A Ten-Year Registration and the Ranking Myth

The pitch

The call or email usually comes near renewal time. Extend your domain for ten years, the seller says, and Google will see an established business and rank you higher.

It sounds plausible. A business that commits for a decade looks more serious than one renewing a year at a time.

There is no good evidence that search rankings work that way. There is, however, a different and real reason to consider a longer registration.

Where the idea comes from

The belief seems to trace back to a search patent filed more than ten years ago, which listed how far ahead a domain is paid for among many possible signs of a legitimate site.

A patent describes ideas a company has protected, not what its search engine actually uses. Nothing Google has said about how its search ranks pages points to registration length.

And the expiry date is easy to buy. Anyone can pay for ten years, spammers included, which makes it a poor sign of quality for a search engine to rely on.

The claim survives partly because it is hard to disprove from outside. A site that ranks well after a long renewal seems to confirm it.

What actually helps an older site

Older sites often do rank well, which keeps the myth alive. What they have is years of accumulated pages, links from other sites, and a name people search for.

None of that comes from the registration term. A domain renewed one year at a time for fifteen years has the same history as one paid ten years ahead.

The real reason to renew for longer

• The card on file expires, and the renewal charge fails.
• Reminders go to an old address, perhaps a former employee's.
• The person who registered it left, and nobody has the login.
• Renewal falls in a busy month, or a closed one.
• A fake renewal notice gets paid instead of the real one.

The first is the easiest to miss. Cards are replaced every few years, and the registrar is rarely on the list of places anyone updates.

Every renewal is another moment for one of these to go wrong. Fewer renewals means fewer chances, which is the honest case for a longer term.

What happens when a domain lapses

Soon after a registration expires, the site goes dark and every email address on the domain stops receiving mail.

For most businesses the email is the bigger loss. Quotes, invoices and customer replies bounce, and the senders are rarely told why.

There is normally a grace period in which the owner can still renew at the usual price, then a redemption period with a much higher fee.

After that the name can be registered by anyone, including people who buy expired domains to resell.

And the notices sent after expiry often go to an address on the same domain, which has just stopped working.

A worked example

A motorcycle detailer works from a two-bay shop from April to October, cleaning, polishing and protecting bikes, and stores a few for customers over winter.

His domain came up for renewal in February, while the shop was closed. The card on file had expired in the autumn, and the reminders went to the person who built the site, who had moved on.

The site and the shop's email went dark. He found out in early March, when a regular customer called to check he was still open for the season.

The domain came back during the redemption period, at several times the usual price, and getting it back took most of a week, just as riders were booking spring cleans.

Soon afterwards a seller called, offering a ten-year renewal to help his rankings.

He renewed for five years instead, with automatic renewal on, a card that does not expire soon, and the contact address changed to one he reads every day.

Weighing the cost

Paying ten years ahead ties up money that could do something else, and the business may rename or restructure long before the term ends.

For most small businesses, a middle term of two to five years, with automatic renewal on, balances the cost against the risk. The exact number matters less than the safeguards around it.

Automatic renewal, whatever the term

A ten-year registration still ends. When it does, nobody will remember the login, the card or even the registrar, because nobody will have thought about them for a decade.

So switch automatic renewal on whatever the term, keep a current card on the account, and add a second card if the registrar allows one.

Then add the expiry date to the business calendar, with a reminder two months ahead to check the card.

Contact details that still work

The registrar sends reminders to the contact email on the domain. Make it an address someone reads, and ideally one on a different domain, so it keeps working if this one ever lapses.

Registrars also ask owners to confirm their contact details, and can suspend a domain whose details go unconfirmed. Answer those emails when they arrive.

And know who holds the login. If it is a former designer or an employee who left, move the account into the business's name now, while everything still works.

The same goes for the registrant itself. A domain held in one person's name belongs to that person, not to the business that depends on it.

The counter-case

A business with one card, one owner and a registrar account checked every year has little to gain from a longer term. Yearly renewal with automatic payment works well there.

And a business planning to rename within a few years should not prepay a decade for the old name.

For everyone else, a longer term is a reasonable safeguard bought for the right reason. Ignore the ranking claim, weigh the cost, and keep automatic renewal on regardless.

Before the next renewal

1. Find the expiry date of every domain.
2. Check who holds the registrar login.
3. Switch on automatic renewal.
4. Update the card on the account.
5. Change the contact email to one someone reads.
6. Choose a term on cost, not rankings.
7. Put the date in the business calendar.

Step two is where problems hide. A domain registered by someone who has since left can be renewed only through their account, and sorting that out after expiry is far slower than before it.

Another domain sales tactic worth recognising is described in the urgent email about your name in foreign domains.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.