For a web agency, can the same WHOIS registrant name information between different domain names hurt SEO?

[Louis-Philippe_Dea]

Hi,

I own a web agency and we often register domain names for our clients. When we register those, I just realized that we always use the same registrant name and other whois (ex : Louis-Philippe Dea), for all domain names.

Can this hurt the SEO of our clients?

Hope that you'll understand when I'm trying to say in spite of my bad english :S

Thanks

[JarnoNijzing]

Dear Louis,

I totally get what you are getting at and I don't know if it has been proven positive but I do know this:

If google knows what websites you own, and if those websites link to each other, then Google (i think) will make the assumption that the link is not acquired naturally.

Same thing with analytics accounts. I use 1 analytics account to manage all client websites and another for my own websites. Google knows then what websites you own and I wouldn't be surprised if the devaluate websites that link to each other and are owned by the same person(s).

I never came across any proof of this what so ever but logical thinking came to this conclusion. Hope you understand what I am getting at with my answer.

I also register domain names for clients but I always put their information into the Whois for Ownership and administrative contact and my own information for technical contact (since it is also my server). I know for a fact that Google uses IP addresses to determine uniqueness of a site so if they do understand that then i can imagine that they understand the whois information and Google analytics client information.

Hope this helps

Regards
Jarno

[Louis-Philippe_Dea]

Awesome response Jarno!

Of course it helps a lot. Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

[WhoWuddaThunk]

Having the same registration, in of itself, will not hurt SEO.  Where you may run into problems is if you are doing blackhat SEO, or doing things against Google's terms of service.  If that happens you could run the risk of your "neighborhood" getting similar punishment/treatment.  If you are doing everything correctly, or mostly correctly, then there should be no problems.