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.info Why in your opinion the .info tld isn't fairing well

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I've always felt that the .info TLD has the potential of being a pretty good extension, but it's very poorly managed.

Many times when I find a domain that I like, the .info is available, even when the .com .net .org are registered since 2000 and 2006.

Something about the .info is dragging it down. The only thing I can think of is the registry itself, i.e. the management of the .info tld itself.

As an example, .net has done a really aggressive job promoting their tld. In most domaining courses, they tell you to grab the .com, and if not available, get the .net as it's almost just as good (especially for generic terms). But I honestly never felt .net made sense as an extension. Yet, they seem to be doing very well.

So what are your thoughts on this?
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
As an example, .net has done a really aggressive job promoting their tld.
I don't think the registry is doing anything special to promote .net. The extension is just old (1985) and living on its own momentum.

So what are your thoughts on this?
Well I think it's always the same reason. Extensions are driven by end users. The world's most successful companies want .com and/or their own ccTLD. They don't want third-choice extensions.

So in .info you will see a lot of minisites or personal sites, low-key development (not to mention the more spammy stuff), to put it simply the level of development won't do much to enhance the status of the extension vs the more established TLDs.
Also, the cheap pricing (initial year) has made .info attractive for disposable addresses for spam and other nefarious purposes. All that does contribute to a poor reputation.
There are a few official tourist sites on .info though. But when was the last time you saw a .info domain in print advertising ?

If you look back in history .info has had a checkered start. Many sunrise applications were made on the basis of dubious or downright fake TMs, that were not properly validated.
Back then confidence in the TLD was shaken somehow.
Years later, .eu was a remake...
 
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I think .info is an opportunity as well. If you have a solid concept for a site or even a business I think the info should be considered.

If it isn't a nonprofit enterprise I would even prefer the info to the org, but this is from a development perspective.
 
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a good portion of the answers you're going to get can be applied to any newer TLD..

.info is cool though - lots of info on the internet.. it fits. sounds a little funny using it for commerce though "my site is computers.info" does not sound at all like you sell computers.
 
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The Internet makes the world seem a lot smaller than it really is, and any marketing campaign to reach the whole world would be incredibly expensive.

We've found most small and medium sized companies are very reluctant to invest in multiple websites. There are exceptions like www.overstock.com which has o.info (a separate site) in the top line menu and one of our wholesalers who use .info for their partner information.
 
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It's actually really very, very simple.

Businesses make money. Services that solely provide information rarely do.

.info, as an extension, lends itself to 'wiki' style websites, such as 'Computer Information', 'Dog Breed Information', 'Cat Health Information' etc.

This means that .info domains simply don't lend themselves to direct sales - instead, a company may use the domain to subtly sell their products to consumer whilst labeling the site as 'informative' when really all it is doing is sly selling their products.

This, of course, has its limitations and theres a lot a company has to consider before using a domain in this way. This means that there are less companies / end users out there that are willing to pick up .info domains (and where there are, they are far more strategic about how they approach things) and as such, the extension lacks the quantity of high sales that some other extensions have.

As sdsinc noted, there are also other reasons, such as the saturation of the .info market from first year 'free'/cheap domain registrations, issues with the credibility of the extension and perhaps most importantly, the fact that many domainers seem to forget that 'info' stands for 'information' - your domain is likely to be worthless if it doesn't fit with the extension.

:wave:
 
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This means that .info domains simply don't lend themselves to direct sales - instead, a company may use the domain to subtly sell their products to consumer whilst labeling the site as 'informative' when really all it is doing is sly selling their products.

:wave:

Then I would say there's a lot of products being sold on the sly! With any complex transaction such as a house purchase, or an annuity purchase, variable life insurance etc. i would think that providing information can be construed as marketing, perhaps even clever.

As for domaining, I tend to agree with you about .info in that the end user market will tend to be smaller. But again, I say why not think outside the box. What if the market for .info were to grow?:hehe:
 
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Then I would say there's a lot of products being sold on the sly! With any complex transaction such as a house purchase, or an annuity purchase, variable life insurance etc. i would think that providing information can be construed as marketing, perhaps even clever.

It is a good idea - I deal with online marketing for a few companies and they all do a little of this. The issue, when it comes down to it, is the cost. Shareholders like to see a 'we spent this and it earned us this' whereas building on info sites for marketing purposes like this is ultimately mostly speculative. That means less companies do it, and those that do, tend to limit how much of this type of marketing they do - which is obviously bad for end user sales and thus the value of the extension.

:wave:
 
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.info, as an extension, lends itself to 'wiki' style websites, such as 'Computer Information', 'Dog Breed Information', 'Cat Health Information' etc.
:

Exactly, it's probably the only reason I like the TLD, not that I think it's necessary, it's NOT. The registry is not going to enforce a web sites content for informational purposes only, just like Mobi was never going to enforce that Mobi sites be Mobile compliant.

Some here are suggesting we use .info to build a business web site, REALLY?

Folks, look at the message your sending to your customers, It's like walking into a Library with the intent to read and learn only to discover it's really a book store selling books.

People don't like being deceived, and because they don't their usually going to head for the exit door.
 
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I mentioned this in another thread, was curious what's happening with .info myself - http://www.hosterstats.com/DomainNameCounts2012.php

Last year, every single month, counts went up.
This year, every single month, counts are going down. Almost lost 10% already, if the pace keeps up, could lose about 1 million, when it started at 8.2 this year. Big drop.

Checking the other extensions, .com, .net, .org, even .biz, all going up every single month.

New extensions coming? But then I figure .biz would take a dive as well or something else? Why this year.
 
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.info has cyclic moves that could be explained by the cheap pricing the first year, resulting in a higher proportion of short-lived domains.
 
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I see a lot of non-profits use LLL or LLLL .INFO since the other extensions are hard to come by now.
 
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I wholly agree with Sabre.

In addition I had always been bullish on .info and saw so much opportunity in it. I still do in fact as I occasionally hand reg and buy some aged examples of short keywords.

For me .info makes sense and is a great way to make a mini-site or even a blog on a particular topic. I have had great luck getting a few keywords that would normally cost several thousand for less than $100 in .info. The best is when those first choices are parked. Then the .info really shines as the go to source.

I blame the lack of respect for .info on its pricing. I remember first registering .info for $1.99 and then for almost a year it seemed you could register .info for $0.49 a piece! That's ridiculous! That gives off such an awful impression to would be buyers and the general internet community. They haven't done any better by now offering one free every time you buy a .com at Godaddy.

It does certainly need a facelift and a few more successful examples that become more mainstream like coupons.info to really set off a spark amongst normal web browsers. However big business will never adopt them because they are just information and not commercial.
 
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I think among regular crowd .info extension is very well received. As I have been running .info site for over 2 years now I can say that regular folks don’t really care much about domain extensions or they even seem to like .info, Often people tell me: Oh, that is a great name you got, and I do believe that they would not say that if it was .com as it would be just too common. Yes, .info has its limitations I agree, as I would not use it for eCommerce site or company website but for informational sites it is great. I think that .info has established itself very well and maybe slowly but steadily getting more and more popular.
 
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Most people go for .com, .net or .org because its what everyone is most familial with. I suspect many people don't even think of info. It also may have to do with the fact that there are few sites out there that are strictly for information purposes only that have made it big. The .info extension suggest that the site contains information. A company selling its wares, for example, would probably be hesitant to choose that domain name.
 
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...whereas building on info sites for marketing purposes like this is ultimately mostly speculative. That means less companies do it, and those that do, tend to limit how much of this type of marketing they do - which is obviously bad for end user sales and thus the value of the extension.

I guess within the definition of "fairing well" by wot, the OP, if it's meant to be about domainers then yes I would agree with you Sabre. I took the OP question at face value and broadly i.e. not fairing well for all users and stakeholders, not just for domainers.

Something about the .info is dragging it down. The only thing I can think of is the registry itself, i.e. the management of the .info tld itself.

I really think the obvious is the answer here though.

info being 4 char versus 3 char for com/net/org is imho the simplest explanation, at least for the US viewer market.

As new TLD's emerge and more and more people start to utilize websites etc with .something or .wantitnow i believe that .info will have a good chance to catch its second wind.

Some here are suggesting we use .info to build a business web site, REALLY?

Folks, look at the message your sending to your customers, It's like walking into a Library with the intent to read and learn only to discover it's really a book store selling books.

People don't like being deceived, and because they don't their usually going to head for the exit door.

I don't deceive people, but I will grant that others do. Maybe even RaiderGirl does. But let's not be short sighted. By her same logic there would be no need for domain privacy because people would never buy from someone they don't know anyway.

Myopic blinders about .info? Let me take us back to 1965 for illustration:

hollywood (1965):
We are going to call it a FAX machine and it will work over the telephone line...

RaiderGirl (1965):
Really? Everyone obviously knows that telephones are only used for people to talk to other people so this fax machine idea you speak of will never happen. And even if it does happen, you are being dishonest because you are calling it a fax machine instead of a telephone machine.
. :)

As always, this is my honest opinion (imho).
 
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I really think the obvious is the answer here though.

info being 4 char versus 3 char for com/net/org is imho the simplest explanation, at least for the US viewer market.

As new TLD's emerge and more and more people start to utilize websites etc with .something or .wantitnow i believe that .info will have a good chance to catch its second wind.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out, I think there is a lot of "network effect" and "first mover advantage" in why people choose an extension. If this is right then .org .net and .com had a 15 year advantage over .info and for new gTLDs the effect will be even more exagerated - .com .org .net will have around 24 years head start on .whatever and .info will have 14 years and ~8,000,000 existing domains.
 
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It will be interesting to see how it plays out, I think there is a lot of "network effect" and "first mover advantage" in why people choose an extension. If this is right then .org .net and .com had a 15 year advantage over .info and for new gTLDs the effect will be even more exagerated - .com .org .net will have around 24 years head start on .whatever and .info will have 14 years and ~8,000,000 existing domains.

I would agree about the network effect, and I am very excited to see what the future brings for domain names and the .info extension.

If the paradigm shifts though, watch out! Anything can happen!

For example, I think the notion that people MUST learn to type in order to communicate is prehistoric at best. So imho voice recognition, when widely adopted, will shift the paradigm and thereby have a dramatic impact on domaining and all the TLDs.
 
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I bought some .info domain names when I first started out thinking I would get a boost from having an extra keyword (info) as my extension. I let them all go because no one cares about .info domains. Dot Com is KING and IMO any other extension is a waste.

Sure, you can develop a successful site that makes a profit and resell it for 10x monthly revenue, but with a brandable Dot-Com you will make at least twice the amount. It's worth the investment to find the perfect .com domain.
 
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The .info TLD seems unconventional; I'm used to TLDs that are three-letters long, aside from those with country codes. There is also a factor that people expect .info sites to provide a brief informative overview of an entity.
 
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.info domain sales seem erratic and irregular - but in some languages such as German people are happy to sell and presumably buy products on .info domains. I have also seen several UK businesses using .info as their main website.

Domaining aside, .info is great for development because the word you want is often free in the .info extension. Four letters is not longer than .co.uk or com.au.

As for the cheap pricing for the first year, .info themselves have been saying 80% of .info domains get renewed after the first year.
 
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restaurantes.info 10,000 EUR Sold on Sedo
 
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restaurantes.info 10,000 EUR Sold on Sedo

That's a major profit! I can imagine this, since people would be looking for information about restaurants. Certain topics (domain names) probably would not fare as well, however.
 
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There is no difference between a dot com compared to a dot info domain name. Either one can be used for information or for commerce. There may be a whole list of factors that we might use to compare the two tlds though, such as HOW MUCH ADVERTISING THE TLD DOES ON THE NET, but also how much advertising in the real world or traditional media. The internet bubble got referred to as the Dot Com Bubble, and not the Dot Info Bubble. Dot com has a lot of advertising.
Dot info is less well known. Web designers and people interested in domain names, are aware of dot info, but the general public at large has a superficial awareness of dot info, but more awareness of dot com.
Dot com became synonymous with the internet.
Facebook and twitter also made their sites synonymous with the internet for many people, via advertising massively in the traditional media. Dot info could do the same thing, simply by advertising massively in the traditional media.
 
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..... I think any of the tlds can increase the resale value of their domains simply by advertising alot in the traditional media, and that advertising then goes to the non-tech-savy internet users, or end-users, and that is where the greatest increase in value is at, for the resale of any domain name. That is what I think. Massive traditional media advertising of the dot info gtld would increase the value of all the dot info domain names substantially I think. ....


If advertising domain extensions was cost-effective then the current extensions would be doing it. Afilias owns .info, They have money to bid on a dozen new extensions yet they do not promote the ones they have.

.CO has the only significant advertising budget, it is not clear if they are actually making money. .LA has been around for many years, - a two letter Geo that is actually how the residents refer to their city, one of the worlds largest. (It really is the CC for Laos). .LA has been pushing the Los Angeles connection, but not spending much or any money on promoting. One would think that they would promote if it would be profitable - Geos are much easier to advertise because of the limited area.

Do not expect anything from Afilias beyond cashing the checks. Remember they also own .Mobi.
 
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