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Changing Registrars

Changing Registrars and its effect on search rankings

         

Fortune

2:55 pm on Aug 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi all,

I need to change my registrar for all my sites +/- 40. Dont want to get in to the reason why i need to change it but my question to you all is as follows:

If i change my registrar details do the search engines see it as a transfer of ownership and thus place my sites to the back of the cue again and view them as brand new sites?

Is this the same with changing DNS details?
Thanks

PatrickDeese

3:15 pm on Aug 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



There should be no problem whatsoever.

Fortune

3:32 pm on Aug 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Why do you say this? I have heard otherwise from the recent webmasterworld conference i attended in New Orleans...

TheGuyAboveYou

3:50 pm on Aug 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I think it is an issue now. Googles recent changes look at domain registry and time rate of change of variables. Not just static variables.

I changed the registry on a site I sold and it dropped way back in rankings. From the front page
to page 5.

We did make a few other changes (nothing major) I believe it was due to the registry change.

I hope I am wrong and I hope it doesn't happen to you.

Webwork

3:57 pm on Aug 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



1. Is it logical to use this as a single factor of any weight? No

2. Is it possible that it might be 1 of 200 factors weighed in an array of algos and filters? Yes.

As regards #2, there is really only 2 ways to know the answer definitively: a) The SE reps, under oath and penalty of perjury, say so; and, b) Massive testing with proper controls. As to "b" anyone performing such massive testing is not going to be giving away the info gleaned from the effort.

I'm with PatrickD on this one. To whatever degree a change of registrar might be weighed the weighting is likely small - all other weightings being equal across 199 other factors. However, I haven't tested 2,000 domains across 700 IP addresses on 500 different servers in 5 different countries with 2000 websites each having mostly their own unique content, etc. - so my opinion is a bit speculative.

[edited by: Webwork at 4:12 pm (utc) on Aug. 2, 2005]

PatrickDeese

4:04 pm on Aug 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



If your content / hosting stays the same it would make *absolutely no sense* to penalize a site for switching domain name registrars.

Google is interested in measuring content and quality - switching from RegistrarX to RegistrarY has nothing to do with the content of the site, nor its quality - therefore they wouldn't penalize a site for changing registars.

If one wants to argue that a registrar change triggers a "content review" via some automated process, okay, I could see that - but an automatic penalty just because a webmaster switched registrars is not only unlikely, its ridiculous.

Just do what's right for your business.

Fortune

4:13 pm on Aug 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



thanks for the feedback all. I will be making some more enquiries over the next few days and report back my findings. I'm hoping the feedback is the same as what you guys propose...Huge stress off my shoulders...