Why You Should Renew your Domain for Multiple Years

A commonly ignored SEO tip is to renew your domain name for multiple years, rather than renewing it on an ongoing basis. In our article about how Google works, we discussed how Google makes it’s money by maintaining it’s reputation as the most reliable source of information for users. Naturally, Google will rank higher websites that it trusts.

One way to send out a trustworthy signal to Google is to renew your domain for multiple years. This will not cost you any extra than it would do if you renewed on a yearly basis. Of course, it does mean you have to shell out more upfront, but the plus side out is that it sends out the message to Google that your site is here to stay and is not some attempt to spam the search engines and achieve short term rankings.

Here is a quote from a patent Google filed several years ago:

Certain signals may be used to distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate domains. For example, domains can be renewed up to a period of 10 years. Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.

The above quote gives a clear indication that Google value more positively domains that have been registered for longer periods of time. Doing so can help boost the trust rank of your website and help move your website up the search engines.

An additional benefit of registering your site for a longer period of time is that you avoid the risk of losing the domain upon expiry, undoing all the positive SEO work you have done to it. In conclusion, while there are many positive effects of registering your domain for multiple years, there are no negative sides - so go for it!