Google purging .info domains?

[Brian Turner]

Aaron Wall suggests that .info domains generally got a kicking out of the Google index for a day recently:
http://www.seobook.com/google-tempor...o-domain-names

Got to admit, it would make a lot of sense to aggressively filter .info domains - after all, with them being offered for free by Registerfly a few years back, and now available for less than $1 from GoDaddy, there's no motivation for anyone to develop strong content on these sites.

Commonly I see them used for blog spam - after all, they are so cheap that it's easy to churn and burn .info sites without causing too much expense.

I've previously suggested filtering .info domains would be a good move by Google - and it looks like Google just may be moving in that direction.

[TWD-Tony]

I'm not sure I agree with you there Brian - it's very "Big Brother" of Google to dismiss website's based on TLD don't you think?

I had a couple of .info's a bit back - because as you point out they were cheap, I didn't do much with them and let them expire - but I certainly didn't put spammy content up or phishing site's etc... If I had built up a good website on a .info domain and Google then banished me from the SERPs because of the .info extension I would be very slightly upset

And if Google is going down this route of "if the cap fits..." then surely they need to ban .ru domains because Russians are all hackers, .cn domains because the Chinese are all communist's and hackers? and the Irish are all terrorist's so they need to ban .ie domains too?

I do agree that .info domains have a higher percentage of rubbish compared with other TLD's but blanket banning / filtering them... not sure about that one...

[Brian Turner]

Agreed - blanket banning would probably be heavy-handed.

But how many by percentage of .info domains are likely to be quality content sites?

[azcleaning]

I have some .net sites. Google kicked me after making 40 bucks. I mean I didn't even klick on my adds, the other users did, and at the and they'll kick everyone who's making some serious money from them.

[angsuman]

I think they ought to add info tld as a factor in reducing the page rank, not outright ban them or remove them from index.

[Joff]

I don't think they should take the TLD into consideration at all - you may be the authority on a subject but you're just a bit slow off the mark and didn't manage to get the .com/net/co.uk domain so instead you picked up a .info for a great price and used it to develop your site on donating money to orphans or something.

Then Google comes along with it's "our way or no way" attitude and deprives all these starving orphans.

:'(

[TWD-Tony]

Originally Posted by Brian Turner

Agreed - blanket banning would probably be heavy-handed.

But how many by percentage of .info domains are likely to be quality content sites?

Agreed - but if only 1% of .info site's have good content then that is still alot of decent website's that would be punished if Google penalised based on TLD.

Does it matter if I paid £1 or £10 for a domain? Surely it's the content that counts...

[Brian Turner]

Indeed, blanket banning is never going to be a welcome option - but didn't Google do this a while back with some of the UK domain types? Also, has anyone here ever seen much of .me.uk sites ranking in Google? I run a few, and though not great content sites they are active blogs - which don't even rank for their own names.

Sure, I know SEO and the need for links, but these have them, but easily underperform my .co.uk and .org.uk domains. Actually planning to move .me.uk sites to new .co.uk domains.

I think Google have made it plain that there are certain domain extensions that they will trust less - so while they'll maybe not intentionally kill a site because of its TLD, it's going to make it harder for certain TLD's to be useful for ranking purposes.

2c.