SEO Tips: Domain Name Registration
Get a Domain for more than a Year
I am sure you’ve heard of phishing—the unscrupulous scam of creating a website that mimics a bank or store site in order to steal customer login information. The spammer / phisher? knows the fraud will be discovered in a short period of time so they only register the domain for a single year.
I have heard Google and other search engines give greater weight to sites registered more than one year partially for the above reason. I do know older sites are given better positioning than newer sites so this logic makes sense. If you are sure you want a certain domain, go ahead and register it for two years. Then if during the two years you have developed the site, register it for five or more years.
To prove this, find the top 10 sites on any given topic (do a Google search for ‘pet grooming’ for example). Then use a Whois site* to find out how long the domain is registered. I bet it will be over a year.
Quick Tip: Register your domain for at least two years!
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* A Whois database contains basic information about any domain including when it was registered and when it will expire.
