Is it better to renew your domain name for a long period of time? If so, how long is long enough? Well let's face it, most of us wish to stay ahead of the game. Therefore one of the first steps that you'd want to do is to check for how long your competitors have registered their personal or business names.



If you notice that your competitors have registered their domains for one or two years, then you can go that one step ahead and register your domain name for 5 or 10 years. Your search engine ranking may be assisted if you stall the expiration date of your domain name. However, it is important to bear in mind that this may only be a small victory when it comes to search engine rankings.

Registering a domain for a minimum of 10 years is good business sense. Many of us have too many things on our minds or more important things that thinking about our domain names. For this reason, the process of renewing your names every year is a task that you could really do without. It is greatly advised to obtain a domain name that you wish to keep for a sufficient amount of time and renew them on a 5 to 10 year plan.

There is a possibility that if your name expires, someone will immediately register your domain at the first opportunity. It is important to remember that there are domain names 'watch lists' that people can view in order to grab an available domain as soon as it becomes available. Therefore, if you do not renew your name, for whatever reason, someone that is watching that list may attempt to capitalize on the online business that you have built up over the years. These people will be aware of the fact that there is potential website traffic simply by renewing your old domain. For this reason it is better to renew your domain name for several years so that it will not be opened up to expired domain name buyers.

To stay ahead of the game, you may wish to consider registering or renewing your choosen name for 100 years. At this present time, the only available option for this is with Network Solutions at www.netsol.com at the cost of $999.00. You can also visit GoDaddy at www.godaddy.com in order to renew or register a domain name for 10 years at a discount price of $6.95 per year. When you do not register your name in time, you can lose critical positioning in the search engines. This may result in you having to begin the SEO process all over again!