My .info traffic is 0 - 300 Keywords stopped working

[bushib]

Hi there,

This has happened to my .info domain since last night and I am really upset at it.

All my 300 keywords have stopped working in Google but my site still appearing in Google with site:www.example.info and www.example.info searches.

Yesterday I received 600 visitors from Google and today only 4.

My .info domain is one and half years old. Till, Today I regularly update it with unique content and don't promote it much as I am already receiving number of visitors.. I never did spamming or adopted prohibited ways to promote the site.

I do Free directory submissions and very seldom links exchanges.

Can any expert tell me please what why it has happened to my site?

Is it a permanent problem or temporarily.?

I will be thankful for any help and guidance

Regards
bushib

[edited by: tedster at 4:08 pm (utc) on May 23, 2008]
[edit reason] switch to example.info - it can never be owned [/edit]

[paladin]

Could it be a partial penalty?

[bushib]

Hi there,

I don't know whether it is a penalty or what. But I am suffering and will suffer a big lose due to it.

Can any Expert tell me that what is the real cause of this problem and how to fix it?

Best Regards
bushib

[SEOExperiment]

Well, if its any consolation, my .info domains have stopped getting all Google traffic since last night. They are still in the index though. Not sure what's up. Could be that my backlinks have been de-valued. I think I'm showing lower in the SERPS now but haven't spent much time yet to try to figure it out.

[edited by: SEOExperiment at 5:10 pm (utc) on May 23, 2008]

[bushib]

Hi there,

If the .info domains are so bad then Google should mention in it's Webmaster Guidelines so that webmasters should take great care about this domain before purchasing it.

But banning all .info domains without any apparent reason is greatly surprising.

Though I am not sure that whether it is the effect of Google dance or a penalty but I hope that my domain will come back in it's actual position in Google because I did a lot of hard work on my domain for one and half years.

Regards
bushib

[errorsamac]

I am also seeing this on a .info website. Any other .info people out there who retained ranking since last night?

[FromBelgium]

I am also seeing this! Traffic drops by 50%!

[Chris_1]

>> I do Free directory submissions and very seldom links exchanges. <<

Try to avoid the Free Directory submissions and be careful about link exchanges.

The value of those types of incoming links is minimal and from my little understanding of Google have a slight negative impact.

Although, if other .INFO's are seeing the same thing it is probably more of a system-wide problem.

Sincerely,
Chris

[paladin]

Looks like a "small" update to the algo. I saw a significant difference for one of the phrases I monitor.

bushib,
Do you have a blog on your site by any chance? If you PM me the URL I can take a quick look.

[errorsamac]

I did a yahoo search for ".info" and came up with a few .info domains. One domain I came across was an official website of a popular actor. If you search for his name on yahoo or msn, you get his official website (example.info) as the first result. However, if you search for his name on google, his official website is not found in results 1-1000 (including omitted results). So either Google won't rank .info domains anymore, or they made a mistake with the latest algo push.

[SEOExperiment]

It could be that a mild penalty is being applied to .info domains, or it could be that it is backlink related. My .info sites were extreme long tail and didn't have a lot of backlinks. Losing 1 or 2 backlinks would send them out of the serps.

[SEOExperiment]

I just did an interesting experiment... I know of a website that uses the exact same seo "strategy" as mine. The only difference is that he used .com AND .info domains. His .com domains are still going strong, but his .info domains are missing from the SERPS.

[thaidomain]

Interesting discovery. I noticed some of my domains had a drastic drop in Google traffic (between 80 and 90%). And indeed, it all are domains from the .info family. I was wondering, but actually it would be hard to believe that all info domains would suddenly be disregarded as valuable. So hopefully, this is a temporary glitch.

[errorsamac]

On another forum, people are reporting that .info and blogspot domain names were hit. IMO it's just a google error that will be correctly shortly.

[astrobiologist]

I have a .info domain that is basically an encyclopedia of science and technology -- 15,000 pages of high-quality content much used by colleges, schools, etc. Since mid-yesterday traffic has halved and virtually the only google searches I'm getting are image searches. All non-google traffic is normal.

If google has downgraded .info sites carte blanche on the basis that they're all spammy that's a kick in the teeth for guys like me.

Fingers crossed that it's a glitch and things return to normal over the next few days.

[santapaws]

checked a 3 word phrase for a .info i monitor and it was number one for a 500,000 result search for 3 years...and still is....

[SEOExperiment]

yes, I agree, it is not across the board. I have seen one .info authority site that is still #1 for its primary keyword.

[FromBelgium]

Another observation: all my number one keywords of my .info domains are still on number one, but those which held positions 2, 3 etc are all gone.

[edited by: FromBelgium at 6:37 pm (utc) on May 23, 2008]

[astrobiologist]

I concur with FromBelgium -- a few of my top keywords are still showing but the majority of my pages have simply fallen off the face of the (google) Earth.

[tedster]

Google has never penalized just because of a TLD - not for .info, not for .biz- not for any extension whatsoever. For Google to start doing that now would be a major shocker - and much too arbitrary. They don't need to do things this way, because they actually can assess and rank any site and its pages rather well on its individual merits.

Whatever is going on right now for the .info sites that are seeing ranking drops, it's 99.44% certain that Google is doing something other than penalizing for the TLD. We already have one .info site owner here reporting that top rankings for that site have been maintained - and I'm sure that's what most .info domains are seeing.

[SEOExperiment]

Ok, more details. I'm certain that, at this point in time, .info's are getting different treatment. This could be just an update in progress or algorithm glitch, but...

1) Website that links to a .com and .info
2) Yesterday morning, .com and .info ranked #1 for their domain name minus extension
3) Today, .com is #1 for its domain name, minus extension, but .info is gone.

So, could be just an algorithm quirk, but, I'm comparing apples to apples here.

[FromBelgium]

Back to normal, at least for me!
Correction: only for 2 of my 3 sites, so things are moving.

[edited by: FromBelgium at 7:56 pm (utc) on May 23, 2008]

[randle]

Well what do you know, same thing here. Made a .info site for a non profit as a favor a year or so ago and it always ranked first page for its abbreviated name, which is the domain name. After reading this thread I checked and poof, gone.

Site command looks fine and if you search domain.info comes up # 1.

[astrobiologist]

I'm seeing a return to normal on my one .info site, too. If this was a glitch it lasted a little over a day.

[lfgoal]

Bushib,

The same thing happened to me last night. The site is still appearing with site:www.redwidgetblog.com and is showing the normal amount of indexed pages and the normal amount of backlinks that google cares to show. It also appears at the top of the serps if I type www.redwidgetblog.com or the phrase red widget blog.

However, it has completely disappeared for the phrase red widget. If I add blog, its at the top. Take out the word blog and its nowhere. Also, a lot of the internal pages are no longer showing for the key phrases they are aimed at.

errorsamac,

The site I just mentioned is on blogspot. Could you message me and tell me which forum it is that they are talking about blogspot sites getting hit?

[SEOExperiment]

My Google traffic for .info domains is trickling back in too. Still not back to normal, but no longer zero. Must have been a :

ResetRank();
foreach(TLD in {".edu", ".org", ".com", ".net", ".info") {
CalculateRank();
}

What a relief...

[tigertom]

Could it be this:

If the site is a .info and

has lightweight backlinks and/or

grey hat SEO and/or

is in a highly competitive field etc.

then smack it.

How many quality sites with this extension do you know of?

Likewise .biz.

[vivalasvegas]

Well this happened to me too but the .info domain is now back in the serps after less than 24 hrs so I guess it was just a glitch in G's algo. I agree with Tedster that Google can not penalize only certain extensions - I didn't even think of it until I saw this thread.

[extremegolfer]

They are experimenting like crazy.

[randle]

It's back for me to, but you have to admit a rather interesting occurrence.