by Carolyn Shelby on December 17, 2006
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Remember when I said Google can’t see behind privacy protected domain registrations because they don’t actually manage any domains? Well… Google just announced they’ve added domain registration to the Google Apps for Your Domain Beta. Adding a domain to your Google Apps account is only $10.00 a year to register AND host AND get private domain registration to protect you from Evil spammers.
So this begs the question…
Is Google finally using their registrar license to manage domains for the general public?
Nope. They’re partnering with GoDaddy and Enom to provide the registration services. I doubt it’s a coincidence that they chose to partner with the registrars that have the first and third largest shares, respectively, of the domain market. Via these partnerships, there are now at least 20 million domain records to which Google (presumably) has full, behind-the-privacy-screen access.
Abhilash previously suggested this type of situation might be possible, and honestly, I didn’t think any of the registrars would get into bed with Google like this because the risk of clients becoming upset and transfering out in droves wouldn’t be worth taking. Sort of makes me wonder what kind of financial incentive they received.
I guess we’ll just have to watch and see how this plays out.
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by Carolyn Shelby on November 20, 2006
During the big Interactive Site Review clinic at PubCon last week, Matt Cutts was was using some type of tool that allowed him to pull up a list of every single domain a person/company has registered, whether it is in use or not. (It’s apparently quite top-secret, as he was sitting down at the end of the table with his laptop angled so the other panelists couldn’t see his screen… subtle, no?)
Additionally, he made comments to the site reviewees about the types and quantities of domains regged and how well (or not) the extra domains relate to the site/topic in question, implying that the dozen or so unrelated domains were unnecessary at best and, at worst, possibly harmful to their SERPs.
Apparently, Google has some sort of magic ability to look at all of your domains at once, and uses this information to decide if you’re a dirty spammer or someone who is authoritative about their topic and therefore worthy of better rank. I can’t really decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing.
On the one hand, I can see where you might be inclined to devalue a site run by someone who owns a ton of keyword laden, hyphen riddled domains because that sort of indicates that he/she might, maybe, be an MFA’er or worse. But then again, there really isn’t any proof based solely on one’s domain holdings.
What if the person in question just went on a drunken registration spree one night (not that I’ve done that before, I swear), or maybe regged a bunch of domains with the plan to park them and offer them up for sale? Should their “real” sites be punished for that? I would seriously hope not.
So now, I’m sifting through my domain portfolio to make sure I’m not sitting on anything that might be held against my “money” site and hurt its rankings. If I do find questionable domains, I think I’ll be transferring the registration to my sister or possibly one of my cats, so they can’t be traced back to me anymore :-)
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