What Google knows about your domain

There's a lot of speculation about the information that Google has about domain names. In 2006, 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 is "sandbox"and how to get out of Google's sandbox

If your web site has good rankings on Yahoo, MSN and other search engines but not on Google, it's likely that your web site has been put into Google's sandbox.

What is Google's sandbox?

In general, brand-new web sites with new domain names need about 6 - 8 months to get top rankings on Google.

The usual process is that Google indexes the new web site, lists it for some less important queries and then the web pages drop from the search engine result pages for several months. Although other search engines work fine, Google doesn't list the web site, sometimes not even for the company name.

Why does Google delay the inclusion of brand-new web sites?

It seems that Google delays the inclusion of brand-new web sites to encourage webmasters to build content instead of building mini-networks.

Many webmasters try to artificially inflate the link popularity of their web site by creating a network of small web sites with different URLs that all link to each other. Many of these web sites have no purpose other than linking to the main web site.

By delaying the ranking of new web sites, this mini-network strategy doesn't offer a quick jump to the top anymore. The delay might encourage webmasters to focus on the content of their main web site instead of building useless mini sites.

What can you do to get out of the sandbox?

If you have a new web site, expect that your web site will be listed within 6-8 months in Google. Add content to your web site, get good incoming links and make sure that your web pages are optimized for Google.

As soon as you have a domain name, create a temporary page and link to it from another web site to make Google aware of your web site. The 6-8 months delay seem to start with Google's first contact with your web site. The sooner Google knows about your web site, the sooner it will be listed.

By the way, Yahoo and MSN don't have such a delay so don't focus on Google alone but also optimize your web pages for these search engines.

Can you speed up the whole process?

It seems that there's nothing that can be done to speed up the sandbox process.

Google's sandbox is Google's attempt to prevent spammers from creating web sites that are just a flash in the pan. Google wants to return high quality web sites with good content in its result pages.

Google's sandbox and TrustRank

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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