The website domain name is often overlooked in SEO terms as people focus on inbound links and optimised web copy, however, your domain name – or in this instance the information relating to it – is one of the important criteria used by Google when evaluating your website.

We all know that new domain registrations are likely to be sand-boxed as Google prefers to err on the side of caution when it comes to a potential pop-up website, however, once your site is established and your domain name is at least a good few months old, Google will begin its ongoing assessment of your website including the information relating to the domain and use it to decide how important your site it.

Google really ‘likes’ older domain names with long registration periods to go. You can now commonly register the most popular domain names for up-to 10 years. Not only will you save money and not have the hassle of trying to remember when it’s due for renewal, you’ll have the extra SEO benefit of indexing better within the search results!

If you’re still unsure about why this is important, think about it like this. If I were of a nefarious persuasion with wicked SEO skills, I could very easily set up an eCommerce website, optimise it to get it to the top of the search results and start taking money off people. This is very easy to do and there were, for example, some very high profile cases of this happening, for example, during the most recent Wimbledon tennis tournament.

This type of site has to be quick – people are going to start complaining pretty quickly when they don’t get what they’ve bought so the site isn’t going to be up for that long when the authorities find out. Therefore, if Google sees a new website with a recently registered domain name and a short registration period, alarm bells will go off! This is why a pre-emptive suppression within the search engine results is the simplest solution to this potential problem. The legitimate sites will register their domains for longer and they’ll still be up and running in a few months. It’s a bit like a website probationary period.

In summary, if you want your site to be taken seriously by Google and indexed properly, extend the registration period of your domain name.

If you need help with your domain renewal period, or anything else relating to SEO or search engine optimisation, call us here at Seven Creative on 0114 235 2002 or see the other contact options