How Does Private Domain Registration Affect SEO?
Every domain name requires registration and that registration can be made public, or kept private. Most website owners are unfamiliar with this option, simply filling in their contact details and putting ticks in boxes they think appropriate. SERoundTable discussed this issue and whether or not it would affect your search engine rankings.
There are many valid reasons why you would keep your registration details private. One of these is to prevent spammers and the second is to prevent scammers. However, as the SERoundTable post points out, if you are business, then surely you should have all your details public. For many businesses, their details are already in the public domain anyway.
I can see some possible reasons for an online business to keep its domain registration details private, particularly if they are a private company. Depending on where you live in the world, private companies may have less information available to the public.
From an SEO perspective I can see no reason why it should have any affect. Googler JohnMu says that this information has no affect at all. He does question why a business would go private.
If you have a personal website then the private option can give you some protection from some of the domain name scammers that around at present. If you are a business, while you may feel you need the protection it offers, you need to weigh this up against reputation and credibility that open information provides. If you feel the private domain registration may affect your search engine optimization efforts, fear not – it is not a factor.
6 Responses to “How Does Private Domain Registration Affect SEO?”
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The short answer is it does not affect serach engine rankings. I registered many private domains via yohost.org and had no issues with the rankings.
Thanks for the info Andy!
Here’s a question for you. Does Google calculate in their rankings domains that are owned by the same person? For example, if Andy owns 100 different domains and hosts them on different IP addresses he is cool. But will Google look at the Whois data on all those domains and see that they are all owned by the same person?
Hi Chase,
Thanks for reading and your comment. I personally have not heard of Google taking it to that level. But if you owned 100 domains with good quality content and unique design, I would be careful how and if you interlink these sites. This is where you might encounter issues with Google…
I do not wholeheartedly agree. If google checks the registrar information and sees that 50 of 60 links that point to your website are ALL owned by the exact same person, you will likely receive less value from those 50 links. That would make the most sense — considering Google is a logical machine and does everything to avoid people who are trying to manipulate their ranking system.
Hi Mark,
Thanks for reading and your comment!
1 great quality relevant link is worth much more than 50 links from the same domain…there should be a balanced approach to your link building efforts as well.