The following article was written by "Shaper" on the Noomle.com forum in response to an article posted stating that the .info TLD is a "failed extension".

Why dot info is and will remain a successful extension

The pricing strategy has given it very deep market penetration.

The sheer bulk of registrations has created demand for solid site names, as the better ones are relatively scarce.

Search engines are becoming more adept at identifying and filtering out hostile sites. While the initial surge of .info domains had pretty significant issues in this area, this has been somewhat changed by the overwhelming number of registrations and sites built on this extension. Several years ago there may have been a perception problem, that has diminished considerably, in my opinion.

Search engines used to penalize .infos significantly in the first year, based on testing, I am reasonably certain that this doesn't apply to the major search engines now that their filters have improved. Dot coms still get a "headstart" bonus, but extension related penalties for the TLDs appears to be an outdated concept. Matt Cutts has stated that in the second year all top level domains are pretty much on even footing. He strongly implied that .coms get a slight advantage on initial deployment, but that the other top level domains were on even footing and that as the domain ages content is the dominant factor. This is good news for .info developers.

Spammers now look to .com for the most part due to the implied credibility. Marketers who are trying to turn a fast buck on a high profit potential promotion will often choose .com for the same "appearance of legitimacy" reasons, and to take advantage of the search engines slight favoritism towards .coms out the gate.

Search engines are surprisingly friendly to .info's which suggests the extension has matured considerably. Those of you on Noomle who have built .info sites have often been surprised at the speed and depth of indexing as well as overall performance of the extension. I've had more than one person tell me they were shocked to realize their best money maker was a .info. It is worth noting that they usually don't index as rapidly as .coms which appear to be given priority, but they do tend to index quite deeply when the bot gets around to them.

The pricing structure of .info is excellent for those who want to test drive a site. Of course.

For this reason dot infos do tend to get advertising based sites built on them, but that also includes blogs.

The ROI potential with adsense is fairly solid and the risk to reward is low. Of course many sites that start as adsense sites eventually evolve into more commercially oriented sites as the webmasters skills increase. Over time this has helped to build the extension's legitimacy. Once built, there are often disadvantages to relocating a site. It should not be forgotten that the majority of sites in all extensions usually adopt advertising to cover the sites expenses. There are just as many thin .com sites as there are .info sites, and probably more by a significant margin.

Invariably .infos are unavailable before .biz, and are often taken in preference to .net and .org by people that just want to set up a website. This tends to create a higher level of overall development as opposed to "investment".

The branding aspect of .info is redundant, as the article says, but its also re-inforcing. When you go to the web you are looking for info, thats what you want, so I think the name is reasonably effective. The extension is long at four letters, but its been around long enough to offset some of that disadvantage. Dot info is geared towards information in theory, but information is a pretty broad concept.

Secondary sales in the .info market show that the supply/demand factor has not escaped notice. There have been some moderately strong .info sales in the last couple of years. If anything I would say .biz is the failed tld. It is over priced compared to its capabilities, raises red flags in users who aren't used to seeing the extension, has low market penetration and relatively weak branding. To put .info in the same class as .museum and .aero shows a fundamental disconnect on the part of the writer, or a deliberately provocative move intended to gain reaction.

I agree with Lapannion, .travel missed the boat completely. This will probably be the fate of any extension which gets too exclusive. I've never even seen a live .jobs site, so I would have to assume that didn't fly overly well either.

In informal domainer polls, where domainers were asked to list their favorite extensions, dot info usually places between spots 2 and 6. Interestingly it is almost always on the list somewhere, usually around #4. Unlike specialty extensions and some local cctlds, which tend to appear high on individual domainer preferences, although are completely left off of other lists, .info tends to make the grade across the board.

While .infos do not often trade in the $XXX,XXX range the extension has seen sales in the $x,xxx and even the $xx,xxx range. $xxx sales are not uncommon for the extension.

In my opinion this is because of the pricing structure and its long term impacts. If dot info was priced head on with .com it would not be nearly as successful. For the managers of the .info extension, I'm sure this was smart marketing and the results speak for themselves.

From a developers perspective

As far as field testing, which is what really matters, I am pleased to report that my .infos are carrying their weight. Having a year to decide whether to move forward with them, and knowing that even ones that don't have high success levels will still be profitible and continue to increase in value over time, makes them worth building. Those that have been successful, have exceeded my expectations and were definitely worth the development effort.

If the site doesn't make the cut, you are out .89 and can move the content. If the site is reasonably profitable then its easy enough to pay the renewal fee, as you have a head start. Second year domains get aging bonuses and the site will already have traction, so the decision to renew or not should be fairly easy with a years worth of data. A well done .info site is likely to show a massive ROI on investment by the end of the first year, and the decision should be a no brainer at that point.

The revenues that create the break even point for a .com are already an 800% ROI with .info, so I for one am not going to write them off. An ad click on a .info pays just as much as an ad click on any other extension, and anytime you can break even on the first click, you are probably doing alright. Tradition takes a while to wear off, but I can't argue with results. Price for quality, risk to reward, dot info is a solid bet. For commercial viability dot info is a very live extension. In terms of traffic my top site is a .info, in terms of ROI .info is definitely a winner, in terms of pure revenue generation they are certainly performing well enough.

Bottom line is that overlooking .info's, particularly in terms of profit potentials, is an oversight that is easily made. It really depends on your overall development strategy, where .infos fit into the picture, but for development purposes I'll generally take a .info with 20k searches over a .com with 500 searches without thinking twice. I will definitely take seven of them at the same price, and at the end of the day I know they will be far more profitable and have a much lower risk factor.

Sure, you may find that perfect end user buyer for the niche .com and get a sale. However, there is a pretty good chance you are going to end up holding the domain, in which case the goal is to maximize the revenue. A weak .com can easily take a loss or break even, a set of .infos covering the same niche will generally perform better and usually have better term availability.

The only real risk with .infos is to get overly ambitious and registering more than you have time to develop, but that is a challenge with any portfolio regardless of the extensions it contains.

The domaining world is increasingly becoming one of develop or die, which is one of the reasons that Noomle is becoming popular so rapidly. Conventional parking is in a tailspin due to changes in browsers type in responses. Actual site keywords are extremely important in development success, as well as hitting the sweet spot in a niche. As Icann adds extensions, having first mover advantage in site deployment is likely to be increasingly important. Dot infos suit this role well, and as a low risk high reward proposition in development, they represent a definite piece of artillery in any domain developers arsenal.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone that says .info is a failed extension hasn't tried to develop one. Dot info is definitely very alive as an extension, and thats the bottom line.