by Jeff Finkelstein
8. Age & Experience Matter
Google's continuing mission is to deliver the best search results possible
to its end users. So how can a search engine like Google differentiate
between a company that is brand new (and might be a fly-by-night operation) versus
an organization that has years of experience in the field?
The answer: Google looks at the age of your domain name (along
with several other varibles). If your domain name was registered last week, chances
are good that your site won't even appear in Google's rankings for several months.
(This is called the Google Sandbox.)
But if your domain name was registered eight years ago, Google uses this information
as a clue that you've been around for a little bit.
In a nutshell, Google looks at the month and year when your domain was registered — and
uses this to give more weight to companies that have been around for several years
versus several weeks.
Google also looks forward to see how long you have registered your domain; if
you have registered your domain for five or ten years in the future, you've made
a subtle, yet important economic decision that you're still going to be around and
in business in 2018. Here's an instance where being frugal with domain name registration
can actually hurt your rankings.
That said, Google does place more weight on the past versus the future. I have
one domain that's been continously registered for 14 years (since 1994). Along with
many other factors, this site, www.rmiug.org,
has a very high Google Page Rank of 6/10.
So, what can you do to increase your rankings?
First, make sure that your company's domain name is registered
for at least a few years from the present date.
Second, make sure you know who is the contact person for your
domain name. We've recently seen several instances where the person in charge of
the domain name moves to a different organization, goes on vacation, or even passes
away. And then, if the domain name comes up for renewal, it can be a mad scramble
to keep your website and corporate email up and running.
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