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What Google knows about your domain name
There's a lot of speculation about the information that
Google has about domain names. Last year, Google became a
domain name registrar but they haven't offered domain registration
services in the meantime.
There must be another reason why Google decided to become
a registrar. What does Google know about your domain name
and what do they not know?
Why did Google become a domain registrar?
It seems that Google doesn't intent to buy or sell domain
names. It's much more likely that Google wanted to have
greater access to domain information.
As a registrar, Google has access to the APIs (Application
Programming Interfaces) of other registrars. While Google
doesn't have access to the customer records of VeriSign
or other registrars, they can now easily query their WHOIS records.
What can Google do with that information?
Google probably wants to analyze domain names. By regularly
checking the WHOIS information of a web site, Google can
track the history of a domain name.
That allows Google to find relations between different
domains names and changes in ownership. If a domain name
has a new owner, Google might reconsider the value of the
domain name in the ranking algorithm.
Some people buy old domain names to avoid the Google sandbox effect
and to benefit from existing links. If Google can detect
the ownership change of a domain name, it might become
more difficult to benefit from old domain names.
What can Google not do?
Google cannot access the customer information of other
registrars. They only have access to the same information
that you get when you use a public WHOIS service.
That means that Google cannot access your data if you
use the domain privacy services that some registrars offer.
However, this could also lead to problems.
If you hide too much information about your domain name,
your domain name could be flagged in Google's ranking algorithm
and Google's trust in your domain name might be reduced.
It's difficult to tell what Google really does with the
domain data. It's probably best not to try to cheat Google
with domain purchases just for SEO purposes. Concentrate
on your main web site and optimize the
content of your pages to get high search engine rankings.
Building a web site with good content and good inbound
links takes longer than buying an old domain name.
However, you can be sure that this method won't trigger
any domain spam filters.
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