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Do Domain Registration Lengths Affect Search Rankings?

Posted on September 11th, 2009 by admin in Domain News | 2 Comments »

A question at the Google webmaster forum has given new wind to the long standing debate of whether domain registration period length affects search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine rankings.

ET over at the forum asks:

I’ve heard it said (strangely enough by name hosting companies!) that a long-term commitment to a domain name gives sites a higher SEO rating by Google. I guess it’s balloney/sales talk, but just curious to get confirmation of it from you experts!

In his response Google employee John Mueller seems to suggest that Google does not look at registration length:

A bunch of TLDs do not publish expiration dates — how could we compare domains with expiration dates to domains without that information? It seems that would be pretty hard, and likely not worth the trouble. Even when we do have that data, what would it tell us when comparing sites that are otherwise equivalent? A year (the minimum duration, as far as I know) is pretty long in internet-time .

Earlier this year Danny Sullivan of searchengineland.com spoke with Google’s Matt Cutts about a variety of domain issues.

Specifically, Danny asked “Does Domain Registration Length Matter?” Matt’s reply:

To the best of my knowledge, no search engine has ever confirmed that they use length-of-registration as a factor in scoring. If a company is asserting that as a fact, that would be troubling.

Additionally, in a YouTube video published on the Google Webmaster Central Channel at the time, Matt answers the following question:

“How much weight does the number of years a domain is registered for have on your rankings?”

In short, Matt says:

My short answer is not to worry very much about that, not very much at all in fact.

Additionally, Matt makes a point of noting that some registrars send around emails specifically implying that “Google gives you a bonus in ranking if you register your domain name for 3 or more years” and he clarifies that this claim is not based on anything Google have said.

So, can we say for certain that domain registration length does not affect search engine rankings.

I think it’s a definite MAYBE.

Why?

In the video Matt also mentions a “historical data” patent Google filed in 2002 that says Google can use historical data in their ranking. This patent may or may not be part of Google’s algorithm.

So even though these people are saying there is no evidence and Google has never claimed this, they are not saying a clear no, which means your domain’s age might still be a factor (amongst many) used by Google to determine your site’s search engine rankings.

You can view what Matt said below:

Want To Learn More About Flipping Domains For Profit: Read My Post On Domain Flipping!

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