The Secrets of WHOIS on SEO

July 19, 2007

WHOIS is a protocol that is used to identify the owner of a domain name or IP address on the Internet.
The WHOIS information is now used for validating domains and their content dynamically by search engines and their crawlers:
- inception date of the domain (age of the site and its content)
- expiration of the domain (legitimacy of the site and its content – shorter registrations rank lower)
- Frequency of changes to the WHOIS data (stability of the site and its content)
- Information about name servers (purpose of the site and its content)
Issues with using WHOIS information
- Privacy concerns
- False registrations
- Inaccurate information
- Obsolete sites
- Lack of history
- Internationalization
- No central WHOIS server list
- Differing result formats from different WHOIS servers
Some tips that will leverage WHOIS information
- Register your domains for 5 years or more at a time
- Avoid changing your WHOIS or registration information unless absolutely necessary

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