It’s been a long time since my last post, too much work and not enough time. Anyway, a short while ago the SEO forums were a blaze with the latest patent release from Google. The patent included loads of different techniques a search engine could use to determine relevancy and I say could because it would be very difficult to use all of the items covered in the patent. My own thoughts on the patent are many items have been included to dilute the true gems.

One part that really caught my eye was using domain registration information as part of a search engines algorithm. I remember several months ago reading a news story that Google had become a domain registrar and many were presuming domain registration would be one of Google’s many new adventures. This gossip was stopped as quickly as it started with Google announcing no domain registration service was on the cards. So why become a domain registrar?

Length of Domain Registration, logical ranking criteria

Well as mentioned above part of the patent focused on using domain information to determine the reliability of a website. In short, if a domain has only been registered for one year it may be more volatile than a domain that’s been registered for ten years. If you’re serious about your online venture, it makes sense to register your domain for a longer period of time. Google could use this fact as part of their ranking criteria and I suspect they have been doing so for some time.

So if you haven’t already done so, I would recommend contacting your domain registration Company to register your domain for at least five years. It may not affect your rankings at all, but on the other hand it may give you just enough of a boost to push some of those keywords onto the front pages. With domain registration costing as less as it does nowadays, it may turn out to be the most cost effective ranking boost you’ve ever paid out for.

If it doesn’t produce any results, no harm done and you may have just saved yourself a couple bucks on next year’s budget :)