The Chatterbox

Why Google became a Domain Name Registrar

News came recently that Google is now an ICANN accredited Registrar for domain names in the .com, .net, .org, .biz, .name, and .pro sectors.

The question is Why would they want to do this? Especially given the information provided by this News.com article that quotes some anonymous Google respresentative as saying that they won't actually be selling domain names.

There are a lot of very nebulous statements in the above article about how Google intends to use their Registrar status to improve the search experience for their users --and granted the $10,000 application fee is peanuts to them-- but still the question begs to be answered.

Here's my take on it, though this is complete speculation on my part based upon things I would be looking at if I were in Google's shoes and put as much emphasis on links as they do.

I think they're doing it to help them identify link farms for the most part. And to help them protect against domain selling for PR only.

Let's looks at it a couple of ways.

First, there has been something of a burgeoning industry for some time now in the buying and selling of expired domains. Mostly domains that already had a good number of links pointing to them and a deceent PageRank number. This idea behind those employing this somewhat shady tactic being that they would get an immediate boost by purchasing expired domains that had a good PR rating because the old domains had built in link popularity.

This type of domain name manipulation becomes an even larger issue with Google's relatively new aging delay, a pretty sound theory put forward by Scottie Claiborne. Basically, snapping up an older domain could easily overcome this penalty-that-isn't-a-penalty if Google couldn't tell that the ownership of the domain had actually changed.

Google of course doesn't like either of the above scenerios much. They want each site to stand on its own merits and make sure everybody starts off from the same point, ie from the ground floor with no built-in advantages.

Frankly that makes sense for them to guard against, if for no other reason than Google does give an awful lot of weight to backlinks. (Too much weight IMHO, but I'm not Larry or Sergey either and it's their call.)

The second issue is a more recent one.

Over the last year or so a lot of services have sprung up which allow domain owners to basically remain Anonymous for all intents and purposes. Please note that these services were not begun in some attempt to fool the search engines. They were developed because WhoIs data that shows domain name ownership is, by law, supposed to be Public Information, available to anybody. As it should be IMO.

The problem with requiring WhoIs domain registration/ownership to be public information --including a valid email address for obvious reasons-- the email spammers have been out there for a long, long time harvesting the WhoIs information so that they have plenty of email addresses to spam.

Hence the privitization of domain ownership as shown in WhoIs records.

It was started as a method to keep your email address from being added to all of the spam lists. An email address was still provided in the WhoIs record, but it is a fake one provided by the service, which forwarded to you and could be changed from time to time. The kicker was that no other personal information is provided to the public if such a service is employed.

A side effect to this though is that Google could no longer tell from the public WhoIs records if the same person owned 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 different domains and had created their own little link farm in an attempt to defeat Google's link-centric algorithm via nefarious means.

I don't know this for a fact since I'm not one myself, however becoming a Registrar is likely going to give Google a means to see the actual ownership information. Rather than the anonymous crap that we mere mortals get to see from the privitization services.

In other words, instead of seeing 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 fake email addresses and no other information they could use to detect these hidden link farms, Google will be able to see (at least) that Registrar X's client number 2345 has registered all of the domains. It wouldn't surprise me if they'll be able to see all of the personal information that we can see in normal WhoIs records now, as well as other stuff like what IP number was used to purchase a domain. All of which could be used give Google plenty of clues in being able to sort the wheat from the chaff and immediately raise a red flag if a significant number of the domains are cross linking to each other.

Again, it's just pure speculation on my part. But it's the only scenerio that makes sense to me.

So there you have it. My opinion is that Google became a Registrar so that they have a means by which to protect their link-centric algorithm from those trying to trick their way to the top.

Personally, I think it's a good move on their part. And one that will have no effect at all on those who do things the Right Way, including registering their domains in a lawful manner.