Does Google check Whois
-
Hello everyone,
I own quite a lot of website active in the same niche and sometimes targeting the same keywords, these sites are hosted at different IP's. But they all have the same Whois details, i was wondering if Google checks the Whois-data? And if it affects the serp's?
Regards,
Yannick
-
Let me answer the question another way. To be honest, Google most likely doesn't look at Whois data - they don't need to (more on this below).
The real question is... Does Google know what websites are associated with you? Do they care? And does this factor into ranking?
The answer to the first question is most likely yes. For one, Google became an ICANN registrar (just like Godaddy) in 2006. This means they have first look access to all newly registered domain names. There are also a million other ways to determine relationships between websites, such as shared IPs, Analytic codes, link patterns and so on.
But do they care? We don't have hard data on this, but Google reps have made comments in the past that links between sites that have an "administrative" relationship aren't as valuable. That's why you see SEOs measuring links from unique C-blocks. (This is one of the metrics in the SEOmoz Competitive Analysis Report).
This is one of the ways Google is able to sniff out link networks. If you own a bunch of sites, and you engage in aggressive inter-linking between these sites, those links are likely not going to count for much, and could even hurt you.
In the end, this means the value of the links from sites you own may not be as strong as links from outside your network. And aggressive interlinking between your sites - especially with aggressive anchor text, could get you in trouble.
Hope this helps! Best of luck with your SEO.
-
What Bryan said. Who-Is is not a factor in the search algorithm.
-
No. Googles SERP data does not reflect the data on Whois, Google's ranking data has many factors. Whois is not one of them.
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
-
Google News error in Google Search Console
My google search console states some errors as below: 1. Article fragmented Some of the urls in this error are the category urls. How to make google bot understand it is a category not an article? 2. Article too short In fact the article is quite long. I do not know why this is happen... 3. No sentence found In fact, there are a lot of sentences Please help!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | binhlai0 -
How do you check the google cache for hashbang pages?
So we use http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:x.com/#!/hashbangpage to check what googlebot has cached but when we try to use this method for hashbang pages, we get the x.com's cache... not x.com/#!/hashbangpage That actually makes sense because the hashbang is part of the homepage in that case so I get why the cache returns back the homepage. My question is - how can you actually look up the cache for hashbang page?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | navidash0 -
Google Manual Penalty - Unnatural Links
Hi, We are in the process of trying to remove a partial manual penalty for unnatural links. I would like to do a complete link audit of our site, where can I get complete data on sites linking to my website? Webmaster tools only appears to show the top 1000 domains. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | halloranc0 -
Google Places Drop
Hi everyone! I have a client that was ranking very nicely for a number of keywords. In the 5 pack for most of the keywords we were targeting. His account went under review for some unknown reason about 2 months ago. It disappeared from the listing... Then a few weeks ago it became approved again. He is now no longer ranking for any of those keywords. He is ranking for some obscure ones but the money words are gone. Do you think this was due to the review? Some sort of GP update over the last 60 days? All of my other clients are still ranking strong in Google Places. Any ideas?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeattleJoe0 -
How to promote some links on google
Hi our site is http://www.mycarhelpline.com If people search on our site in Google by typing - Mycarhelpline they see links - why mycarhelpline, contact us and about us how can we put some other key pages by replacing above pages
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Modi0 -
How Will This Google Change Effect Us?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304459804577281842851136290.html
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | alhallinan0 -
Links on Google Notebook
I have used OSE to look at links of a competitors site and notice they have dozens for links from Google Notebook pages eg http://www.google.pl/notebook/public/05275990022886032509/BDQExDQoQs8r3ls4j This page has a PA of 48 Is this a legitimate linking strategy?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seanmccauley0 -
Nofollow links in Google Webmaster
I've noticed nofollow links showing up in my Google Webmaster tools "links to your site" list. If they are nofollow why are they showing up here? Do nofollow links still count as a backlink and transfer PR and authority?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | NoCoGuru1