Lets say you have purchased a brand new domain and have had it for up to 6 months but you purchased the domain for 1 year just to test it out. Compared to if you have a domain for the exact amount of time 6 months, but you committed to that domain for a couple of years. Does Google take anything from that? Will they reward the domains that they feel will be there for the long haul.
not sure, some people say that google likes it if your domain is registered well into the future, so they do it out of the thought that it sure can't hurt I haven't seen any proof anywhere or comments from Matt Cutts on the subject though you could try an experiment and renew your domain for 5 years and then check and see if your serps improve soon after
I've heard the same thing--search engines like domains registered out into the future. The idea is that Google looks at domain registrations and uses it in some way to influence ranking. This is probably true, but I don't think anyone knows for sure how this is done. In the case of the length of your registration, a longer registration supposedly proves you're serious about your business. But let's face it, anyone can register their domain out for 5-10 years for less than $100. Based on the fact that Google is trying to improve their search results, if you were Google, do you think you'd give a lot of weight to the number of years a domain was registered? Does a 5-year registration truly prove that search results from that site are any better than a site that's only registered for a year? I don't think so. I personally wouldn't give a whole lot of weight to the number of years you register your domain...but I also have my domain registered for 5 years....