Is NetworkSolutions lying or does this work?
 

I just renewed a domain at NetSol because it was too near its expiration date to transfer. When I was going through the shopping cart process there, I was shown an upsell message that I haven't seen at other registrars.

The message was shown as a graphic from a https location so I can't upload a copy to this post. The original is at https://www.networksolutions.com/pur...ad-in-cart.gif and if it doesn't load for you from that address you can see a copy here too.

Basically it says that registering a domain for 5 years or longer will cause search engines to perceive the domain to be more legitimate and therefore to rank it more highly.

So my question is whether or not there's some evidence of this being true. I can see if it's the only difference between two otherwise equivalent pages/sites, but as a general statement the way NetSol is using it, it just sound like deceptive marketing to me.

Once upon a time it was thought that in attempt to keep spammers out of the serps, google favored aged domains. I have no idea if that is true or not. If it is, I would assume that if you have had the domain for a couple of years it would be looked at the same way as a new domain registered for 5 years or more.

I've heard that rumor as well, but I'm thinking that it's more of a selling tactic these days.

"Basically it says that registering a domain for 5 years or longer will cause search engines to perceive the domain to be more legitimate and therefore to rank it more highly."

That's a rumor started by a Google patent dealing with Historical Data that mentions domain age, link age, page age, how frequent a page's content is updated, and a whole bunch of other age factors.

That document gives me a headache. Here's a summary in English.

Most spammers don't register sites for 5 years, so that's another reason why registeration duration may be a quality signal.

Personally, I just pay every year.

It's bollocks. Content is king. Offer Google or any other decent SE good, regularly updated, content, and you will get there. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later.

Would someone please show me an example of Google, or any other SE or web index for that matter, doing a WHOIS search whilst ranking?

Thanks, Halfdeck, I'll check out that summary.

The patent info page is saying "Error #2012 Sorry! Maximum number of users has been reached. Please try again later." :D