If there’s one request that I always cringe at, it’s to disable a site because a customer decides that it is in his best financial interest to “close shop.” Later, if we own the domain name and get notifications about its upcoming expiration date, the customer may already be long gone and is not reachable with any contact information we may have for them.
I can’t say this has happened a lot, but it isn’t unrealistic either. If there’s one thing you should keep when you decide to shut down your business, it’s your domain name (and let’s hope you grabbed your website files too). But why? Believe it or not, it’s an important element for ranking in search engine optimization.
Consider the idea that you are creating a brand new website. The domain name is unheard of and therefore is unranked. You search for your domain name in Google and find nothing. Weeks later, your brand new site is still nowhere to be found. Time passes, and your site may start appearing in the search results, but the progression is going very slowly. Google is crawling your site with caution. They don’t know you well and are determining if you can be trusted.
An element of trust is important for ranking well on search engines. Trust can be conveyed through linking strategies, like when your site is linked to from a site that Google already considers to be an authority, but age, too, plays an important role.
Why should it matter? Simple. Considering recent studies showing the spammy nature of brand new websites, how is Google supposed to know that your site is more legitimate than the other spam site (including on their own domain)? It doesn’t. Google is not human. Trust comes with time. Spam sites don’t last for a long time and certainly won’t be linked to from authority sites.
The problem is that if you lose your domain name, it’s likely gone forever. If it expires, it goes into a pool and it will get snagged pretty quickly if the domain name looks like a worthwhile investment on the part of people who actually make it their business to buy domain names that could make them rich. If you’ve made a name for yourself and have to shut down without keeping the domain name under your ownership, but later, you realize that you’ve made a regrettable decision, you might have a hard time getting your “brand” name back (especially if there are no associated trademarks). You’ll end up likely having to build a brand new name — and you’ll have to concern yourself with regaining that trust once again. If you don’t own the old domain anymore, you can’t set up 301 redirects to retain any rankings you might have. You’re back to the beginning.
Depending on the TLD (top level domain) you choose, your domain renewal shouldn’t be more than $15 per year in the worst case scenario. Even if you’re not sure you’ll ever use the domain name again, it’s a small price to pay for the time and money that you will have to reinvest in building your credibility in the search engines again.
Great post. Indeed age of your domain is a huge factor in trust, ranking and site credibility. Don’t you love it when you see really poorly designed sites ranking so well. In most cases, they are really old sites with a lot of trust and authority.
I think you are right on. Since annual domain registration is so cheap–the price of a fast food meal for a .com with some registrars–might as well hang on to it.
Questions about domains and registration: How does a search engine know how long you’ve registered for? Like, that you pre-paid for 9 years on a domain versus 1 year.
For this very reason I think it will take my new site longer to rank. Does this mean newcomers are always at a disadvantage?
I did try to check age but it doesnt work
Nice post. Thanks for sharing these tips.
Great post, through launching several websites this trend is FACT and Google definitely cares about domain age.
Thanks for the information! I found this very entertaining and I hope you write more.
Free Runescape Membership
I really liked your blog! Thanks for the info!
Free Runescape Membership
You have a talent yes keep it up
I've experienced great luck when using aged domains that I've purchased. They always seem to work the best as opposed to my one year old or freshly registered domains.
You are right in what you have said. I was only thinking this the other day but I think I will now dig a little deeper. Not sure what the last guy meant though!
thanks for posting this your information might be very useful for the SEO peoples you have mentioned each and every step by which any body can get the good ranking.