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.info extension reputation..

by Sornie Samante
35 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi,

When I suggested .info domain extension for the a niche blog, they said that .info got a bad reputation.. is this valid? Please let me know..

Thanks for your help.
#extension #info #reputation
  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    The .info domain extension does have a bad reputation...

    Among people who buy domain names.

    Nobody else cares. Not Google, not Bing, not the general public. Nobody.
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    • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
      I have several .info sites that do very well.

      Information sites are good to have on .info domains as well, funnily enough. :rolleyes:

      May I ask who the "they" were that told you they had a "bad" reputation? Do you know what the .info did to get the bad reputation? Was it a naughty boy or something?
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      • Profile picture of the author ladywriter
        Originally Posted by Richard Van View Post

        May I ask who the "they" were that told you they had a "bad" reputation? Do you know what the .info did to get the bad reputation? Was it a naughty boy or something?
        That made me laugh---oh that naughty boy Dot Info! Naughty naughty!
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      • Profile picture of the author Psst
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Richard Van View Post


        May I ask who the "they" were that told you they had a "bad" reputation? Do you know what the .info did to get the bad reputation? Was it a naughty boy or something?

        As far as "bad" reputation goes, yes they had and still have a bad reputation among the general public (but only among a very small number of people and I'm not sure what the Search engines think about this) and it's because .info domains have been used unethically by spammers, scammers and all other tech evildoers to spam, scam or anything like that.

        And those people who were a victim of these illegal deeds or those who heard other's victim stories will most likely avoid clicking your .info link just like many affiliate marketers avoid MLM for no reason but it's bad old story.

        But you don't have to overthink it or worry about it. the number of people that will likely avoid your .info links are very very minimal and you don't have to be concerned about them especially if you are going to use the domain name to redirect to an affiliate link or host just another site

        But still if you are going to build a blog (especially if you intend to brand it or will benefit from direct traffic like in video marketing), you are better off going with .com domains -- not for the fear of being deemed a scammer but for remembrance' sake.
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    • Profile picture of the author JSProjects
      Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

      The .info domain extension does have a bad reputation...

      Among people who buy domain names.

      Nobody else cares. Not Google, not Bing, not the general public. Nobody.
      This.

      But hey, the more people that shy away from .info domains, the more high quality .info domains will be available. So it's fine by me.
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      • Profile picture of the author NZB
        Google and other search engines pay attention to the content.

        Extensions look cool for people and possibly for trade. Of course It is easier to remember domain with the .com extension.

        Info domains have a bad reputation, but it is already a myth that are treated worse by Google.
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        • Profile picture of the author paulgl
          I vowed never to visit these threads....I'm glad I broke that!

          This thread rocks!

          Enjoy it while it lasts: Caliban, Alexa, Suzanne, et. al., all in
          one thread here, in this part of the forum...

          It don't get no better'n that!

          Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author omrishabbat
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
      Originally Posted by omrishabbat View Post

      Google knows that its a cheap domain
      Nope. Wrong.

      Spammers know that it's a cheap domain.

      If you want to buy 200 crap domains, are you going to spend $2,500 on .com registrations?

      Hell no! You're going to buy .info domains for under $500. That leaves you $10 per domain to hire some Filipino or Indian guy to put a website on it.

      What makes it "hard to compete" with these domains is that you have to do a better job than a Filipino or Indian will do for $10.

      Which, judging from your English, may actually be a problem for you.

      Google - and all the other search engines, for that matter - will not pay a damn bit of attention to the domain extension of your website. They only care what you have put on it.
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      "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." - Lord Dunsany, The Messengers
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      • Profile picture of the author Richard Van
        Originally Posted by CDarklock View Post

        Google - and all the other search engines, for that matter - will not pay a damn bit of attention to the domain extension of your website. They only care what you have put on it.
        Sornie,

        If you take one bit of information from this thread, take the quote above.
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        Wibble, bark, my old man's a mushroom etc...

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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by omrishabbat View Post

      In fact, its harder to compete with .info! Google knows that its a cheap domain and many use it for spamming.
      Poor Matt Cutts must be going blue in the face from all his repeated, consistent and concerted efforts to dispel this nonsensical myth, in writing and on video, on his own blog and on Google's blog. And yet still people like to regurgitate this urban myth of internet marketing ... and there are always others willing to believe it, too!
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      • Profile picture of the author celente
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        Poor Matt Cutts must be going blue in the face from all his repeated, consistent and concerted efforts to dispel this nonsensical myth, in writing and on video, on his own blog and on Google's blog. And yet still people like to regurgitate this urban myth of internet marketing ... and there are always others willing to believe it, too!
        yes i hate this, but its happening time and time again.

        Just like spnning. Why not just spit out unique original content. that has always worked fo me.
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    • Profile picture of the author sbucciarel
      Banned
      Originally Posted by omrishabbat View Post

      I don't agree. In fact, its harder to compete with .info! Google knows that its a cheap domain and many use it for spamming. Its not impossible because it is possible to rank high, however you need prove yourself more.
      I suggest you, if you really serious to go with the old fashioned .com...
      This theory has been disproven over and over again. .info rank if you do the SEO work, and there are a lot of people here making bank on infos.
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  • Profile picture of the author DireStraits
    Does this forum's search function also have a bad reputation?

    Because sometimes it seems like everyone deliberately avoids it like the plague.
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  • Profile picture of the author Agent 23
    What I've gathered from this thread is that the extension doesn't matter much at all. But I've also heard that Google 'loves' .edu and .gov sites. Is that true?
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Deez23 View Post

      I've also heard that Google 'loves' .edu and .gov sites. Is that true?
      Yes and no ... (but mostly "no").

      It's not the fact that they're .edu and .gov sites that Google loves. Google loves "authority sites" and some .edu and .gov sites are authority sites.

      It's explained in detail here.
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  • Profile picture of the author B.Smit
    A number of good points have been made in this thread (and other similar threads in this recurring debate). So instead of repeating what's already been said, allow me to add a few useful links:

    Home Page | .INFO
    .info - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    mta.info | Home Page (as an example of an actual .INFO site)
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    • Profile picture of the author stanwhisky
      If you search for 'spain' in google, spain.info rank #2
      It's just a matter of your content.
      If you have a .info with a bad content or just few line of words or links, G will drop them anyway

      with their auto-algo.
      If you content is valuable, why not?
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  • Profile picture of the author WebPen
    Maybe its all of the domain name registrars that spread the word about .infos being bad.

    If I had 2 functionally identical products for sale but could charge 6x the price for one, I would say the cheap one is naughty too :-)
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  • Profile picture of the author Sornie Samante
    I have enjoyed all your thoughts guys! Im learning and developed my own Idea.

    Cheers!
    Sornie
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  • Profile picture of the author razor99
    but because of geo location and the google search engine your using it can be harder too rank .info sites right?
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by razor99 View Post

      but because of geo location and the google search engine your using it can be harder too rank .info sites right?
      Judging by that last post, perhaps some people's geo location is left
      of Mars.

      Paul
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      If you were disappointed in your results today, lower your standards tomorrow.

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  • Profile picture of the author howinfo
    Originally Posted by sornie View Post

    Hi,

    When I suggested .info domain extension for the a niche blog, they said that .info got a bad reputation.. is this valid? Please let me know..

    Thanks for your help.
    No, .info does not have a bad reputation on the contrary .info has very good reputation. It is actually the most successful New top-level domain (TLD) ever launched and it is growing fast in popularity.

    The best use of .info is for informational websites but nowadays people use the extension for wide variety of web projects. As lot of people searching for information online then the word 'info' will really help you to draw visitors to your site, I certainly have noticed that with our site that is on .info extension.

    As Cdarclock mention, that .info might not be that popular among domainers, then when you go to some domaining forums like NamePros.com or some others you can see that .info is actually getting quite popular among the domain sellers as well and some good .info sales you can see on Sedo will show that too.

    And as far as ranking is concerned .info ranks very well. If someone says that it is harder to rank than some other domain extension then it is something that they are doing wrong and not the extension of the domain. How else you would explain that some people has no trouble ranking .info at all. It is always makes me laugh that people would blame the domain extension out of all things if they can not get their site rank as good as they want but you will see that people not only blame .info they also blame .net .org .biz and so on, they might as well blame www. then.
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  • Profile picture of the author xxxJamesxxx
    I use them all the time when I build Adsense sites.

    James
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  • Profile picture of the author Johnsonton
    Well, from my view, I had seen that .info domains have bad reputation, most of the spammers have used it, For an example, when I was searching article directories, I have seen lots of .info sites, but nothing had good PR or even not properly maintained. I think those extensions have a bad remark unless you are offering any specific and valued information to your user. For promoting products or services, I would not recommend to have .info domains.
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    • Profile picture of the author howinfo
      Originally Posted by Johnsonton View Post

      Well, from my view, I had seen that .info domains have bad reputation, most of the spammers have used it, For an example, when I was searching article directories, I have seen lots of .info sites, but nothing had good PR or even not properly maintained. I think those extensions have a bad remark unless you are offering any specific and valued information to your user. For promoting products or services, I would not recommend to have .info domains.
      Do you have a statistic about how many spammers use .com and how many .info’s or some other extension? How many sites on other extension are there that are PR0? I run article directory on .info domain and it went to PR 3 very fast and it is very well maintained.
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      • Profile picture of the author danilolee
        Web users are most familiar with dot com. However, I have one dot info website which is ranking pretty well on the SERPs. I tend to get dot info for informational website and dot com for actual business websites.
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    • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Johnsonton View Post

      I had seen that .info domains have bad reputation, most of the spammers have used it
      This is such nonsense. :rolleyes:

      Do you have any idea how many .info and .com domains have been registered, and what the numerical discrepancy is between the two?! Far more spammers use .com domains.

      Originally Posted by Johnsonton View Post

      For promoting products or services, I would not recommend to have .info domains.
      Most of my successful, growing business is deliberately based on .info domains.

      I do buy the .com's as well (just to make sure that nobody else can own them) but I simply redirect them to the .info ones I'm using for my business.

      I do it that way round because my customers prefer to see ".info" than ".com" (I asked them). Understandly, too. They tend to feel that ".info" is for an "informational site" (people respect this), whereas ".com" is "just someone trying to promote and sell things" (people don't respect that as much).

      Customers don't think like marketers.

      The idea that .info domains "don't rank as well as a .com" is, frankly, ludicrous. It's entirely ill-informed. It's a myth.
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      • Profile picture of the author Alex Barboza
        Originally Posted by Alexa Smith View Post

        Most of my successful, growing business is deliberately based on .info domains. I do buy the .com's as well (just to make sure that nobody else can own them) but I simply redirect them to the .info ones I'm using for my business. I do it that way round because my customers prefer to see ".info" than ".com" (I asked them). Understandly, too. They tend to feel that ".info" is for an "informational site" (people respect this), whereas ".com" is "just someone trying to promote and sell things" (people don't respect that as much). Customers don't think like marketers.

        Did you ask your costumers why they prefer .info? What was their response?
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        • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
          Banned
          Originally Posted by Alex Barboza View Post

          Did you ask your costumers why they prefer .info? What was their response?
          I asked them please to reply to me if they had any preferences, thoughts, feelings about the whole issue of domain-extensions, and what they want to see and why. I mentioned the TLD's (I missed out .biz, which I've never used - actually I forgot about it when I wrote the email ) and I asked in as non-directive a way as I could.

          I was using mostly .com's, not .info's, at the time I did this.

          Of course, the proportion who actually replied was on the low side, but I do have a lot of different lists in different niches, so that was still quite a lot of people.

          The majority of those who expressed any preference - across a wide range of niches - did so for .info, typically for the reasons mentioned above.

          I ought to add that I'm not involved in the "IM-advice" or "MMO" niches. We're talking about "customers" here, not "customers who happen also to be marketers". Marketers, of course, like .com's.
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        • Profile picture of the author howinfo
          Originally Posted by Alex Barboza View Post

          Did you ask your costumers why they prefer .info? What was their response?
          When our site that is on .info started to take off and became our main focus then I started asking people what they think if they see a domain name with .info extension and they always associate it with the information and credible resource. As some people have some confusion or disagreement about the meaning of some other domain extension then .info always seems to be very easy to understand. But I think what really gets people to click to your link on the search result mainly is your site title and site description and not so much the domain name or domain extension.
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  • Profile picture of the author nagendrabandi1980
    Hey Sorni,
    .info sites are never been with bad reputation, I have most of my websites as .info and they are doing pretty better, ignore on those false statements and just focus on your work, all the very best.
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    Nagendra

    http://wepromote4u.com

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  • Profile picture of the author imdomination
    Personally, I've never used a .info domain. However, that said I have seen a handful of competitive terms ranking .info websites, including one where the .com/.net/.info were all on page 1, and the .info was the highest ranked of the three.

    So if you're really set on using a .info domain, I wouldn't worry too much about it.
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  • Profile picture of the author fthomas137
    I too have found that .info sites work as well as any other. No more excuses guys and gals.

    Write good engaging info, and backlink you site and you'll do fine.

    Frank
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  • Profile picture of the author ashokseo
    Originally Posted by sornie View Post

    Hi,

    When I suggested .info domain extension for the a niche blog, they said that .info got a bad reputation.. is this valid? Please let me know..

    Thanks for your help.
    No, It's not true

    None of search engines care about domain extension. It's all about quality of content and backlinks, nothing else
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