Understanding Domain Expiry
For an online enterprise, a company’s website is a significant asset. Your website is how your audience gets to know you, your products, services, and overall mission. Central to your site is your domain name. It’s the address where internet users can access your website, similar to how a physical address guides people to your location.
When a domain name is registered, an expiration date is assigned to it. This expiration date is usually typically one year from the date of registration, although longer registration periods are available. Once that period lapses and the domain is not renewed, the domain name gets into the public domain and any individual or business can register it.
The question then becomes – What impact does domain expiry have on SEO, especially for platforms such as LinkedIn?
The Impact of Domain Expiry on SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is fundamental in enhancing visibility and ranking of your website on search engines. It’s the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
When your domain name expires, it can have a substantial impact on your SEO efforts. This is because search engines value old domain names. The longevity of a domain name is a testament to its stability, consistency, and credibility. This reliability factor can significantly influence your site’s ranking on search engines. When your domain name expires, you lose that credibility and all the hard work you had put into SEO.
Link juice, a colloquial term in the SEO world referring to the power passed to a site via links from external or internal sources, is another critical factor affected by domain expiry. Your website has earned link equity over time. When your domain expires, these links become obsolete and stop directing traffic to your site, further impacting your SEO.
Moreover, expired domains are often purchased and used for spamming purposes, which can lead to search engines blacklisting those sites. If someone were to purchase your expired domain and use it for spamming, your company’s name could be associated with the blacklisted site, further causing damage to your online reputation.
Domain Expiry and its LinkedIn Relevance
In regards to LinkedIn, it’s important to remember that your profile and company page do not operate on a domain you own. Instead, they are hosted on LinkedIn’s own domain, which won’t expire.
However, LinkedIn is indispensable for many businesses and professionals for networking and content promotion. If your website’s domain expires, it has implications for these LinkedIn functions.
The site links shared on posts or your LinkedIn company profile would no longer direct traffic to your website, rather, they’d lead to dead links, an error page, or worse, a different website if your domain gets registered by someone else. The lost referral traffic and business credibility can greatly weaken your LinkedIn marketing efforts.
It is also necessary to continuously update the website link on your LinkedIn profile if you change your business domain. If you don’t, this may lead to a poor user experience for anyone clicking through LinkedIn to your website. Moreover, it reflects a lacklustre image of your brand.
Hence, it is undeniable that domain expiry has a profound impact on your website’s SEO and connected social platforms, like LinkedIn. To maintain your brand credibility, SEO efforts, and site health, you should ensure to keep your domain name registered and up to date. Automatic domain renewal is an advisable place to start to avoid unintentional expiry.