1. Do you opt for domain privacy, i.e. proxy registration? I am uncomfortable with the fact that someone else owns the domain, but....
2. What about from the search engine perspective? It seems like a proxy registration is a footprint that flags someone with a collection of sites that they don't want to be tied together. So is there a guilt by inference - if you were just out to share info for the love of it, you wouldn't need a private registration?
2) If you owned a search engine which domain would you algorithmically trust? One with associations to the real world or one with no associations?
So on #1, you're saying that I *am* the owner, by contract with the registrant who is thus legally bound to make me the registrant upon request. I suppose I knew that, but it comes down to the degree of trust I have. Is it typically the registrar itself who serves as proxy or is it a third party? So if I trust the registrar, I could trust the proxy, but if there were ever a dispute, the courts, rather than ICANN, would have first jurisdiction?
2. Well, that's my supposition, but it's just supposition. And the question is how much it really matters. There have been those embarrassing (or so I've heard) Pubcon site reviews where Matt Cutts pulls out Google's special tools and tells the reviewee "I see here you have 28 sites in that niche that all point to the site in question".
My question is really
- how much harder does it make it for G to connect the dots?
- assuming they haven't connected the dots, does the very fact of having a proxy registration make you 1/2 guilty in their eyes?
Clearly, it's only going to be one signal. In terms of ad copy, most registrars sell "registration privacy" as spam control measure b/c you don't have to put your email in the WHOIS info. I've seen people with personal blogs with full contact info - name, address, telephone, and contact form or email - on the site who nevertheless have proxy reg for that because they've been sold on it by the registrars.
So it can't be sending a strong signal to Google. Anyway, I'm wondering if anyone has specific cases where they felt that proxy registration hurt. Obviously, nobody is going to have serious data, but say a couple of cases where proxy reg was removed and things improved would be enlightening.
OTOH, IF I was Google I'd likely attempt to work WhoIs privacy into my equation based upon a limited set of variables, such as the likely need for WhoIs privacy (sensitive subject matter: abortion, rape, etc) and then discover that subject matter sensitivity doesn't work and instead throw the variable into the "we already think it's spam" equations or "it's a highly gamed/competitive sector" equations and use WhoIs privacy to help tip the scale into "disfavor status".
Ah you say but I can prove I live(d) there.
Yes he says, I agreed to let you.
But I have a contract you say.
Show me he says.
After a long time and much discussion during which time you may or may not have been homeless.
He says I suppose you can have the $10 you paid me back as per terms of our contract.
#2 Each extra dot connected equals competitive advantage
#2 - another good point. Naively, I was thinking just in terms of SEs, not in terms of actual people trying to figure out all my domains... "all" being quite relative compared to, say, "all of Webwork's domains".
Not like I have a major collection of domains ("portfolio" would be out of place here), but I do have some and there is a fair bit of overlap in many cases. Just trying to figure out how to use them and get the best utility.
Also, with people able to get the history of the domain via Domain Tools, the chicken is kind of out of the coop with domains I already own, is it not?
Am I being naive?
I'm not in the least bit concerned if my competitors know which names I own, in any case, those names which have not yet been fully developed have my own splash page and it is obvious who owns them.
Is there an advantage I am missing?
I don't know about you, but I was being naive. Now I'm a *little* more aware, but I'm not sure my actions will change.
I had worked for one of 500 fortune companies in past, (a very small role of mine) all the domains where registered properly on Companys name/profile
(they still own more then 5000 LARGE domains on Internet) .
None of them have been every banned.
So why non-fortuners ?
Its only one thing I can estimate (SPAM FROM DOMAINS)
If all domains registered even on 1 individual name and/or comapany are doing properly why should anyone else have a problem ? (wether it be SERPs)
[edited by: Future at 8:55 pm (utc) on Mar. 13, 2009]
..."registration privacy" as spam control measure b/c you don't have to put your email in the WHOIS info...
What about this aspect of it?
But with a normal reg, at least in theory, you have to give your proper address, email, and all that, otherwise ICANN can take your domain. So that means your personal data is available to anyone with the technology to scrap WHOIS data.
So that means your personal data is available to anyone with the technology to scrape WHOIS data.
My question boils down, then, to how bad does it get? All of my domains currently have private registration, but it essentially doubles my costs, so I'd rather not have it if I don't need it.
I can trace certain kinds of email spam to places where my "public" email address is online, and it's not so overwhelming that I can't live with it. I don't know, though, how much WHOIS data is a place where spammers like to live.
I have an email address that is on my whois records (about 30). It gets about 6 spam messages per day. On the other hand, someone recently wrote a troubling comment on one of my sites and it occurred to me that if he knows anything at all, from my whois data he could get a lot more info than I might want him to have.
My question boils down, then, to how bad does it get? All of my domains currently have private registration, but it essentially doubles my costs, so I'd rather not have it if I don't need it.
I don't have private registration on any of my 800+ domains. I do use a mailbox service for post, and a phone number which forwards to my real number that I could change if needed.
I get a few of those spam "renewal" snail mail letters, and one or two phone calls a year. No big deal.
I also change the domain contact email address on all domains once or twice a year (and bounce the old one). It takes a while for a new address to get harvested and sold on, and by then I'm on to the next one. I still get a small amount of spam - mainly from automated link building programs that hunt for sites and grab the registration address - but it's tiny, a few a week.
Of course, use a different address for your contact forms on your sites. Then you know if somebody writes to the domain contact address (especially multiple copies sent to different domains!) it's probably automated spam.
