I remember as a novice, I have read about this aspect of SEO when I entered into search engine optimization field 4 years back. I did not give much importance to this factor then but my studies over the time induced me to think more about it.

Does tenure or length of time period of domain name registration help in better search engine rankings?

Many of the small business owners have this question in mind while they start SEO on their websites. Now a days, I consider every serious blogger as small business owner only. Most of you book the domain name for one year, and renew every year. Did you give it a thought what Google might be thinking about this factor. No doubt, Google believes more in the websites that exists since long time. It’s just like you believe in a shop owner that has been around for a while in your town or city and you do business with him and not so easily with someone who just entered last month. This is about the existing web presence. What about future presence?

Can this be a sign of how serious blogger you are in Google’s eyes?

In my opinion, it’s always good to have your domain booked for longer period of time than renewing it every year. I believe this is one of the 100s of factors Google considers while ranking a website. This might not influence your ranking in Google but there are few simple reasons to go for multi year domain name booking.

It’s a proven fact that valuable domain names are generally paid for longer tenure in advance. There may be many reasons including hassle free renewals but most of the high value domain names are paid for longer tenure.

The domain names that are booked for longer time are more likely to have commitment towards business and legitimate business mind behind it. In terms of blogs, these blogs might get updated regularly for years together; establishing themselves as reliable source of information.

Illegitimate domain names are rarely booked for more than one year, they are tried, tested and thrown away within a year. Should it say the legitimacy of a domain name indirectly to whoever looks at it including search engine.

These few logical points above are also supported by patent awared by Google few years back.

Certain signals may be used to distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate domains. For example, domains can be renewed up to a period of 10 years. Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith

This statement simply tells me that the domain that are booked for longer tenure are considered legitimate and separated from illegitimate lot of domains that are booked for short duration. Remember one thing here, having your domain name booked for one year does not push your domain name towards list of illegitimate domain names but would not you always like to be at a safer side?

Keep in mind that Google filing this patent does not necessarily means that they are using this factor to boost the search engine rankings. But would not you like to be in Good books always. Are you seriously thinking to renew your domain name for longer period of time?

What should be that “longer duration” to book domain names?

Should you look at your competition and see how long they have booked their domain names, if it’s 1 year, you should go for 2 years; if it’s 2 years, you should go for 3-4 years. Because this small factor might help you to win the ‘tie-breaker’ when search engines rank your websites.

In my opinion, booking your domain name for 5 years to 10 years tenure is good enough to prove that your business is legitimate and you value it as a serious business owner. I have booked this domain name “lifeiscolourful.com” with Godaddy for 5 years and also saved $15 in domain booking. If you are thinking to book your domain name for longer time, you might want to take benefit of the ongoing domain sale at GoDaddy.

The .COM domain names are available for $6.95 per year only. You can almost save $3 per year per domain name. By the way, how long you have booked your domain name currently?

Well, I know many of the new bloggers still stick to blogspot.com or sub-domains given by blogger hosting companies. You have to keep in mind though, getting your own domain name adds value to your blog. Specially when you are allowing advertising on your blog, advertisers think that you are serious enough to have your own domain name and hosting your blog on it. Not necessary that you always would have that extra bucks to spend on domain names, or even if you have - you might not want to spend on each and every blog. Even many established bloggers do have their own low profile blogs that they would probably never bring on domain name but keep them on blogspot only.

But as having your domain name becomes a no-expenses activity, courtesy www.co.cc; you should grab your free domain names as soon as possible. There are few things to keep in mind though -

1. Not all the domain names are free here. The premium domain names are available for a cost. And that cost is exorbitant.
2. Your domain names if not accessed for long time, they may stop providing you free service, so better have some traffic coming in.
3. Avoid breaking their rules to get your free domain name punished, and eventually yourself.

So I think looking at the rules, it’s advisable to host clean, nice blogs or application or websites at these domains, have some traffic coming in to these domains of yours and enjoy the free domain for lifetime.

I think it’s no harm to book domain names that you always wanted to have but not available in other top level domains like .com or .net.

So have you participated in the dummy domain auction here yet? No… Look what we are predicting and then compare with what fate Traffic East Live Domain auction would decide for these valuable domain names. There are opening bids set for each domain and this is list of some of those super value domain names that are $1MM and above.

I am happy that I could value Pay.com and Jackpot.com above everything else, but Israel.com was a surprise for me. It just outperforming every other domain. It will be pretty interesting to see the live auction.

These are some more high value domain names in terms of opening bid.

Here is the complete auction inventory catalog [in excel format] available for download. I wish I could have foreseen the growing domain industry a decade back and booked few of them, don’t you think too?