Domain Registration Length – Does it Matter?
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Many webmasters have always been inquisitive whether the number of years they register their domain name for, matters. The common trend has always been to initially register the domain name for a year and renew it annually. This practice does give the registrant enough flexibility to control the renewal and transfer of domains as desired. However, the question remains; is it good for SEO?Let’s look at it from the Search Engine’s Perspective
Google had been awarded a patent in April, 2007; the patent read: “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.”
In summary, this patent points out that domains registered for a longer period of time, preferably, 10 years or more, appear more legitimate and valuable to Google as compared to domains registered for only a year.
Search engines are constantly deriving ways to separate the good websites from the bad ones. Many good websites have a commitement to continuity for their online business, therefore, they usually register their domain name for longer than a year. The longer registration period signals to the search engines that your domain is not a “throw-away”, but something you will continue developing for many years.
How does the length of registration affect SERP?
OK, you have gone ahead and renewed/registered your domain name for a hundred years. You are going to see a marked increase in your SERP, right?
Wrong! While it does help to register your domain for longer than a year, it does not automatically qualify you for a favor with the Search Engines. More than often, you would barely see any improvement in your ranking. Longer registration length may give a small boost to your SEO efforts (and can act as a tie-breaker amongst two websites in ranking), but search engines never use this as a major criteria to rank websites.
The Domain Name expiry factor
Lets say you managed to grab hold of an excellent, keyword rich premium domain name for your project that you plan to put into action in a year-two years time. Since you do not want to invest much in this domain now, you decide to pay for only a years’ registration, with the intention to renew it every year thereon until your project is live.
Now lets say that because of your busy schedule, you forgot to renew your domain after 1 year and also ignored the renewal reminder notices. What will happen then? From experience, you probably can bid farewell to that domain!
There are people, always on the lookout for expiring domains and there is a good chance that your domain name may be registered by someone else, seconds after it expires. In short, you may loose out on a good domain name just because you did not register it for a safe period of time.
So, what’s next?
If you want to stay ahead of the competition, I would recommend registering a domain name for a minimum of 2 years. It helps in your SEO effort (even if barely), gives you a “peace of mind” about the security of your domain, and also helps you to commit yourself on a long time project without the fear of loosing your hard work to someone else.
What is your domain’s registration period? Do you think a lengthy registration period has any profound effect on your website and SEO work? Please answer by commenting below.
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June 24, 2009 pm30 10:01 pm
I’m actually very nearing my renewal time for many of my domains and I always renew them for one year terms. This is mostly because from experience, I’ve found that many of the domains, after holding on to them for years, I end up letting them expire because I come to realize that a certain domain just doesn’t have a future.
Also, I’m bombarded with renewal emails every week, so I think I won’t forget a renewal–although to be honest, I did forget once and NameCheap was kind enough to renew it for me I guess because they knew I was going to renew it, since I had renewed it the last 5 years.
Static´s last blog ..How Much Do You Spend On Renewals?
June 25, 2009 pm30 5:45 am
I don’t think it really has much bearing. I think SEO depends much more heavily on other factors like authority links, so we should focus more on these.
Charles´s last blog ..Why Entertainment Bloggers Earn More than You
June 25, 2009 pm30 10:09 am
I actually have been thinking about this recently. I agree with what you have said. I think that every webmaster should register a domain for at least two years though.
teenwebguru´s last blog ..10 Commandments For Bloggers and Webmasters
June 25, 2009 pm30 12:54 pm
I had no idea that the length you register your domain for had any effect on your SEO. That just proves the theory that every little thing you do has some impact!
Alex | Asnio.com´s last blog ..Design Trends in the Thesis Community
June 25, 2009 pm30 3:58 pm
I and stand with you at this point SEO depends on other factors. Domain name length I thinks its doesn’t matter.
June 26, 2009 pm30 3:10 am
I followed the first thing which you said. First registered for 1yr and then planning to renew it for next 5 yrs.
Initial 1yr is to test the interest towards blogging or site maintenance. And one more factor i budget..initially we don’t earn anything…so no money
Great points dude…i love your writing..just subscribed.
TechZoomIn´s last blog ..15 Latest Free WordPress Themes..!
June 26, 2009 pm30 3:18 am
Cool post Richael!
Personally I never let a good domain expire. Well, actually, I’ve let a couple expire but I didn’t really have plans to develop them so I’m not too fussed about them.
Simon | Teenius´s last blog ..My New Site… BrainBite.com
June 26, 2009 pm30 10:08 am
The registration length really depends on the budget I have at the time. I would gladly pay for 10 years for selected domains if the budget was there.
Deneil Merritt´s last blog ..Deneil Merritt’s Top 5 Favorite Movies
June 26, 2009 pm30 5:32 pm
@Static, that is also a good point. Sometimes you register a domain, only to find out no use for it. So if you invest a huge initial cost on the domain, it will prove to be a liability.
@Charles, domain registration length indeed is not the only factor in SERP. But it is a factor worth considering to give a small but significant leverage to your SEO efforts.
@teenwebguru, if it is affordable, then surely it helps to register a name for a long time.
@Alex, yes, small things can make your break your SEO efforts. And who better to know then an experienced blogger like you.
@Mcbride, as I reiterated, domain name registration length is not the sole determining factor in your SERP, but it is “one of the factors”.
@TechZoomIn, if you have the capital, then a longer registration length is better.
@Simon, yeah, no sense in investing in domains you are not going to develop.
@Deneil, yes, it all boils down to capital.
June 27, 2009 pm30 7:05 am
Sorry wrong account. But yea, domains are so cheap so way the debate. Everyone should register for a while.
Jake | Web Journey´s last blog ..10 Commandments For Bloggers and Webmasters
June 27, 2009 pm30 5:32 pm
Hmm, this is an interesting angle. I never thought about registration length having an influence on the search engines but I guess there is some logic there.
For spammers who churn and burn domains, they will never register for more than a year. However, if you have more than 30 domains, it could be quite expensive to invest 2 years for each domain.
June 28, 2009 pm30 4:10 pm
Good post Richael,
We know that document inception has quite a bit of effect on SEO… that makes me agree to that domain length should also have a smallish effect on how you move up SERP’s.
Swastik´s last blog ..CPA Marketing – How to get started with it?
June 29, 2009 pm30 1:43 pm
I typically register my domains 3 years out. Don’t not what it does but its just simply what I do. If I am experimenting with a name its just one year that way the cost was no sweat off my back.
Justin´s last blog ..Serendipity
June 29, 2009 pm30 8:29 pm
The date-to-expiry and the present age of the domain seem to be having a major weightage in the eyes of the SEs. At least that is what I read in article (fortunately not Google) by a Yahoo SEO expert.
Coming back to the names, I prefer two word domain names now that owning a single word or very short domain name is close to impossible!
Ajith Edassery´s last blog ..10 ways to increase your Twitter followers
June 30, 2009 pm30 5:55 am
As usual great post Richael!
On WMP someone asked this question so I linked them: http://is.gd/1ieUL
Farrhad A´s last blog ..How to Build the Ultimate Email Marketing List
June 30, 2009 pm30 9:05 am
Thanks for the plug, Farrhad.
June 30, 2009 pm30 2:00 pm
WOW! Never really looked at it this way.Great post
Marcell´s last blog ..Marcellpurham: @aaroni268 theres a password?
June 30, 2009 pm30 9:31 pm
Yep. There had been some speculation (don’t know if it’s proven now) that the longer your domain is registered, the more value the bots will give to your site since they know you’re in for the long haul.
Again, still no confirmation from anybody. Guess if you just love your site, buy the next ten years!
Liane YoungBlogger´s last blog ..Teen (Bloggers) Talk! My Interview With Toan From Clikkt Dot Com
July 1, 2009 pm30 7:43 am
Not Sure if registering your domain name for a longer period has any impact on SEO.. i thought it was more to do with links etc etc
Cheers
Sandeep
Curious Little Person´s last blog ..$100 a day in Adsense in 3 months from 1 blog
July 1, 2009 pm30 10:36 am
Cool post, just subscribed.
July 2, 2009 pm30 12:51 pm
I don’t know this concept before.. !
Nice article !
S.Pradeep Kumar´s last blog ..Miles To Walk Before 2009 (Site Goals)
July 2, 2009 pm30 8:35 pm
‘@Simon, yeah, no sense in investing in domains you are not going to develop.’
Going to have to disagree. Domains are becoming more and more valuable and often just keeping them for a few years can increase their value massively.
Simon | BrainBite.com´s last blog ..Interview With Matt Ellis From Kiwidia
July 2, 2009 pm30 10:18 pm
Its new concept also for me i don’t know about this.its very nice article.
July 5, 2009 pm30 12:59 am
When I first bought my main blog’s domain islandcrisis.net I bought it thinking if it would even work lol. However now since its working really fine.. I’ll be renewing it for more than 2 years.
When we first buy a domain at times i think its better we register for 1 year and if thinks work fine then renew for longer period. I have other domains (mostly niche sites) which didnt made it well… so I dont have to worry as they will expire after the first year and I wont renew them.
However if a project is well planned and is sure to rock on then yes you are right its better to register for more years.
Just now I have jst started a new blog
I get it for one year and if after some months i see its doing well then i’ll renew it before tit expire for 2 to 3 years.
Kurt Avish´s last blog ..Problogger by Darren Rowse
July 5, 2009 pm30 1:01 am
Infact it does man
SEO is not just about links. It goes from the tags that u used, the H fonts. Check this tool: http://website.grader.com/
Kurt Avish´s last blog ..Problogger by Darren Rowse
July 5, 2009 pm30 4:51 am
Stumbled on this post from Ajith’s blog. Good points there. However I will like to point out that there is no doubt that the age of website plays an important part in ranking.
So if you forget to renew the url and manage to renew the website after few days, the age of the website may get reset to the lower value.
binaryday´s last blog ..Google news is broken : try kidd kraddick divorced
July 7, 2009 pm30 5:24 am
2 years on any domain you use as a primary site for ranking then move on. If you only work one or two popular sites then perhaps 5 years. Just because it’s in the patent doesn’t mean Google is doing anything more with it than using it as a “check”. A ranking boost is unlikely. And “aged” domain however does in fact boost ranking to some degree.
Internet Marketing Tools´s last blog ..How to Make Money Online and Work From Home with Affiliate Marketing Programs
July 11, 2009 pm30 7:22 pm
hi thanks for nice posting .it blog is good and best them.
July 15, 2009 pm30 9:37 pm
Thank You for this post. I didn’t know that domain registration lenght can have something in common with SEO issues. Very helpful text.
bajki dla dzieci´s last blog ..Bolek I Lolek – Król Puszczy
July 29, 2009 pm30 6:09 am
I don’t think it really matters. I recently saw a blurred out screenshot from a Super Affiliate and was surprised to see a high number of long domains.
I suppose if you do a cost benefit analysis and find that you’ll make more than $7-10 then it’s worth it!
Buy PSP Go´s last blog ..Sony Considered Second Analog Stick for PSP Go
October 6, 2009 pm30 10:38 pm
Thanks for information about domain registration. I registration a domain for only a year but now i’ll domain registration for atleast 2 years.
December 28, 2009 pm30 2:44 pm
Registering for atleast two years is a sufficient length of time to know how well it will pan out. Registering for longer in the initial stages could leave you disappointed. If you need more information on this topic check out ballisticdomains.com
January 9, 2010 pm30 12:13 am
I’ve never really given much thought to this before to be honest. All my domains are registered for one year at a time, with the exception of one, which was registered for five years. I think next time I register a domain, I might do it for 2 years instead of one.
- Leo
July 11, 2010 pm30 7:49 pm
Could someone have a look at this domain and let me know what they think – http://www.compareyourtv.com – thanks, Gary