Domain Name Registration Period - Does It Count?

There is some common advice on the Internet that if you register your domain name for a longer period than the customary 1 year, for example a 2 year or even 5 year period, that it will give you an advantage in the Search Engines. Is this really true?

The length of your domain name registration has a minor effect upon the rankings. All that you really gain from registering for 5 or 10 years as opposed to 1 or 2 years is the added convenience of not having to register your domain name again. In theory, if you register for a longer period of time, Google will place a higher value on your page through Trustrank.

In theory, Trustrank is ranking indicator for your domain that takes both the age of the site as well as the length that it has been registered for, into consideration. There is no hard evidence that Google actually HAS a Trustrank algorithm. Even though there was research done by Yahoo on the concept of Trustrank, and Google has previously registered a trademark for the name, the two has nothing to do with each other and Google has even dropped the trademark. Search engines therefore do not take the length of your registration period into account.

The only age related factor in search engine ranking is the actual age of the site but even this could be due to the fact that due to the mere age of the site, the site has had more opportunity to collect links back to it and would therefore of course do better in the search engines due to that. Once again, the idea that links from well established sites count more than from new sites has nothing really to do with the actual age of the site where the link is coming from, but more with the reputation of the site itself.

After all, some link farms have been around forever, not so? But do make sure that you re-register your domain name soon enough. There are groups of people that scan for soon to be expired domain names with the intention of buying them and exploiting their established business. Luckily most registrars have a grace period of about 45 days available that you can use to re-instate a domain that was deleted due to negligence or by mistake. If you really want to stay ahead of the competition, you might consider registering or renewing your domain name for 100 years.

Currently, Network Solutions (www.netsol.com) is the only registrar offering the 100 year option, which costs $999.00. GoDaddy (www.godaddy.com), currently offers to renew or register a domain name for 10 years, at a discount of $6.95 per year. But all in all, the most important thing is to get a good quality name.

Choose a name that is short, easy to remember, easy to say and easy to spell and use it to build your brand and identity on the web. Good domain names are not easy to get these days but with a little creativity you can still come up with a good name. After all, nobody knew what a 'Google' was in the days BG, Before Google!
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