Hi there. This is Jeremy Turner and I Just found this article on SEOBook.com, linked from this article on SearchEngineJournal.com. Last week, a number of webmasters with .info domains posted to the webmasterworld.com forums stating that their domains had dissapeared from The Google. The article suggests that rather than this being just a “glitch,” Google has some sort of “internal bias” against .info domain names, possibly because of a GoDaddy 99 cent sale of .info domains. I’m not sure how or if all of this is affecting me. I have no real backlink love yet (or is that “linkjuice”?), but I have had this domain registered for almost two years now.

I chose .info for two reasons: one is that the .com is taken by this assclown who has not done anything even remotely worthwhile with it—more on that in a future post—and two, to me .net domains have always had that second-hand feel to them (my apologies to Mr. Gruber). My intention was to make a fresh start with a new top level doman that, in my mind was fairly accurate in it’s description. Oh well, hopefully this is just a one time “glitch,” although I doubt it. If I’m going to be serious about this blog though I should register this domain for a bit longer than the current year-to-year plan. And, I really should snatch up that .net before somebody else does…

A few months ago I attended a highly informative  AdWords seminar hosted by The Google. The discussion frequently turned away from advertising and strictly AdSense topics, to general SEO “best practices.”  One of the many little tidbits of information I retained from the seminar was this: The Google looks not only at how long your domain has been registered, but how far in to the future it is registered as well, when determining PageRank. They are gauging your intent for that domain. A domain that doesn’t expire for another ten years is going to have its PageRank increased (nobody knows how much)  because The Google assumes you aren’t just some fly-by-night-site. Of course The Google is said to be moving away from PageRank as the only factor in it’s search results, and it’s algorithms will continue to evolve over time. I still think The Google should be looking at this on a case-by-case basis, rather than a blanket “attack” on all things dot info.

SEO tip: If you are serious about your web presence and domain name, register it for 5-10 years. The Google takes your domains registration expiration date into account when analyzing the relevency of your website.

UPDATE: I’ve decided to switch my domain over to jeremyturner.net. Let’s see what happens.