Help - Google has 'lost' my site.

[Marc J]

Google uses hundreds of algorithms to rank your site, most of which is out of your control, but the important ones that you can apply to your site to increase your ranking is:

The quality of content
How relevant your content is
Number of quality links pointing to your site
How long your domain name is registered (Google LOVES sites that will be around for a long time)

I'd strongly disagree with that last point (although you have indicated that it is perhaps the most important). Matt Cutts (of Google fame) has been quoted as saying: -

To the best of my knowledge, no search engine has ever confirmed that they use length-of-registration as a factor in scoring. If a company is asserting that as a fact, that would be troubling.

The primary reason to renew a domain would be if it’s your main domain, you plan to keep it for a while, or you’d prefer the convenience of renewing so that you don’t need to stress about your domain expiring.

[Goodfellows Discos]

I'd strongly disagree with that last point (although you have indicated that it is perhaps the most important). Matt Cutts (of Google fame) has been quoted as saying: -

Well i'm not going to argue with Matt, but i've always gone on the basis of the Google search patent to state that the length of a domain registration could have an effect of a site's ranking.

With the amount of spam appearing on the net recently, it wouldn't be a bad move by Google if they did put weight on the registration period of a domain and their patent clears this.

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.

In summary, search engine 125 may generate (or alter) a score associated with a document based, at least in part, on information relating to a legitimacy of a domain associated with the document.

Google Search Patent

While as it stands Google doesn't put any weight on a domain's registration period (came as a shock to me, but thanks for explaining that Marc), registering your domain for a long time does bring about many benefits in a non-SEO perspective. Nothing worse than search rankings being lost if anyone is a bit late off the mark renewing their expired domain, someone taking the domain once it is expired or even them annoying renewal notices.

Anyway, please disregard that point on the list

Alex

[Marc J]

i've always gone on the basis of the Google search patent to state that the length of a domain registration could have an effect of a site's ranking.

With the amount of spam appearing on the net recently, it wouldn't be a bad move by Google if they did put weight on the registration period of a domain and their patent clears this.

That particular patent (which is actually credited to Matt Cutts, among others) is quoted a lot on this subject, mostly by registrars trying to get you to register your domain longer (Fasthosts were particulary bad for this at the time, IIRC). There's a good discussion here about it - I pretty much agree with the argument that any advantage gained by registration length is far too easily (and cheaply) abused as to render it useless. Companies file patents they don't intend to use all the time, and Google is no different.

While as it stands Google doesn't put any weight on a domain's registration period (came as a shock to me, but thanks for explaining that Marc), registering your domain for a long time does bring about many benefits in a non-SEO perspective. Nothing worse than search rankings being lost if anyone is a bit late off the mark renewing their expired domain, someone taking the domain once it is expired or even them annoying renewal notices.

I agree!

[Goodfellows Discos]

Anyway, I think a global rule of thumb with rankings on Google and any other search engine is quality and relevance of a website - one of the things that spam sites will never be able to bring to the table.