I recently overheard (hence the reference to ‘grapevines’ in my title ;o) two interesting facts about how Google evaluates the legitimacy of a site. So – being a more of a marketing orientated person than an SEO one, I wanted to put the two out there and see if anyone can offer to shed a bit of light over the reliability of this info:
- Is it true that if Google sees more than 88 outbound list on a single domain, they are likely to consider it a ‘scraper’ site? Now, I presume that it would also depend on a combination of a few other factors – like the age of the domain… But can you confirm or deny the essence of the core statement?
- And secondly, is it true that if you bought a new domain, you should register it for longer than the initial 1 year, if you wanted to be taken more seriously by Google and possibly avoid spending too long in its ‘sand box’? (of course only if you intended on keeping the domain in the long term).
Thanks in advance 
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1) I would disagree with this one, I highly doubt that there is a magic number X, and if you have more than 88 outbound links one a single domain then you are going to be penalised (you did mean to say outbound links right?). What I might consider is some kind of ratio of external links to internal links, so if 80% of the links on your site are external then a flag is raised. Even if this exists however, I wouldn’t say it was a strong factor.
2) I have heard this too – but I’ve never seen evidence of it. It would make some kind of sense however, since if you ARE a serious business why are you only registering the domain for 1 year? I would always recommend registering for at least 5 but that’s mainly just to avoid the domain registration slipping and you losing the domain.
Just my $0.02
Hey Anita…I agree with Tom (which is disagreeing with the 88 number issue.) I’ve never seen any evidence that that is the case. It sounds almost ridiculous enough to be true though.
Regarding the domain registration terms, I have also heard that a 1 year only reg. won’t seem serious to Google, that you’re not looking for a long-term strategy so why should they bother? Again, I have seen no evidence of this personally but since we’re talking about Google, it’s definitely possible.
Good questions!
Like Julie and Tom 88 seems like a strange number for a limit. Other than the song “88 Lines About 44 Women”, I can think of no case where 88 comes up as breakpoint… but it is Google and maybe its something that popped our of their algorithm as a magic number (like 42 to Douglas Adams).
As for the domain strategy it would seem like a nice marketing ploy by the registrars to entice people to renew for longer periods (much as anti-virus vendors always play up the latest & greatest virus attack i.e. its good for the bottom line).
Good point Gene. I’d like to also mention that the song “88 Lines About 44 Women” mentions a “Julie” — could that possibly be a coincidence?
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