There have been a lot of studies into the correlation between domain registration length and successful Search Engine Optimization – particularly for those that are in Google top 10 for any competitive terms.

It has been theorized that the longer the registration length, the more trusted the domain to Google.

You know why? It shows you are serious about your business. Business owners that registered their domain for a longer time are mostly serious owners and have good long term plan for their domains.

It make sense that throwaway or spammy domains are registered for a short time because the spammers do not have serious funding. It is common sense that any long term plans in attempting to spam search engines will not work because of algorithm continuous improvement. This makes domain registration length of spammy domains very short (generally, at most 2 years).

Despite being aware of this, MOST DO NOT KNOW that the top 10 ranking domains for any competitive terms in Google are registered on the average of 10 years! It has been randomly sampled.

So, if you are seriously into long term ranking, register your domain for around 10 years. Stats say it shows high probability of 1st page ranking.

Of course, bear in mind that the length of registration itself does not mean your domain will rank because of relevance. You still need a lot of SEO work for this. Hand-in-hand with a long registration period, sites must provide compelling services and make themselves helpful to visitors. These are vital ingredients for long term Google ranking success and any good SEO specialist will emphasize this time and time again.

We will be revisiting this topic in more detail. I’d really like to hear your thoughts in the meantime, plus any specific experience of the topic.