Registration Redux: Does It Help to Register for Ten Years?

[mjtaylor]

Not a new topic, but one on which I have never formed a solid conclusion: does registering one's domain for a long period help with the site's placement?

It seems logical to me; a longer registration is not likely to be a fly-by-night spammer. On the contrary, it indicates a long term view of one's business.

Is it more likely that search engines see a shorter registration when *coupled* with other spammy techniques as one more indication of spam, but do not factor in a positive for longer terms?

What do you think? Any evidence either way?

[kgun]

Can you define spam in this regard?

Here is one related thread

What is spam?

[deepsand]

Google's US Patent Application #20050071741 - Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data supports the conclusion that longer term registrations are conducive to higher SERP.

Per analysis of said patent, at SEOmoz | Google's Patent - Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data ,

Domain-Related Information
Information associated with a domain can be used by Google to score sites in the rankings. They mention specific types of " information relating to how a document is hosted within a computer network (e.g., the Internet, an intranet, etc.)" including:

• Doorway and "throwaway" domains - Google says they will use "information regarding the legitimacy of the domains"
• Valuable domains, according to Google, "are often paid for several years in advance", while the throwaway domains "rarely are used for more than a year."

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Not a new topic, but one on which I have never formed a solid conclusion: does registering one's domain for a long period help with the site's placement?

No it doesnt.

[Milo]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Not a new topic, but one on which I have never formed a solid conclusion: does registering one's domain for a long period help with the site's placement?

It seems logical to me; a longer registration is not likely to be a fly-by-night spammer. On the contrary, it indicates a long term view of one's business.

Is it more likely that search engines see a shorter registration when *coupled* with other spammy techniques as one more indication of spam, but do not factor in a positive for longer terms?

What do you think? Any evidence either way?

I have also heard this can help, but hopefully its not true. I am told here in Australia (by the my registrar) that its only possible to register a dot.com.au for 2 years, while dot.com's etc can be registered 10 years at a time???? (please do correct me if I'm wrong)
That would be a definate unfair advantage.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

No it doesnt.

Do we *know* this? And in light of the patent quoted above, how do we know?

Originally Posted by kgun

Can you define spam in this regard?

I am not sure why we need to define spam for this thread ... but I like this one:

SPAM = Someone Positioned Ahead (of) Me.

;D

MJ

[incrediblehelp]

I only know from experience. I have been buying domains for many years and have experienced no issues with registering them for 1-2 years.

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

I only know from experience. I have been buying domains for many years and have experienced no issues with registering them for 1-2 years.

Well, I agree with you and my experience is similar. I have had no problem getting new sites to rank which are on a year to year renewal scheme. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't do better if they were bought for 10 years ... I don't know.

I know it's not a critical factor, but it might be a helpful one, albeit minor. There are more than a hundred ranking factors, and many of them are minor when compared with the title tag, say or other on page content factors. So if you score well on the major factors, it may matter little if you don't have 'score well' on less important factors ... such has a longer domain ownership term ... perhaps ...

[deepsand]

Although I cannot immediately put my finger on it, I do recall Matt Cutts stating, relatively soon after the above referenced patent application was published, that , while the length of term of most recent registration was a relatively minor factor in the grand scheme of things, it was a positive that could serve to help Google to differentiate between those sites which were truly spam and those which only appeared to be so, on the assumption that spammers were most likely to use throw-away domains acquired at the lowest possible cost, i.e., a 1 year term.

[qh4dotcom]

A new domain registered for more years is more valuable when selling that a domain that wasn't used and will expire next week.

So a spammer could get a longer registration, gain some benefits from it and get more money for the domain when selling it.

[deepsand]

Spammers don't buy domains for the purposes of holding and reselling them. Rather, they expect to generate a high volume of traffic within a very short period of time and quickly move to a new domain before they get caught, abandoning the previous domain.

Not only do they thus reduce their risk, the domains that they've already used, even if not blacklisted by then, would bring peanuts compared to the revenue streams generated by their mainline businesses. For spammers, trying to make money by flipping used domains makes no economic sense; the payoff is too low and the risk to high.