Why You Should Buy Your Domain Name for At Least Five Years

Let’s get into why you should buy your domain name for five years. Google is the most sophisticated search engine out there. In 2021 ranking well in Google isn’t as easy as it used to be. There are over 200 ranking factors Google uses, according to Backlinko.com. Your domain name is one of them.

The keywords in your domain name, how long your domain name has been around, and how many websites link to your domain name, are all part of Google’s ranking factors.

There are over a billion websites on the world web now. If you want to rank well in Google, you have to not only be knowledgeable about SEO, but you also need to think like Google. What are things that make Google think you are worthy of being at the top of their search engine?

Here’s why you should buy your domain name for five years

Your domain name expiration tells Google how committed you are to your domain name.

Think about this. How many websites come and go every year? People who buy a domain name for a year often do so to create doorway domains (domains used for a specific keyword to drive visitors to another domain). Google doesn’t like this.

In addition to that, people often buy domain names, create a website and quit after just one year. How many times have you followed a link on a website only to find the website no longer exists?

Google wants their search engine to pull up the best, most relevant pages. One of the ways they decide you are a legitimate and quality website is by how long your website has been around and how long they think you are going to stick around.

If they don’t think your domain name is going to exist in a year, why should they put your website priority over a domain name that is clearly invested?

Purchasing the right domain name and letting Google know you are here to stay, is one easy way for you to rank higher in Google. It’s certainly not the most important ranking factor, but if you’re serious about your website and SEO, paying for a five year (or longer) domain name registration is a worthwhile investment.

According to Google’s patent, Google uses certain signals to determine how legitimate your domain name is.

“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.”

If you have only paid for your domain name for a year, there are a lot of good reasons why you should buy your domain name for five years. If you are invested in your website, your domain name expiration should reflect that.

Other domain name ranking factors to consider:

Domain age:

While most SEO experts agree that domain age is no longer an important ranking factor, there are still some in the SEO community who believe that older domain names tend to rank better than newer ones, provided they are updated and still getting new backlinks.

This is probably not because of the age of the domain, however. It’s more likely because the site has more backlinks and domain authority. Still, owning your domain name longer might help.

Keywords in domain name:

Using your keyword in your domain naturally will help you rank better in Google for that keyword. It’s a signal that tells Google your website is about that particular keyword.

This is why a website with the domain name with the keywords Albuquerque SEO in it might rank better for SEO services than BadassWebGoddess. Still, I used the keyword “web” in my domain to tell Google that my domain name has something to do with the web and websites.

Public Domain name registration:

Google published it’s E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) guidelines in 2013. What this means is that Google is looking for websites to be trustworthy. This is one of the reasons that having an SSL certificate on your websites is also becoming an important ranking for Google.

There is some evidence that private registrations make your domain name look less trustworthy. If your domain name is registered privately, Google might think that you have something to hide. Unless you have an important reason to keep your domain name registered privately, you should register your domain name publicly.

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