WHOIS-info a ranking factor?
-
Hi
How important is it to configure your domain info in the same way as the contact info of your website? I heard having a long expiry date on the domain and having proper contact info helps create domain trust?
Any tips on this? Info on how to set this up in an optimal way?
Thanks in advance
Fredrik
-
I don't believe there is any ranking benefit at all. The only benefits are as stated above the ability to corroborate spam signals and or verify ownership info. As a general rule I would make sure that all info anywhere on the web regarding you has consistency and an established NAP (Name,Address, Phone) format. My grandfather told me to always where a belt and suspenders if you want to be prepared for anything. And I apply that to my views on consistency.
-
I rent websites out to some companies, i have sites that are in good positions and have designed and ranked for clients who pay me monthly. These domains are in my name, the website has their address details on it and doesnt harm our rankings.
And what about those websites who hide their whois details ? Will they not rank ?
I have to say i dont think that will ever be the case as there must be a huge amount of people who own websites who have their whois details hidden for one reason or another.
-
Having the same WHOIS info as contact info on the site would possible be a sign of authenticity i guess? More on topic here:
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/seo-question-do-whois-privacy-services-harm-seo/5874/
-
As a ranking factor? I'd be very surprised if it did. What would be the benefit of that?
-
Thanks for great input.
What about the ownership info? I heard that its a plus if contact details and info match that of the website. Any ideas on that?
Fredrik
-
I don't think that the who-is information has a direct effect as such.
Who-is records would very likely be something that could use to corroborate spam signals. However I don't think that is what you are referring to.
There is certainly a strong correlation between domain age and rankings, however I don't believe that either the length of time a domain has been registered or the registration length (future) are direct factors.
1 year registrations are pretty common is legitimate sites. Many tlds in fact only offer one period of registration. 2 years is quite common on that respect.
Domain age most likely correlates for 2 reasons: Firstly old domains that don't do well are less likely to be around. Secondly they have had time to do well and pick up real quality signals such as authoritative links.
-
Ardmar first the Domain age surely have some Impact on ranking for sure in my experience.
Domain Registration yup also play its role a bit in an inch ranking better.Most of the guys register domain for one year.Search engines can not trust them as much as they are here today may not be here tomorrow.Domain Registration for longer period is a bonus but these are factors that push up your rank an inch.Very small change/benefit you got.
What matter these days is how much value your content provide to your users.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Homepage Ranking Issue
Hi Folks, My site https://homeontheswan.com/ has been live for a few months now. Certain pages are ranking, even some number 1 postions for prodcuct pages with certain search terms. But our homepage doesn't seem to rank in Google when searching by brand name "Home on the Swan". The page is well optimized according to Moz. Any tips / insight into why this is happening would be much appreciated. Jamie
Technical SEO | | homeontheswan10 -
Redirect and ranking issue
Hi there - was wondering whether someone might be able to help. For a period of a day and a half, all the traffic to our website's blog articles were mistakenly being redirected to our homepage. A number of these articles ranked in the top 5 in Google worldwide for their targeted keywords, so this was a considerable amount of organic traffic that was instantly being redirected. It was a strange site glitch and our web team rectified the error, but now all these articles have disappeared from Google rankings (not visible anywhere in the first five pages). I'm presuming this must be linked to this redirect issue - we've been advised to wait and see whether Google restores these rankings, but I'm still concerned as to whether this represents a more serious problem? We have re-indexed the pages we are most concerned about, but am not sure whether there is anything else obvious we should think to do. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd be happy to hear them!
Technical SEO | | rwat0 -
Site Ranking Ahead of Us - Why?
I don't want to give details, but a competitor's site ranks ahead of us by a spot or 2 for some of our major keywords, and we can't figure out why. We have more content indexed, we have better content (my opinion), we're better optimized, we have significantly better MozRank and Majestic rankings, we have more links, we have better links. They have a plain Jane Wordpress blog, and their pages don't even have 300 characters. They don't have any awesome links. There are plenty of other sites besides ours that should outrank them. When I am using the various tools at my disposal, I can see why a competitor outranks us. I'm not obsessing, but this one, I just don't understand. Has anyone had this experience?
Technical SEO | | CsmBill0 -
Why did I lose my Page 1 ranking for my main term?
My site is http://www.killthezombies.com. I have historically ranked on page 1 for the term "zombie games" up until the beginning of 2012, since my site was launched in 2008. Now I am not in the top 100 at all, since Panda. Over the last year, I've tried many things to answer and solve this problem. I've cleaned up onsite issues, and I've tried to be more active in link building since I historically allowed my users to build links organically. While I don't expect to rank #1, since many of my competitors have the term "zombie games" in their domain, and they are far more aggressive on backlink building than I am, I do not understand why my domain is not even in the top 100. It's clear I used to rank, and that Bing and DuckDuckGo still think KillTheZombies.com belongs on page 1. I have reached out to Google to see if I've been penalized, and they actually got back to me to say I have not been. Google Webmaster Tools shows no crawl issues or warnings. I have many #1 rankings for terms like "zombie killing games", "kill zombies", etc. Does Google now think my site is about "kill the zombies" and somehow not about "zombie games", which is clearly my subject matter and something I've optimized for?
Technical SEO | | webkrew-889150 -
Why do rankings show differentley when checked from different computers
When I check for keyword rankings directly in Google or Bing, I find relatively high ratings. when my client checks at his location, he gets another ranking, much lower. What accounts for the difference?
Technical SEO | | TexasBebe0 -
Google India Rankings Drop Suddenly
Keyword: indian wedding planner page:www.hukamievent.com/indian-wedding-planner.php It didn't drop, it just disappeared. No, I didn't do anything to be penalized at all and I am still in there index. I know this question has been asked many times here, while I apply all the suggestions given to other people with similar problem, here's a quick question I need to ask, I made following changes recently, could either of these be the reason for ranking decline? In google webmasters' tools, I had changed geographic target from - india, to- nothing, few weeks ago. could this be the reason. Around 2 weeks ago I paid someone to submit articles to 500 article directories, same article spun many times, he did the job in around 6 days and got back to me with a list of around 150 submissions with as many backlinks, all with same anchor text, "indian wedding planner", one of my targeted keywords. Before the submissions I was on page 9, yes that was nine, and just after the submission I was at page 2 position 1, within a matter few days. I saw my the targeted page improve in ranking and jump on to page one position 10, for a short while, before it disappeared. is this something they call "google dance"? My website is fluctuating on google SERP for many other keywords too, in most cases, my ranking fell. P.S.:With the same keyword,"indian wedding planner" my rankings in google US improved, I am on position 6 page 1. please enlighten fellow mozzers!
Technical SEO | | virtualhandshake0 -
301 redirect dropped page rank
Hi, We have a www domain that I have changed to a non www domain. The www domain had been in place for some time and had a good page rank, PR4. After this change the page rank dropped significantly (PR0, and now recently back to PR2) despite it being a 301 redirect which I thought "should" carry over the page rank. Yes, I am aware I should have just left it be. Hind sight 20/20 .. ya ya ya 🙂 My questions Is the 301 the correct method for this? Why did the page rank drop despite the 301? Should we go back to the www domain at this point? Thanks Kris
Technical SEO | | adriot0 -
How do 301 redirects affect rankings?
Scenario: example.com/red-shoes gets 301 redirected to example.com/brown-boots because we have stopped selling red shoes and now only sell brown boots (which is a fairly new page with no authority). the red-shoes page ranked well for "red shoes" and "footwear". Will Google still index and show the red-shoes url in the SERPs? Will the "red shoes" and "footwear" keywords still rank well? Or does the redirected/new boots page need to properly support these keywords? The boots page has inherited the juice from the shoes page, but how does it help the boots page rank well? Only for keywords that both pages targeted, like a general "footwear" type keyword? Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | akim260