debate Do you think .info will ever be a main player again?

[Ollie3000]

I've been buying some dot info domains as they are generally considered an 'OK' extension....I mean if they go as follows...

.com
.net
.org
.info

So they are in maybe 4th place when it comes to popularity and demand. Or at least that's how it used to be.

I like them and they're are some really cool ones about and there have been some really good sales. So i'm wondering whether anyone thinks they'll bounce back in popularity or whether I should stop binge buying them?

 

[alcy]

i kind of like info.
sadly, that's not enough to make it a good extension to own.

expect good money on great keywords
small money on good keywords
and no money on average keywords

jmo

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

from what i heard .info were hard to rank - given they were one of the cheapest extensions, attracted spam and scammers.

this may have changed since .top and like extensions have taken top spam and scam positions.

https://www.spamhaus.org/statistics/tlds/
Badness Index as of today (less is better):
.PRO 0.18
.org 0.53
.net 0.66
.com 0.93
.top 1.77
.info 3.37
.biz 4.22

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

they are pretty popular in europe (mostly germany)

Including German IDN...
+ in France...

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

p.s. You are playing only with English... it is really hard to sell in .info
Try German, French and something neutral/brandable...

 

[jmcc]

So they are in maybe 4th place when it comes to popularity and demand.

No. The .INFO gTLD is an early example of the boom and bust discounting that has been adopted by the new gTLDs. There is no high-volume demand without discounting and the .INFO gTLD is effectively dead in terms of web development in the US/CA/EU/AU/NZ markets.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Ollie3000]

p.s. You are playing only with English... it is really hard to sell in .info
Try German, French and something neutral/brandable...

Thanks for the advice, i'll look into this.

 

[guillon]

No, I dropped the one I had a long time ago and .NEWS is now a serious competitor.

 

[MapleDots]

Info business email addresses are often [email protected] and I would be hesitant to use business.info as a website for fear of confusion with the 50% of the public that is not so internet savvy.

So for business use I would pass on a .info

 

[Kate]

My advice would be to travel a lot of you can, and pay attention to what extensions people actually see and use in daily life. The reported sales can be a distorting prism, because they do not accurately reflect extension popularity. Most people won't see or notice .io .ai .co domains, yet they will sell from time but they are not mainstream anywhere.
And of course, look around you what people are using.

 

[mitko7]

I can share some info about experiment I made recently (last 6 months).
- Bought 10 .info domain names, one word, small city.
- Developed information website on them (very small, 10 pages max).
- Shared that I offer ads on them.
- Made some money (super, super small amount).
- Now I'm selling them. Already sold one.
What was the experiment about - will somebody advertise, will somebody buy. Bought did. So, I still think .info have some potential in it.

 

[Ollie3000]

I can share some info about experiment I made recently (last 6 months).
- Bought 10 .info domain names, one word, small city.
- Developed information website on them (very small, 10 pages max).
- Shared that I offer ads on them.
- Made some money (super, super small amount).
- Now I'm selling them. Already sold one.
What was the experiment about - will somebody advertise, will somebody buy. Bought did. So, I still think .info have some potential in it.

Thanks this is helpful. Mine is kind of an experiment also. I own maybe 150 dot coms, mainly one of two words etc. A few other extensions like .co.uk as that's where I am. But I was looking at the expired list and saw some of what would be really premium in dot coms just not getting picked up because they were .info.

I could develop them and I may do but this is for fun and developing is the day job. So ideally i'd like to flip...some of the recent ones I've picked (not all from expired list):

Car//Credit dot info
House//Building dot info
Templar dot info
FreeCell dot info
Blocs dot info
Chiefs dot info
Fibre//Optic dot info
Childrens//Life//Insurance dot info
Traced dot info

Now these were all £2.99 each at GD - Renewals are like £16. I think there is still good money in these, maybe not massive but in relation to the cost paid, well worth it. In dot com some of these would be high XXXX and XXXXX on a good day, easy.

 

[mitko7]

Nice ones indeed, but dont expect much. They can be sold, but with small amount as in my case.

 

[Ollie3000]

My advice would be to travel a lot of you can, and pay attention to what extensions people actually see and use in daily life. The reported sales can be a distorting prism, because they do not accurately reflect extension popularity. Most people won't see or notice .io .ai .co domains, yet they will sell from time but they are not mainstream anywhere.
And of course, look around you what people are using.

I see .com .org .net .info as cross border domains. They are all well established extensions (2001 for .info), that won't be going anywhere anytime soon. There were still like 5 million dot infos regged last year. That keeps it in the top 10 out of 882 available extensions! They don't apply specifically to any region or country and I like that to - it doesn't limit the market down to one place or niche.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

In Ukraine .info usage is very high including TV ads...
But aftermarket sales are low and rare...

So usage and aftermarket are not always the same...

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

If you really want money - then only Germany and France...

 

[Kate]

I see .com .org .net .info as cross border domains. They are all well established extensions (2001 for .info), that won't be going anywhere anytime soon. There were still like 5 million dot infos regged last year. That keeps it in the top 10 out of 882 available extensions!

Sure, but how often do you visit .info sites ?
I think the TLD is good for certain purposes, for instance it's used by official travel sites.
But there are not many businesses who would use .info for a commercial site. It simply wouldn't fit.
And since domain names are usually bought for a business purpose this is the problem.

 

[Ollie3000]

Sure, but how often do you visit .info sites ?
I think the TLD is good for certain purposes, for instance it's used by official travel sites.
But there are not many businesses who would use .info for a commercial site. It simply wouldn't fit.
And since domain names are usually bought for a business purpose this is the problem.

That is a good point. I think part of the value in these is in consolidating brands and SEO exact match. That of course means that they'll never be in the same ballpark as .com but for the price, i'm confident that I can get a good ROI.

I mean car//credit....£2.99. Even if I sold it for £500 (which i won't) that's a 167 times my investment in year one.

 

[eurorealtor]

Actually, I want to develop one of my domain Cleveland .info into a directory site any soon. I hope it won't be waste of time and money. I guess it'll be a long term to get any success, but I'll give it a shot.

 

[Ollie3000]

Got luder dot info @Jurgen Wolf

 

[DnEbook]

Lost its gloss when used for a spam extension, so the answer is no