Domain Names - How long is yours registered for?

Published: 18th of March 2007

When registering new dotcom (also dotnet & dotorg) domain names, the registrant is given a choice regarding the name’s registration period.
At this stage, a substantial number of users simply register the name for a one year period, to be continually renewed along with their web hosting package.

It is a little known fact however, that Google places a certain amount of emphasis on a domain name’s registration period, since it considers domains which are only registered for a one year stretch more likely to be used for unethical purposes.

If this comes as a surprise to you, take a look at the following excerpt from Google’s original patent application:

Google patent application extract
[0099] Certain signals may be used to distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate domains. For example, domains can be renewed up to a period of 10 years. Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.

Whilst this little piece of news made its way around the web design and development community some time ago, many less experienced site owners and webmasters are still largely unaware of the implications brought about by Google’s date checking approach.

Implications? What Implications?

Put simply, every domain which is only registered for an initial period of one year will be considered as ‘dubious’ by Google for at least the first year, possibly more.
Experiments carried out by us during the past ten months show that Google does indeed seem to mark down (if not refuse to index) web sites with a shorter registration period.

This is further demonstrated by a client who recently approached us because his web site was not listed in the Google index, even after six months of promotion.
Closer examination revealed that, whilst the site’s optimisation and link building had been carried out in a reasonably ethical manner, its domain name had only been registered for a one year period, about eight months earlier.
Simply extending the domain’s registration period resulted in the site being indexed by Google within a short period of time.

Ultimately, as stated elsewhere in this site, effective web promotion relies on a balanced approach which includes all the necessary building blocks:

Unique, High-Quality Content
W3C Compliant Code
A Solid Internal Link Structure
Quality Inbound Links

However, it would certainly appear that without a domain name registration period of at least two years, the above steps will be hampered considerably.

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The Domain Name's registration period plays a part in overall web promotion

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Choosing a Domain Name

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Like many other aspects of web design and SEO, the topic of which type of domain name to choose has sparked a long-running debate with industry professionals invariably favouring one over the other.
Since there are clear advantages and disadvantages to either approach, your choice of name should largely be determined by the use to which a web site will be put.

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