I got this information from an employee at a text link company and thought i'd pass it along...of course it is hard to confirm or dismiss but I haven't heard this spoken about before... We all know that Google likes domains that are older; age factor has a lot to do with how trusted a site is considered. I was also told that Google looks at when the sites registration is set to expire, if a site is set to expire in 6 months it is looked at as being worse than if that site will expire in 7 years. Therefore i was told to register the site for the maximum amount of time allowed. He wasn't a salesperson for the registrar so he had no financial interet in telling me this, so i'll take it as being true or at least very possible. The logic seems to make sense to me.
I doubt it is a big factor if it even is a factor.. True old domains which have had the same content for a long time are worth a bunch but having a far away registration time seems a bit much. Then again when your doing SEO sometimes you have to pay attention to every little thing!
It's definitely a factor, but how big of one is the real question. I highly doubt that it plays a huge role in SEO, but it does matter to some extent. For that very reason, I've had my domains -- that I really do SEO for -- registered for the next 10 years. Plus it's easier so I don't have to keep renewing every year, just make them last for a long time. The only thing you really have to lose is if you don't think the site will last longer than you have it registered for. All my sites that I've done this for I know I'll have for 10+ years at least, hopefully longer.
My observation from 3 of my sites. Domain 1: When I register a domain for 1 year, start link building exercise etc. , i couldn't find my site anywhere in the ranking in the first 6 months. Even with around 200 links from article writing, directory submissions etc. Only after significant no of links did it appear in SERP and start to gain good position. After adding 2 more years to registration, SERP stays stagnant. Domain 2: Then I registered a new domain for 3 years and repeat the same thing. Guess what, even with a smaller no of low quality links (from directories) the site ranks (in google and yahoo but not msn). Although it doesn't rank highly (around 100th - 200th position), it is still visible in the index. It seems like more "trust" is given to this domain. Domain 3: Now I have a very niche site that's about to expire in 3 months time. It's nowhere in the SERP eventhough my number of links is more than most of the sites (it's not in google,yahoo but in msn). Even a site with zero backlinks had beaten me . I understand that one's ability to rank depends on the niche, number of competitors etc. However, all the observation above are done on site with around 3 million competitors and no, mostly the term i fight for is highly specific. IMHO, how long you register a domain is important. Anyway, those are my observations. I may be wrong.
These two factors are indeed taken into account. Register your domains for as long as possible (usually 9-10 years) and all things equal, an old domain will dominate a new domain. Think about it--what's the one thing about a website you can't change? Its age.
Has anybody done a real test on these things? Use the scientific method and run a real test.. this is how you can determine if something actually works or not.
In real life it's hard to run a controlled test, there are so many different things you're doing all at once to try and get your site ranked better it makes it almost impossible to attribute success to one certain variable.
While old domain factor is stronger than many other SERP factors, it's really effective only when Google compares to new similar websites. Ultimately Google trusts websites that have quality and unique content with strong backlinks (to consider a site authoritive) more. Sandbox is the very opposite thing. Google doesn't trust new ones so easily, so they wait and see. As for registration period, it is said that the longer it is better. But this one is not too strong factor because it doesn't relate directly to "quality" of a website. But again, when compared to a site that has short domain registration period, Google may think the site is "throw-away" domain.
It's really hard for me to think that Google takes unique content as a heavy weight because if you look at lyrics sites, tabs sites, all those -- they all have the same content, yet some how some rank higher than others. It would be interesting to see what exact algo factors play into those kind of sites.
I would say this... The serp's do have access to domain information such as date of expiration and contact info. So does this mean that you should register all of your domains under different names and for 10 years at a time? No. I think if you are going to run a business for the forseeable future you should register it for as long as possible. At least then you won't have to worry about it expiring. As for the contact info... I have heard mixed reviews on this. If you are going to have multiple sites on the same subject I would use my relatives info personally. I tend to air on the side of caution.
I never thought that the expiration date could be a factor. Maybe I should try to renew my domain to see how it moves throught SERPs. Since it just got into top 1000 I could easilly monitor how much does it effect. Thanks for the idea. p.l.u.r.
It is not.. or every spammer in the world would think as U just did... great for the registrars pocket book tho... I am sure they love the theory.. bwaaa ha ha haha