While domain names with the TLD .info are highly associated with spam because of their low costs, the domains are not worthless or always associated with spam (I heard this about 10 times at SES NY).
Although there are many spam sites using .info, there are many other exceptions.
Before Aaron Wall launched SEObook, his main site was and still is Search-Marketing.info
The site still ranks #2 on Google for Search Marketing; above SEMPO and above Search Marketing Standard.
And before you say “It’s only an exception because it’s Aaron Wall’s!”; think again. When Aaron launched this site he was not the Aaron Wall he is today. His budget was limited and what it took to get this site running was smarts, interviews and intellectual articles which attracted natural links to the site.
I do not believe that .info sites are guilty by association. I would never buy one, but do believe that Aaron’s site and many others to come will still be exceptions.
Hi Loren, I agree that .info site are not worthless but I don’t think the difference in price between a .com and .info should be a factor. If I had my heart set on a domain name and it was taken in .com I would go with an .info. or .net and try it. Fred
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At SES, it was surprising to hear that some SEOs were naive enough to even consider that to be a plausible theory. You have to wonder about their analytical skills.
It is bizzare to think that Search Engines would devalue an entire TLD because of spam.
Their algos are much more sophisticated than that.
INFO domains are great to have for reference or informational sites. It is a wonderful domain to have and owners should be proud to own one.
They will likely increase in value because INFO makes so much sense for some type of non commercial sites.
For whatever reason, BIZ does not seem to be taking off – nor does any of the other new TLDs.
I think if registrars would raise prices on .INFO`s they would take care of the spamming issue associated with the TLD . That would improve the popularity of the .INFO name .
Agreed Loren, I own and operate css3.info, which outranks the w3 for css3, which is their own standard…
Excellent example Joost, and thanks for the living case study :)
Um… OK… Everyone knew that (expect newbies)…
Hey FavBrowser, like I said, some long time highly respected professional SEO’s were discussing this and a large percentage of the SEO industry (including the directors of SEO at some major companies) are more or less newbies :)
search for “virtualization” on google, and see who is on top right after wikipedia – virtualization.info
It’s good to know that they are not completley worthless. With all these domain buyers out there demanding high prices for a domain that could be of good use to someone, I am glad that there are other choices for extensions.
Thats good information to have but i will still be sticking to the .com as my main domian use, i mean with Godaddy its only £7 for 2 years which is cheap enough for me!
They are cheap for the 1st year, but not necessarily so for the 2nd year and so on. So I guess age does count when it comes to .info
If you have good content why should any of the search engines penalise you for your domain extension…?