GoDaddy Uses Google Patent to Boost Domains & Hosting
The marketing crew at GoDaddy has found a great way to boost domain sales and get in that extra end of the year cash flow from site publishers and businesses. GoDaddy has published information from a Google Patent which, in an attempt to wipe out search spam, is dubbing domains which have been in active for longer periods of time more valuable:
Google recently filed United States Patent Application 20050071741. As part of that patent application, Google made apparent its efforts to wipe out search engine spam, stating:
‘Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.”
Domains registered for longer periods give the indication, true or not, that their owner is legitimate. Google uses a domain’s length of registration when indexing and ranking a Web site for inclusion in their organic search results.
So to prove to everyone that your site is the real deal, register for more than one year and increase your chances of boosting your search ranking on Google.
Aaron Wall, who scooped the new GoDaddy sales technique, says that this is one of the smartest examples of marketing he’s seen from registars : I know registrars always sell bogus submit your site to the search engines garbage, but I don’t think I have ever seen one recommend registering for extended periods of time because of a Google patent before.
Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch adds that “The last search engine oomph push they had was really when longer domain names came out in 1999. That gave us a mad rush for hyphenated domain names that to me never really paid off for people. But a lot of domain names were sold.”
My humble opinion is that this new Google Patent oriented sales marketing is a win-win for GoDaddy because of two reasons. First, they’re probably going to see a very nice jump in domain name sales over the next two months – solidifying their final quarter sales expectations and giving them more cash to work with for their next Super Bowl commercial.
Second, those domain name sales and their new “Google Patent Marketing Scheme” are probably going to lead to higher conversions of hosting plan sales since any beginner can put up a three or four page site on their hosting partner using Frontpage. Secure the domain, then get it up and running, a one two punch from Bob Parsons & crew.
