.it.com has one utility and it isn't what you think

Hook

Hook

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When I saw .it.com was renting subdomains, only one thing came across my mind - if they are using this as a fake gTLD by creating subdomains... then you have an opportunity to abuse this for SEO... and what do you know, movie sites, casinos, porn, you name - they are doing it.

For 40eur you get to create spam on a domain which theoretically could easily pull in earnings. So whilst it is laughable what they are doing, the benefits for abusive SEO are there.


CASINO​


Here is casinos.it.com:
1723226644172.png

Casino traffic can be worth £1+ per a click (on average, thousand clicks = £1000), so here you have a chance to effectively hijack this site and abuse it. (I including betting, they are same vertical)

Pirating Sites​


Same as above, movie streaming sites (traffic worth less, but volume far higher)

Too many DMCA requests could end up with the whole domain deindexed, not just this subdomain (I refuse to call it a unique domain, as that is not what it is - and I doubt Google or Cloudflare is going to buy into the BS that the owners of it.com are selling in terms of this being a gTLD - they'll tell you to clean up your act or have you domain deindexed for good)

1723226951898.png


Escort / Adult Sites​

pretty much same as the movie sites, high volume BS sites abusing the domain.

1723227050550.png



Conclusion​


Coming from an SEO background, this is a decent opportunity for abuse. You can quick ranks on hard KWs because the owner of the domain is letting just anyone buy into it and abuse it.

For the legitimate owners, I'd be concerned that your subdomain is effectively on a domain rife with abuse because the owners are desperate for 40eur more from just about anyone willing to give it over.

thought I'd keep this little gem to myself, but instead I told all my SEO friends who are excited to take part in this!
 
I think that's the first time I've seen an example of a registered .it.com subdomain.
 
Jason said:
I think that's the first time I've seen an example of a registered .it.com subdomain.
Click to expand...
This was the biggest legitimate use I found of the domain: https://primafila.it.com/


also these but they are probably just replica sites I assume, I bet they have another main domain outside of this .it.com bs:

Rocket Telecom

«Рокет Телеком» - это совместный проект двух компаний «Сигма CMC» и «Интис Телеком», лидирующих на российском рынке предоставления услуг в области бизнес-месседжинга.
rocket.it.com rocket.it.com

Landing

click.it.com click.it.com
 
Hook said:
This was the biggest legitimate use I found of the domain: https://primafila.it.com/


also these but they are probably just replica sites I assume, I bet they have another main domain outside of this .it.com bs:

Rocket Telecom

«Рокет Телеком» - это совместный проект двух компаний «Сигма CMC» и «Интис Телеком», лидирующих на российском рынке предоставления услуг в области бизнес-месседжинга.
rocket.it.com rocket.it.com

Landing

click.it.com click.it.com
Click to expand...
those two are related to Intis Telecom, the company who owns it.com.

leaves it with only one legitimate use in the wild..? 🧐
 
dn said:
those two are related to Intis Telecom, the company who owns it.com.

leaves it with only one legitimate use in the wild..? 🧐
Click to expand...

IT.COM DOMAINS LTD filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK

IT.COM DOMAINS LTD - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk

They filed accounts this week, £250K bottom line, 1 employee...

Something tells me they might be a little bit worse for wear after the domain has lost 99.992% of it's traffic (8.2M > 16K) since Oct 2023.

1723297060525.png
 
Basically what I discovered the other month. Should be illegal tbh
 
The current business model of it.com was tried + tested with other domains back in the early 2000s and failed back then. Anyone with any experience could and should have seen it has no place today either!

At the moment this domain is on a one way ticket to getting an SEO penalty which will no doubt reduce its value massively.

What confuses me is that it.com is a stunning domain and I feel it deserves to be developed into a market leading product/service and would also reward the owners much more than the current business model.

My prediction is in the future they will end the service and the domain will be put up for sale. Not great for anyone who buys and builds a genuine site on a subdomain.it.com .
 
Lee said:
The current business model of it.com was tried + tested with other domains back in the early 2000s and failed back then. Anyone with any experience could and should have seen it has no place today either!

At the moment this domain is on a one way ticket to getting an SEO penalty which will no doubt reduce its value massively.

What confuses me is that it.com is a stunning domain and I feel it deserves to be developed into a market leading product/service and would also reward the owners much more than the current business model.

My prediction is in the future they will end the service and the domain will be put up for sale. Not great for anyone who buys and builds a genuine site on a subdomain.it.com .
Click to expand...
Exactly. I thought the exact same when I saw the sale price for it.com. I thought wow, someone must have some great plans for that name. Maybe a new IT marketplace, or some sort of IT based support service. But no, literally the worst idea :ROFLMAO:
 
Lee said:
My prediction is in the future they will end the service and the domain will be put up for sale. Not great for anyone who buys and builds a genuine site on a subdomain.it.com .
Click to expand...
This has been mentioned to Intis by myself and others several times, along with ways to properly assuage the issue, but the people involved don't understand the reticence - I think that is due to the number of paid cheerleaders dancing around.

Lots of those involved with .it.com are very clever, very domain-knowledgeable industry-veterans !

A couple of those are people I respect, but I (personally) really don't think the psuedoTLD/subdomain business has longevity, and simply hope they're not so invested that should it collapse they lose anything significant.

Maybe the salaries are so large that staring at the bank balance has induced business paralysis.

Or that whomever fills up the water cooler is dosing them with something.
 
Lee said:
My prediction is in the future they will end the service and the domain will be put up for sale. Not great for anyone who buys and builds a genuine site on a subdomain.it.com .
Click to expand...

If there is a ranking advantage then there are two ways to take advantage of this even if it is short lived:

1. Build churn and burn sites that you're not really expecting to last long anyway. I'm guessing that's what most of the fairly spammy sites on there are doing.

2. Build sites, wait for them to get established and ranking well, then do a change of address in GSC to a similar non it.com domain (eg: mykeyword.it.com to mykeyword.com) and start updating any incoming links from the it.com to the non-it.com.

The longer the it.com sticks around after the change of address, the better, but I've seen this work before and a lot of the rankings will follow even when the original domain ends up getting shut down.
 
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