Privacy: Is Whois info used to help establish an admin relationship between sites in addition to host/IP etc ?
-
Hi
Do you think Google looks at WhoIs details as a contributing factor to establishing an adminsitrative relationship between two domains (in addition to being hosted on similar hosts/IP blocks etc), and in regard to linkbuilding would having teh same whois details on both sites have a negative effect or be perfectly ok (if the sites are on different hosts/ip blocks) ?
Also do you think whois privacy turned on has a negative effect on trust and subsequent seo ?
Considering the answer to the above two questions: Do you think its a good or bad idea to have domain reg/whois ‘privacy’ turned on for a site of curated content relating to the project/primary sites niche, and linking to this site for contextual link benefit ?
Im building out a site of curated content that i want to perform well in-itself as well as providing backlink benefit to the primary site but worried if they both have same whois details will cause seo problems or would that only be if also had same host/ip footprint ?
Should i enable whois privacy, use a different address for reg, or actually make a point of using the same whois details for transparency ?
All Best
Dan -
cool cheers
-
I would personally, but not for any SEO benefits or trying to hide anything to Google. Just because I can and stops people snooping.
-Andy
-
Hi there
I really don't think it matters overall in the grand scheme so long as you are providing a valuable experience with your content and take proper steps to eliminate duplicate content issues.
To reference Andy below, there are sites that get tons of organic rankings / traffic with private Whois sites, and the same for public Whois. In the grand scheme of thinks, if you are linking naturally and not abusing anchor text and giving credit where it is due, you should be fine.
Hope this helps!
-
So IYO prob is best if i turn privacy on rather than 'potentially' show an administrative relationship by having same details ?
-
great thanks Andy !
-
Thanks Patrick !
So having whois data same for two interlinking sites could negate or heavily reduce any link benefit since they do likely use it to determine administrative relationship ? so should turn privacy on except that can also reduce trust in the domain!
So any ideas which is the least worse option if that is the case ? reducing the trust via privacy on option or admitting an admin relationship between the sites via whois option ?
All Best
Dan
-
So your saying that if i use 'who is privacy on' for the new site, it shouldn't have a negative effect for that sites seo
Absolutely. I have a wide range of clients, some of who like to hide their personal details and others who don't. None have any negative effects for either. Google is more interested in how good a site is, rather than who the admin contact is.
Can I just add, if there is actual test data that I haven't seen, I would be very interested to have a look.
-Andy
-
Definitely true! I was just stating it for the reference of Matt talking about Whois data back then to reference information.
-
Just be a little cautions with info dating back to 2006-2007. You can't rely on that now.
-
Thanks for the quick response Andy !
So your saying that if i use 'who is privacy on' for the new site, it shouldn't have a negative effect for that sites seo BUT Google doesn't look at 'WhoIs' info to establish an administrative relationship between two sites anyway, hence there's no need to use it since same whois details shouldn't cause any issues?
-
Hi there
Cyrus gave a great answer to this a few years back. You can read that here.
That being said, some people think Whois data is used as a ranking factor (6, 8, 9, 63) or at least used in some ranking factors.
Matt Cutts has stated as well:
"…When I checked the whois on them, they all had “whois privacy protection service” on them. That’s relatively unusual. …Having whois privacy turned on isn’t automatically bad, but once you get several of these factors all together, you’re often talking about a very different type of webmaster than the fellow who just has a single site or so."
In my opinion, it's better to be open than hide information. But that's upto you to do the research and see what best suits you.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
I would say this is a resounding no to both questions here Dan. I have never seen anything that would suggest this and can imagine it would be full of problems for Google to try and do.
Use WHOIS privacy if you don't want anyone to see who the site belongs to, but that is as far as your concerns need go
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How do I deal with /mobile/ page after responsive re-design?
Hi guys, One of our clients used to have a website that would redirect mobile traffic to a /mobile/ page. Thankfully we've finally gone fully responsive and there is no need for this /mobile/ page. Trouble is, www.clientsite.com.au**/mobile/** is still in the Google index and going to a 404 right now. What is the best way to deal with it? Should we be 301 redirecting /mobile/ to / (the home page)? Would be most grateful for any ideas. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | WCR0 -
Need better solution for 301s with Jekyll/S3 Site
Hey Mozzers, So, this isn't the first time that I've come to the community with questions regarding my new site. Although running a site using static HTML-generated pages has been fantastic in the first few weeks as far as load times, it's been a nightmare in terms of a few other SEO-related concerns, namely redirects. In the Q&A post above, Mat Shepherd pointed out a solution for adding 301s to an Amazon Webservices site using their "Redirection Rules" field on the "Configure Bucket for Website Hosting" page. However, I discovered soon after that I was limited to only 50 redirects using this method. Obviously, all things considered, this will not be enough. At this point, I'm basically out of ideas. If anyone else out there has a website with a similar setup, (Jekyll platform hosted on Amazon S3,) that has overcome this problem with redirects, I'd really appreciate hearing from you. Thanks in advance, everyone
Technical SEO | | danny.wood0 -
Why would this site outrank a Pr2 site with higher domain authority?
I am trying to get a pr2 site to be on top 7 local spot for the keyword Van Nuys Bail bonds but have discovered a site which has barely any back links and is not even a year old on top results. Their backlinks are from lower authority domains than what we have. How could this site be beating a 7 year old pr2 website? The site I'm working on is http://bbbail.com/ The site that is ranking in 5th spot local with pr0 is http://www.vipbailbonds.org/ is it maybe because it is a .org site? Also I notice that all websites in top spots have www, could that be a factor as well?
Technical SEO | | jesse13410 -
How to link site.com/blog or site.com/blog/
Hello friends, I have a very basic question but I can not find the right answer... I have made my blog linkbuilding using the adress "mysite.com/blog" but now im not sure if is better to do the linkbuilding to "mysite.com**/blog/ "** Is there any diference? Thanks...
Technical SEO | | lans27870 -
Using same IP for differenct country TLD versions
Hi Will having a websites in several languages hosted on the same IP be a problem SEO wise if they are using different country TLD's? In this case shopdomain.de, at and co.uk on the exact same server IP
Technical SEO | | AndersDK0 -
Client sites on same IP / same c class IP range
Our own site and client sites (that we design) are either hosted on the same IP or within same C Class range of IPs Will there be an issue with Google if we include a link on the client site home page footer (as agreed with client) that links to a specific project page on our website for that client e.g they are not linking to our home page?
Technical SEO | | NeilD0 -
What tool can i use to get the true speed of my site
hi, i am trying to get the true speed of my site. i want to know how fast www.in2town.co.uk is but the tools that i am using are giving me different readings. http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/DkHoNWmZh/www.in2town.co.uk says the speed is 1.03s http://gtmetrix.com/reports/www.in2town.co.uk/i4EMDk34 says my speed is 2.25s and http://www.vertain.com/m.q?req=cstr&reqid=dAv79lt8 says it is 4.36s so as you can see i am confused. I am trying to get the site as fast as possible, but need to know what the correct speed is so i can work on things that need changing to make it faster. can anyone also let me know what speed i should be working for. many thanks
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Site Crawl
I was wondering if there was a way to use SEOmoz's tool to quickly and easily find all the URLs on you site and not just the ones with errors. The site that I am working on does not have a site map. What I am trying to do is find all the URLs along with their titles and description tags. Thank you very much for your help
Technical SEO | | pakevin0