I’m not talking about picking a domain name, I talking about registering a domain name.
So you have already gone through the exceptionally difficult task of picking out that domain name and you are ready to register, your choice is by default, to register it for 1 year. Don’t! Register for as long as you think you can afford. 2 years should suffice, 5 years preferred.
Why? – Well most spam sites only register a domain name for 1 year and their ‘young’ sites send out a lot of spam mail. If your site is newly registered and for only one year, and you have a mailing list, how can Google distinguish you from the spammers? (perhaps in the amount of mail that comes from your domain)
So by registering your domain name for 2-5 years this shows Google and the other search engines that your new company is in it for the long haul. Once you have a domain name registered for 2-5 years you are golden and after that term you can register from year to year, you have served your rookie time.
Personally even after the ‘rookie time’ I would urge you to re-register for another 2-5 years, partly for the price break, but also to make sure your domain name is not snapped up by a competitor.
Living example – Microsoft’s Website Whois Report: http://www.microsoft.com
Record last updated on 15-Nov-2007.
Record expires on 03-May-2014.
Record created on 02-May-1991.
Want to know about your domain?
On a Mac – All you have to do is open Terminal.app (/Applications/Utilities/) and type in “whois” and space followed by your URL. For instance, the following command would give you the whois information for Smoothape.com: whois smoothape.com.
On a PC – Use the command prompt – START > RUN. Type “whoiscl -r smoothape.com”, without the “’s of course.
Smoothape WHOIS
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