Does a private domain registration hurt SERPs?

[jmorty732]

Hi All,
Just looking for thoughts on the following...

I want to renew my domain registration, and I am thinking about using one of those private proxies.

I know that Google looks at time of registration, length, etc, but would using this type of proxy hurt?

The reason I am considering it, is that I have another domain that I have basically never used, and I have gotten tons of spam to the email address used to register (even though I have never used it) so I thought using the private proxy would help.

Obviously, if Google penalizes me for it, this is a huge Con and I will just have to put up with the spam.

Any thoughts?

Morty

[tedster]

Matt Cutts was asked about this at a PubCon a while back. As I recall, he said that private registration alone is not a problem. But if it combines with other signals of spamming, then it it's "one more strike" and could tip the scales against you.

[gendude]

In addition, from other comments Matt and others have made, you have bigger things to worry as far as impacting SERPs than simply private registration.

You could easily set up a one-person company (not even a formal or real company, but just something like "JM732 Enterprises") with a P.O. Box and a generic email address if you wanted to keep your home address and email spam free.

I use private registration and it's not impacted any of my sites abilities to rank well. I changed it over the last time I moved, as I felt I was getting way too much offline spam as well as not liking having my name and address out there to be easily found (again the spamming).

[jmorty732]

Thanks!
Just wanted to do a quick check, I didn't want to do something stupid ;)

Morty