a very good use for .info domains, even if you prefer not to build a site on them. You can get nice short keyword-rich domains that aren't available in .com.
        -
        Definitely the best use for .info domains. As has been said, they don't have a 'natural' ranking advantage like .com, .net or .org. , so you will rarely see one on page 1 of the search engines.

        Using a brand name in the domain can get you in trouble. Some companies don't care, and some will be onto you like a ton of bricks, even if you are sending traffic to them with your domains. This happened to me, and I had a letter of demand from a lawyer and had to 'surrender' the domain names, so I was out of pocket.
        Even seemingly generic names can be trade marked by someone else. I had "Best Christian Credit Counseling" thinking that was generic, but I got a demand letter from a company who has trademarked a 'similar' name, and they demanded I give it up. I didn't really think it was fair, but I decided not to quibble.

        Best advice? Buy the generic top level domain, but in your home page description of the keyword you are most likely to rank for, list the brands you are really wanting to target. Eg., Best LCD TVs.com " Want to know the best features of the Sony XYZ, the LG, the Panasonic...." That way surfers will see these brand names on the search results description, which will encourage the click from those looking for 'brands'.

        Sue
        Signature

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371991].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author reillymary56
      Originally Posted by kevinhdavis View Post

      How often have you done a google search and actually saw a .info domain come up in the results?
      I appreciate that there is very little chance of getting them to rank high, that's why I was thinking of just using them solely for redirecting traffic to one product and inserting the links into articles. I read that some article directories are funny about using direct affiliate links, so I would need to have domains.

      In our past experience during the adsense days, it was a waste of time and money, even when they are so cheap.

      Kevin
      When you say during the adsense days, what do you mean? Is adsense on the way out? I have just started thinking about making an information website and was planning on adsense being the way to make some money from it. Am I beat before I start!

      I have just recently created my adsense account, and I noticed adsense for domains. Is there a way to use info sites with this? I don't even understand quite how adsense for domains works as I read their terms and you are not allowed to direct traffic to it.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371752].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Norma Rickman
        Adsense for domains is for parked domains.
        Signature

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371761].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author reillymary56
          Originally Posted by norje View Post

          Adsense for domains is for parked domains.
          But do people actually make any money from them?

          Are poeple just hoping for spelling mistakes to direct them to the parked domain?
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371818].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author kevinhdavis
        Originally Posted by reillymary56 View Post

        I appreciate that there is very little chance of getting them to rank high, that's why I was thinking of just using them solely for redirecting traffic to one product and inserting the links into articles. I read that some article directories are funny about using direct affiliate links, so I would need to have domains.



        When you say during the adsense days, what do you mean? Is adsense on the way out? I have just started thinking about making an information website and was planning on adsense being the way to make some money from it. Am I beat before I start!

        I have just recently created my adsense account, and I noticed adsense for domains. Is there a way to use info sites with this? I don't even understand quite how adsense for domains works as I read their terms and you are not allowed to direct traffic to it.
        Our Adsense days were 2004 and 2005, the reign of Directory Generator and Traffic Equalizer creating RSS scraper sites and making 5 figures a month off of adsense.

        You can still make money with adsense, it is just harder than it was in the early days. Our biggest mistake back then was not building a list. We had a client using our system, that generated over 1 million pageviews in the month, and didn't collect a single email. In our blindness, we thought it affected our CTR on the adsense ads. That month they did over $40K in Adsense.

        If you are going to use content sites today, my suggestion is a mix. Adsense, Affiliate, and List building. On our blog networks, we use OpenX to rotate our banner ads for affiliate offers, along with adsense and optins.

        We also make $50-$100 a month of of parked domains purchased by clients through our domain reseller account. Nothing to write home about, but totally passive.

        Kevin
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2372710].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
      Originally Posted by kevinhdavis View Post

      How often have you done a google search and actually saw a .info domain come up in the results?
      This does beg the question, have you ever searched for info on Noam Chomsky? How about regular expressions, roman coins or craft ideas? Maybe you've never needed to do some research to find out if New York was a sanctuary city or to find out something about New York transit. Oh, and have you thought about moving your money to a local bank before you go shopping on Black Friday?

      (hint for the ignorant, Google on the bold terms)
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371838].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author getsmartt
        Very good points. Most people (Internet Marketers) automatically discount .info sites. Surfers on the other hand, especially those coming from search engines, seldom even look at what the TDL is for the site they are clicking into.

        Originally Posted by bgmacaw View Post

        This does beg the question, have you ever searched for info on Noam Chomsky? How about regular expressions, roman coins or craft ideas? Maybe you've never needed to do some research to find out if New York was a sanctuary city or to find out something about New York transit. Oh, and have you thought about moving your money to a local bank?

        (hint for the ignorant, Google on the bold terms)
        Signature

        Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker

        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371848].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author kevinhdavis
        Originally Posted by bgmacaw View Post

        This does beg the question, have you ever searched for info on Noam Chomsky? How about regular expressions, roman coins or craft ideas? Maybe you've never needed to do some research to find out if New York was a sanctuary city or to find out something about New York transit. Oh, and have you thought about moving your money to a local bank?

        (hint for the ignorant, Google on the bold terms)
        Actually, I haven't search for any of those terms, except regular expressions, but it was for regular expressions generator instead of regular expressions.

        Point taken, glad to see they come up for some terms.

        Kevin
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2372681].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
    [DELETED]
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371867].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author reillymary56
      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

      Several times, and in fact there are lists in this forum in many threads of popular, competitive search-terms for which .info domains hold the no. 1 spot on Google. But a big part of the reason .info domain names aren't commonly on the first page SERP's is that fact that people are using them (as I do) for reasons unrelated to SEO and aren't trying to rank them anyway, in turn partly because the myth has got round that for some reason nobody can ever quite justify or account for, they're "harder to rank". Call me a skepchick, but I don't believe a word of it.



      What do you mean by "American based", Mary? I live in the UK and make my living as a Clickbank affiliate, as do countless others, without it ever having occurred to us (as far as I know) that the products are American based. Clickbank itself is in America, I grant you, but how is this relevant to where we live ourselves or where our customers live? Clickbank's just a digital retailer and the internet is international these days.

      Regarding your legal question, it isn't actually about "copyright in domain names" at all; it's about use of other people's trademarks in domain names. But really - take advice from lawyers, not Warriors, because our impressions of this subject are notoriously unreliable and misinformed (albeit corrected occasionally by our lawyer friend Brian Kindsvater when he's kind enough to find the time to post).
      Thanks for the detailed reply.

      Firstly let me say that I know nothing!

      With clickbank I have only had a look for a few hours and it was in the educational section that I was looking, everything I looked at was written or designed for the American education system, I couldn't find one thing that applied to the UK.

      Now, I know what I have just written sounds like I haven't grasped the idea of the internet yet but what I mean is, I am finding it hard to use clickbank products to complement existing websites that are UK orientated.

      I will start looking at products that can be just marketed as they are without having to narrow myself to a particular nationality.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2371986].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
        Banned
        [DELETED]
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2372001].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author reillymary56
          Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

          Ah! Yes indeed - in that case I see exactly what you mean.

          I suspect indeed that if your niche is a "geographically specific" one, there's going to be far more US-orientated (or, as they'd say over there "US-oriented") stuff.



          On the other hand, there are a few products there written in Spanish, if you do decide to get nationalistic about it. (Though whether anyone in Spain can afford to buy a Clickbank product, judging by the report on the Spanish economy I just saw on "Newsnight", is a different question). I suppose they're not aimed primarily at Spain, anyway, really.
          Haha,

          I was listening to a guy talking on 5 live the other day about the Spanish tourism market, he actually owned a website that sold business/bars. Apparently everyone is moving home from Spain because of the financial market and you can pick up an existing businness for around 15k euro. He was saying the property was going quite cheap too.

          I think it would be too much of a miracle that I could crack this internet marketing and get myself a nice costal villa within the next couple of years.

          I am scouring the interent in search of 6 sets of keywords that I can write articles for. Godaddy are offering 6 .info for £0.51 each, a big saving of £0.42. I just have to get someone to buy one thing and I am laughing all the way to the bank!!
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2372041].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
            Banned
            [DELETED]
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2372091].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author rondo
              [DELETED]
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2372100].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author SledgeHammer
                Also search for Black Friday. .info is topping there also.
                Signature
                Mithun on the Web
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2373119].message }}
                • Profile picture of the author reillymary56
                  I have been thinking about this all night, in fact, I haven't actually been to sleep yet and I am now in work, I'm amazed I got here in one piece.

                  So lets say I have found a book that I want to sell on amazon, I write 5 different articles about it and submit them to all the big directories. There is a fair chance these articles are going to top the search results.

                  Does this mean that google will start ranking my domain higher if these articles direct traffic to it, even though there is no actual content and it is just a redirect?

                  Becuase I am only starting at this I got a basic hosting package that allows for 3 domains, which I have already used. I was hoping to use these sites to learn before I had to start spending more on a reseller account, which is why I was thinking of having a go with the .info sites.


                  With the domain parking. I am not asking for specific url's or anything but is the traffic generated from people mispelling other websites? I have a couple of domains that are parked and they don't even come up if in google if I type in the exact address.
                  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2373411].message }}
                  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
                    Banned
                    [DELETED]
                    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2373682].message }}
                    • Profile picture of the author reillymary56
                      Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

                      Maybe.

                      But (and please don't take this the wrong way: I'm not trying to be the person who casts aspersions at your admirable enthusiasm and excitement!) Amazon commissions are on the low side, and books are a pretty low-cost item. Although you're clearly (and wisely) looking at ways of reaching genuine "buying traffic", you'll need enormous numbers of people to make it really worthwhile: the people I know doing really well from being Amazon affiliates are promoting fridge-freezers and flat-screen TV's, not books and CD's.

                      I may be wrong!



                      Sounds like Hostica, maybe? If so (and probably even if elsewhere) I think you'll be able to upgrade to 5 domains for something like $2 per month extra, and/or 10 domains for something like $5 per month extra? (This tends to be how such deals work).
                      I have been thinking about this too and what I was trying to do was find specailised books that are more expensive, that maybe have 2-3000 searches a month(according to google keyword tool)

                      My reasoning behind this was simply becuase I though there was a much higher chance of a book like that being bought straight away.

                      Do people create a website based entirely on a £500 fridge freezer or would they create a review site for similar products?

                      I would much rather be making £25 per sale!
                      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2373795].message }}
                • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
                  Originally Posted by SledgeHammer View Post

                  Also search for Black Friday. .info is topping there also.
                  Thanks. I added it to my paragraph.
                  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2373792].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author anthon
    I don't think you can find keyword domain now days!
    almost all of them are registered!

    And yeah , don;t register domains with brand names in it. Your domain might be seized by the company.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2372006].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author srumsley
      Originally Posted by anthon View Post

      I don't think you can find keyword domain now days!
      almost all of them are registered!

      And yeah , don;t register domains with brand names in it. Your domain might be seized by the company.
      Yes, you can find keyword domains (I have lots), but you have to look a bit harder and have tools like MicroNicheFinder that can help. New keywords are being created all the time (like 'ipad'), plus I read recently in a domainer's ebook that 40,000 domain names per DAY become unrenewed and available for re-purchase.

      So never think that all opportunity is long gone!

      Sue
      Signature

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[2372082].message }}

Trending Topics