Privacy: Is Whois info used to help establish an admin relationship between sites in addition to host/IP etc ?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Cyrus gave a great answer to this a few years back. You can read that here.

That being said, some people think Whois data is used as a ranking factor (6, 8, 9, 63) or at least used in some ranking factors.

Matt Cutts has stated as well:

"…When I checked the whois on them, they all had “whois privacy protection service” on them. That’s relatively unusual. …Having whois privacy turned on isn’t automatically bad, but once you get several of these factors all together, you’re often talking about a very different type of webmaster than the fellow who just has a single site or so."

In my opinion, it's better to be open than hide information. But that's upto you to do the research and see what best suits you.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

[Dan-Lawrence]

Thanks for the quick response Andy !

So your saying that if i use 'who is privacy on' for the new site, it shouldn't have a negative effect for that sites seo BUT Google doesn't look at 'WhoIs' info to establish an administrative relationship between two sites anyway, hence there's no need to use it since same whois details shouldn't cause any issues?

[Andy.Drinkwater]

Just be a little cautions with info dating back to 2006-2007. You can't rely on that now.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Definitely true! I was just stating it for the reference of Matt talking about Whois data back then to reference information.

[Andy.Drinkwater]

So your saying that if i use 'who is privacy on' for the new site, it shouldn't have a negative effect for that sites seo

Absolutely. I have a wide range of clients, some of who like to hide their personal details and others who don't. None have any negative effects for either. Google is more interested in how good a site is, rather than who the admin contact is.

Can I just add, if there is actual test data that I haven't seen, I would be very interested to have a look.

-Andy

[Dan-Lawrence]

Thanks Patrick !

So having whois data same for two interlinking sites could negate or heavily reduce any link benefit since they do likely use it to determine administrative relationship ? so should turn privacy on except that can also reduce trust in the domain!

So any ideas which is the least worse option if that is the case ? reducing the trust via privacy on option or admitting an admin relationship between the sites via whois option ?

All Best

Dan

[Dan-Lawrence]

great thanks Andy !

[Dan-Lawrence]

So IYO prob is best if i turn privacy on rather than 'potentially' show an administrative relationship by having same details ?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I really don't think it matters overall in the grand scheme so long as you are providing a valuable experience with your content and take proper steps to eliminate duplicate content issues.

To reference Andy below, there are sites that get tons of organic rankings / traffic with private Whois sites, and the same for public Whois. In the grand scheme of thinks, if you are linking naturally and not abusing anchor text and giving credit where it is due, you should be fine.

Hope this helps!

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I would personally, but not for any SEO benefits or trying to hide anything to Google. Just because I can and stops people snooping.

-Andy

[Dan-Lawrence]

cool cheers