Long term domain = better SEO?

I was on the horn with Godaddy, and the guy told me that Google and other search engines have, built into their algorithm, a domain expiration check. He said that often times they will give a little extra juice to sites sitting on a domain that are reserved for a long time, i.e. expiring in 2017 beats expiration in 2008.

Is this true? Does anyone know how big a factor this is?

Thanks
PB

i don't think thats true...

It's not like Godaddy has nothing to gain -- right?

Getting $120 today /domain is better than getting $10/domain and the future prospect of the domain moving to another registra.

...MAKES PREFECT SENSE! ... why someone at Godaddy would propagate this otherwise worthless claim.

Buy a 10 year lease on a domain for the right reason... it's yours for 10 years even if you forget about it each year.

Sounds a little far fetched to me

I've heard that the age of a domain plays a part in the rankings. If two sites were identical, and one has been around for 10 years and the other and been around for 10 weeks, the 10 year site will rank higher. I've not heard anything about domain expiration though...

moderator: please kill this post.

Godaddy is full of crap... period.

Age of domain registragtion is meaningless... Length of time that a domain has been indexed means something. Just because a domain was registered or is registered for years means nothing.

CONTENT that is indexed by Google is the only thing that has meaning. If that content was indexed years ago... there is a degree of trust there. A promise of years of content being important to Google... i.e. registering a domain for years... is sheer b.s.

Academic discussions serve no practical use in SEO -- not even in debate.

Surely if these "identical sites" were that close in competitiveness... that something so insignificant could affect the ranking outcome... that would be a feat beyond believe...

every page of content - IDENTICAL
every piece of written text - IDENTICAL
every title - IDENTICAL
every internal link - IDENTICAL
links to and from - IDENTICAL

...obviously both domains are own by the same person or someone is trending on copyright infringement... correct?

OK - so we have these two identical websites (that will never occur but in a dumb discussion...) the one with the 10 year registeration ranks better than the one with 1 year registration... but how much stronger is this 10 year register?

Surely it isn't a "MAIN" SEO advantage like "one more link" or "another page of content"... if another link or another page can sway results... isn't that more valuable... or is this registration period "SO POWERFUL" that the only thing you have to show it's existence is: I'VE HEARD...!

Please re-think your logic... it's just plan silly.

Google has filed a patent application that suggests that they could use domain registration length as a factor in ranking websites. So, GoDaddy can use this as a marketing point. However, any person who thinks about what factors might be used in ranking websites should conclude that length of registration would properly play a very minor role - if any.

I have long term renewal on all of my important sites. Why not? I plan to be running them ten years down the road (if the internet has not been replaced by something else) and I don't have to worry about them expiring. If it gives me a tiny advantage in the SERPs, great... but I don't think that it puts my site up a position on very many terms.

Patents are a dime a dozen, e.g. Bell Labs boasts of over 30,000 patents... Few are truly implemented. Google will apply for patents, but that does not mean that they are being currently applied within their business. Companies, Google included, go for intellectual property protection whether they truly utilize them or not.