Quote:
Originally Posted by Agent 488
that whois information / whois privacy is used to judge site quality / identify link farms is mentioned in google patents and has been mentioned by matt cutts. it is a factor in the google algo.
they are also a registrar and have all the information as well.
|
Well being a registrar does not give them access to privacy protected whois data.
Secondly, there are plenty of legitimate reasons why people use whois privacy. I cannot see a logical reason why google would penalise a site for having whois privacy. If they do, im sure it is a very, very small part of their algo strategy and the benefits as I see it, still outweigh the disadvantages from a data sharing stand point. Take the two scenarios:
(1) 10 domains all ranking on the first page sharing the same whois data.
(2) 10 domains all ranking on the first page, with privacy protected whois.
What looks more like a spammer to them?
The answer is (1) because google can identify those domains as belonging to the same owner. In (2), on balance, it is certain that they cannot unless the owner gives that information away.
Ive googled it and I cannot find any outstanding evidence that they levy a significant penalty against a domain with privacy protected whois data. If im wrong, show me the link......