.info traffic loss

the mta.info site is touted regularly by .info supporters, but have you checked the stats on overture for the domain compared to the .com over the last month?

mta.info - 3014
mta.com - 9998

when you consider that mta.com doesn't even resolve, and had no content in archive.org - it suggests that the .coms 3x traffic is due entirely thanks to the promotion of the .info

the above stats reflect people typing a domain into the search box instead of the address bar and is a good indication of what "real" web users are doing as opposed to domainers.

 

[mole]

mta couldn't get mta.com for some strange reason (price?) and therefore settled for .info.

Many speculators hoard their .com names from cradle to grave hoping to sell them for a fortune, and would rather grow old with them rather than to let go for a realistic price. That's what's causing all this 404 or parking page namespace wastage that is plaguing the .com tld today.

 

If there is that much wastage from actively marketing a .info - they could afford to pay a premium for the .com.

do you know of any other heavily offline promoted .info domain names?

 

Also, given .info's natural association for information sites - isn't it odd that there are zero type ins for "medical.info", "drug(s).info", "flight(s).info" on overture despite their corresponding terms (e.g. "medical info" being searched heavily - 7953 searches last month). This compares to the .com equiv - medicalinfo.com - 223, flightinfo.com - 648 and druginfo.com - 108.

Seems theres a very long way to go to get .info even slightly into the mind of the real world web user.

even mtainfo.com got 180 - thats 6% of the .info lookups.

 

[mole]

I was just wondering whether this is a glass half empty/full discussion on the supposed traffic loss for .info domains.

.info domains can only gain traffic, given that the starting base is essentially zero. As an incumbent, .com can only leak traffic to .info domains.

IMO, search engine listings and reciprocal links are the way to go for targeted traffic. And listed URLs like medical.info are, I think, more beckoning than medical.com to those looking for information on that subject matter.

 

[mole]

Originally posted by safesys
do you know of any other heavily offline promoted .info domain names?

http://www.feel-free.info was promoted on TV in Europe. Don't know the media weights, but its refreshing to see government bodies using the extension.

 

feel-free.info on the uk version of overture gets 13, feel-free.com (which has no content) gets 7 - thats over 50% spillover.

I'm really just looking at this from a value perspective. For the domains to gain value they need to be attractive to corporate customers - these are the customers who have the large offline advertising budgets. Before they would be interested this loss needs to be stemmed - but the stemming can only come from promotion by these very people. Catch 22.

re the half full/half empty - it seems the exact opposite is true - the new tld's are increasing traffic to the .com counterparts and make investment in promotion proportionately less effective than with a corrresponding .com. When ad budgets measured in millions, this is a major downside to using the new tld's.

 

[mole]

Agree totally that there will always be potential traffic leakage to the .com where type-in considerations are concerned.

But between getting a lousy dotcom name and a great .info name without mortgaging the house AND wife, I'll chose .info anytime.

 

Using lousy character strings in any tld is pretty foolhardy - especially when money is being spent promoting it.

But when prime .info's are getting zero searches, and promoted .info's are leaking at a surprisingly large rate - it begs the question as to whether you can leave the tld out of the process of determining if a domain is lousy or not.

 

[mole]

I'm fine with that.

I like what .info and .biz says about my site more than I care for natural type-ins.

Natural type-ins are good for one night stands. I'm not looking for one night stands. All it takes is one visit and if the user likes the content, they WILL remember the URL - they will come back for more, AND, they will recommend the site to their friends/colleagues.

I think we need to seriously start seeing this whole addressing issue from a more holistic viewpoint.

 

The mta.info/.com stats are worrying, perhaps its also an indication that the general public really doesn't understand .info yet either. With big .net/.org sites it seems there is also a lot of spillover to the .com; but I've never seen figures to suggest its anywhere near kind of level as highlighted above - where the .com has over 3 times as many searches in overture.

Just shows that for now if you promote a .info without owning the .com a very substantial % of your visitors will likely end up on someone else's site.

 

[wohl]

however if you promote a crappy long .com address people may forget it or just not bother to type it in. With a short address you'll get more people trying to type it in even though many will end up going to the .com
For many people mta will be their first exposure to .info, in a years time when people have come across a few more .info sites the traffic loss should be more like .net /.org. In fact with so many new extensions perhaps the situation will improve for all secondary tlds.
Also, I'm not sure if the traffic can be compared from the overture search, since the people who search for mta.com will be the ones who type in mta.com and wondered why nothing was there. Those who found mta.info originally wouldn't then need to resort to a search engine.

 

a lost visitor whether its by them not remembering a multi word .com or typing .com rather than .info for a simple term is still a lost visitor and that nets to lost revenue.

considering there is well documented spillover from .org/.net after all this time (explaining why virtually all corporates shun them) - expecting the new tld's to help rather than hinder seems a little optimistic.

the real problem for .info is that why would anyone with a big budget promote something that will, by its nature, lose a significant percentage of that spend?

Without companies doing exactly this, it won't get more common and people won't come across more marketed sites in that tld.

Its catch 22, and theres no commercial reason why this cycle would change as far as I can see.

 

Originally posted by wohl
Also, I'm not sure if the traffic can be compared from the overture search, since the people who search for mta.com will be the ones who type in mta.com and wondered why nothing was there. Those who found mta.info originally wouldn't then need to resort to a search engine.

Overture is a good sample for type in patterns as a lot of internet users just type addresses into the search box rather than the address bar. The fact there are any results for mta.com shows lack of recall on the .info, for it to be a threefold spillover is just plain incredible.

 

Originally posted by safesys


Overture is a good sample for type in patterns as a lot of internet users just type addresses into the search box rather than the address bar.

Agree with that, I've seen newer internet users doing it quite a bit.

 

[DomeBase]

Originally posted by safesys
a lost visitor whether its by them not remembering a multi word .com or typing .com rather than .info for a simple term is still a lost visitor and that nets to lost revenue.

considering there is well documented spillover from .org/.net after all this time (explaining why virtually all corporates shun them) - expecting the new tld's to help rather than hinder seems a little optimistic.

the real problem for .info is that why would anyone with a big budget promote something that will, by its nature, lose a significant percentage of that spend?

Without companies doing exactly this, it won't get more common and people won't come across more marketed sites in that tld.

Its catch 22, and theres no commercial reason why this cycle would change as far as I can see.

Excellent point Safesys. Here's a slightly different spin on it. In economics, when action generates something good for which the actor is not paid or something bad for which the actor is not fined, then this is called an externality. One of the problems with .INFO namespace development is that there is an externality problem (could also be called a "free rider" problem). Everyone with .INFO domain names would be better off if they all develop and promote them. However, for any one owner acting as an individual to develop and promote a single .INFO site, a large portion of the money and effort goes to promoting the extension with diluted benefits to many (externality) and only a fraction of the effort goes to the individual owner putting up the money and effort. From the perspective of an individual, for every $1 they spend on ######.INFO, perhaps only 10 cents winds up benefiting them directly. This contributes to the catch-22 you describe. In order to break out of this catch-22, there would have to be: collective action by many .INFO owners; advertising by the registry; news concerning .INFO that catches the public's attention; development of some key .INFOs by market leaders who are willing to take risk and get through temporary losses; or a major market shift of some other type. If some of these things happen, then the individual benefit could begin to outweigh the individual cost. I think the jury is still out concerning whether this will happen or not, but I am guessing it will and the catch-22 will be broken.

I am old enough to remember when it was major trauma considering whether to buy a PC that was not IBM. They called non-IBM computers -- "IBM clones" -- in a derogatory manner. IBM ruled. Why would anyone design hardware or software for any type of machine other than an IBM? And why would anyone buy a machine other than an IBM when there was little hardware or software for it? A catch-22. However... now look at the market. If you had bought Dell stock back then, it would have been a big gamble.... but...

So. We will see whether .INFO joins .cc and .ws in the abyss of odd suffixes, or breaks out of this catch-22 into the light of public awareness

 

if companies had to buy a domain for every employee then I could see the cost cutting benefits of running with .info's as opposed to paying a premium for the .com equivalent - but when it comes to the inherent vanity of owning the root .com for a company/brand/product its a very different ballgame.

Economies of scale etc don't factor into the equation - even a million dollar domain purchase pales when set into context of overall marketing spend for thousands of companies worldwide.

 

[DomeBase]

I think few (for profit) companies would go with a .info for their main extension... at least not any time soon. However, will .info's catch on as portals or products? Travel.info, Television.info, Insurance.info, Health.info, Physician.info, etc.? We shall see.

 

actually overture has just updated so I thought I'd post up some stats with some other related searches also,

mta.com 11420
mta.net 4150 -they own the .net
mta.info 3491
mta.org 781
mta.info.com 621
mtainfo.com 213
mta.inf 74

 

[jalapeno]

Originally posted by snoopy
mta.inf 74

So even the four-letter extension is confusing to some.