SEO | Reasons .info BANS May Fail

Reasons .info BANS May Fail

June 21, 2008 By: Justin | 2 comments

A fair number of people have had issues with .info domains recently and .info BANS sites in particular. I recently wrote an article about how .info domains are different. Check it out, it gives a little insight on what I think some of the issues are.

Well, I saw a post today that I thought applied really well to this issue. It is a post over at SEOMoz called: Separating Web Spam from Quality Content - What are the Metrics?

Check out that link and review the entire list when you get a chance, but I pulled out a few that generally apply to everyone who grabbed a 99 cent .info domain and tried to make a site for BANS. These are all listed as “metrics” for spam by SEOMoz, now ask yourself if it applies to your BANS site.

  • Long domain names
  • .info, .cc, .us and other cheap, easy to grab TLDs
  • Short registration period (1 year, maybe 2)
  • High ratio of ad blocks to content
  • High keyword frequencies and keyword densities
  • Small amounts of unique content
  • Very few direct visits
  • More likely to contain multiple hyphens in the domain name
  • Less likely to have links from trusted sources
  • Unlikely to have any significant quantity of branded searches
  • Frequently feature commercially focused content
  • Rarely contain privacy policy and copyright notice pages
  • Likely to have links to a significant portion of the sites and pages that link to them
  • Likely to be registered by parties who own a very large number of domains
  • Unlikely to attract significant return traffic

Common Features of Spam Sites, Source: SEOMoz

So what can be learned from this? The more work you put into reducing these factors, the less likely your site will appear as search engine spam. The more quality your site provides, the easier it will be to get links, and the more likely you are to get ranked. I recently talked about how a .info lyrics site of mine made page one status. Its a prime example of how easy it is to rank .info domains as long as they are quality sites.

Suggestions To Improve .info BANS

  • Don’t use keyword stuffed domains. A brandable domain will look less spammy.
  • Register the domain for longer than 1 year. Yes, this cost more, but it is a signal that the site isn’t designed for a spam and dump.
  • Increase your content. Provide content pages outside of just your product pages. Provide help pages or guides. Generate a larger % of unique content.
  • Provide Contact, TOS, and Privacy Policy pages.
  • Do not keyword stuff. You can get away with keyword stuffing if: 1) you have enough authority already 2) you have enough content to hide it. Your brand new BANS sites don’t have either. Having 1 keyword stuffed paragraph on each page is a huge flag.
  • Add a blog. This provides a good way to SEO the site and generate unique content. You can network the blog and increase the number of sources you can collect links from.
  • Built at least 1 link bait page / post. Like a top list or how to guide related to the topic of your BANS. Use this link bait to built links. Point links at the linkbait, it looks more legit than 500 links to your homepage.
  • Generate content pages to link to. Deep linking makes a site look more legit. It doesn’t make sense that other sites would link to your thin page of products.

I know the idea behind BANS is to encourage your visitors to click a product and head over to eBay. You don’t want them browsing around the site reading and not making you money. But, if you don’t get indexed, than you’re not converting anyways. Use the content to build authority. After a few months, you can slowly reduce the distractions. The main goal is to get it indexed and ranking, because you’re not going to convert at all if you’re not getting organic traffic.

For BANS in general, check out this post by Steve about common mistakes with BANS. The post outlines a few solid points that and BANS newbie should look at. I have mixed feelings on some of the advice, but over all it is solid advice.

The goal is to reduce the “spam” feel the site has so that you can generate links outside of self generated links. Some may disagree with my advice, but many people are sitting around with worthless .info BANS sites. If nothing else works, try improving the sites “quality” by following my suggestions. Good luck with your .info BANS sites.

Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • bodytext
  • del.icio.us
  • De.lirio.us
  • Fark
  • Reddit
  • description
  • Simpy
  • Slashdot
  • Sphinn
  • Spurl
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • YahooMyWeb

Filed Under BANS, Online Success, SEO |

Tagged With , , ,

Related Posts

.Info Domains Are Different
Not all TLD (Top Level Domain) are treated equal. Google treats .info domains differently than .com domains. This is especially true due to a recent GoDaddy domain sale. Google is
Dateless Sniper BANS Template
Another Free BANS Template from SEO Zombie. This time with a little twist. Over at Court’s Internet Marketing blog, he has blogged about a concept called keyword sniping. For the
SEO BANS Template
SEO Zombie reworks the default BANS (Build A Niche Store) Template to improve its search engine optimization. This is a free BANS template that has a few SEO changes that
Free Ice BANS Template
My new Build A Niche Store Template. It’s called Ice BANS Template and is a free BANS template that is optimized for search engines. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social
Site Design SEO
SEO lesson that covers all the major on site SEO factors used in the design of a website layout / template. Covers basic site structure and layout optimization. Covers SEO

Comments

2 Comments »

Comment by bans
2008-06-21 21:47:11

What a great article, Justin. I’ll have to keep this stuff in mind. I have to admit that I violated some of the tips already, but I still have a lot more sites up my sleeve and will apply them in the future.

I don’t think .us domains are cheap, by the way.

Reply to this comment
Comment by Justin
2008-06-21 22:27:40

Yeah, I’m not sure about the cost of .us domains. I just copied the list from SEOMoz. That first list came directly from the SEOMoz post.

Reply to this comment
 
 
Name (required)
E-mail (required - never shown publicly)
URI
Subscribe to comments via email
Your Comment (smaller size | larger size)
You may use <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong> in your comment.

Trackback responses to this post