Do you use WHOIS privacy protection?

WHOIS privacy protection replaces your personal information on your domain with WHOIS contact information. This is useful if you like hiding your personal information but this usually costs a yearly fee. I personal use WHOIS privacy protection on all my domains because I don't like reveal my information available to the public. Of course you can lose some contact if someone want to see whois on your domain and contact you but you are using WHOIS protection.

Do you use WHOIS privacy protection for your domains? Do you think it is worth paying for it yearly?

Domain protection is worth having, it's protects against identity theft scams and spammers.
Not all hosts charge a yearly fee for domain protection, you can get it free if you shop around.

Its very useful in keeping your privacy to prevent social engineering hacking. Also its just nice to know all of you information is not shared with the world.

Whois protection is being offered for free more and more.

djsmiley2k said:

WHOIS privacy protection replaces your personal information on your domain with WHOIS contact information. This is useful if you like hiding your personal information but this usually costs a yearly fee. I personal use WHOIS privacy protection on all my domains because I don't like reveal my information available to the public. Of course you can lose some contact if someone want to see whois on your domain and contact you but you are using WHOIS protection.

Do you use WHOIS privacy protection for your domains? Do you think it is worth paying for it yearly?

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On most of my websites and blogs I use privacy protection. This is mainly to stop spam, whether it's by way of email, phone calls, texts, etc.

I know that this isn't the ideal thing for SEO purposes but it's worth it for me.

LJSHost said:

Domain privacy has zero effect on SEO
This has been confirmed by Google here

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Actually it can have an affect on SEO and the trust Google has in a site. The article that you posted was more than 2 years ago (not that is was accurate then) and in the SEO world that is a lifetime. Heck a year can be a lifetime.

Private registration can be used as a factor in certain situations and especially when used in conjunction with other factors as has been stated by Matt Cutts of Google and has been stated from other Google sources as well. Look for recent (a year or less) information on this and you will see that it can be used for ranking in some cases.

They look at private registration in some cases as people trying to hide something. Google likes transparency and openness and they can see private reg. as hiding something. They base SEO rankings in-part based on their trust.

Some reference:
Matt Cutt's suggested that private Whois data can be combined with other factors as a negative signal.
https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/2006-pubcon-in-vegas-thursday-site-reviews/

http://backlinko.com/google-trustrank

Public vs. Private WhoIs: Private WhoIs information may be a sign of something to hide”. Matt Cutts is quoted as stating at Pubcon 2006:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/googles-205-ranking-factors-infographic-chauhan-50k-connections

https://www.hermish.com/5-weird-negative-ranking-factors-and-what-you-can-do-about-it/

LJSHost said:

These days Google being the giant entity it is has access to whatever information they want and can easily find out the data behind the domain privacy as stated in this video.

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Google doesn't have free access to private registration data always.

Here is what is found on ICANN about private registration and releasing that information to other registrars who are not the registrar of a domain:
"These services are independent of ICANN but regulated by them through policy. ICANN does require that registrars send private registration data to the shared registry, meaning that ICANN has access to that data, but they only reveal it to other registrars when necessary for verification, such as in the case of domain transfer. Note that many registrars will also reveal private registration data on a case-by-case basis upon receipt of a cease-and-desist letter, DMCA takedown notice, or other exposure to legal action. ICANN leaves these decisions to the registrar."

There is tons of SEO information out there and one person says one thing and another says the opposite. It's hard to know what is or is not accurate because the SE's aren't going to give out all that information. There's even a quote somewhere out there from a Google employee (not sure which) that says that the number of people that know all of Google's ranking factors is less than the number of fingers on one hand. They have certain people know one thing and others know other things.

SEO is based a lot on speculation. Since Google is on record as saying that private reg. can be used to decide trust which affects SEO rankings then having non-private reg. will have one less thing that can possibly be used against a site negatively.

Do I believe that Google can't see private whois data like ICANN says? To be honest, I think that they can get whatever data they want. However, their algorithms won't have open access to that data I know. ICANN won't leave the door wide open. BUT when there is someone looking at a site for a possible manual action against a site, I am pretty sure they can find the information they need.

There are many influential and know people in rankings including Brian Dean from Backlinko and Neil Patel just to name a couple do not use private reg as they are believers of what Matt Cutts and other Google employees have said can be used as a factor.

I like to use private reg. most of the time for spam protection and just because I don't think everyone needs to know that information most of the time. If I strongly believed private reg. was a big SEO factor then I wouldn't use it unless I absolutely had to.

Each person has to judge for the selves if they want to risk the importance (if any) private reg. affects SEO and what value they hold for it. It's all just s judgement call.

If you are doing any real business online, I will advice you not to use Privacy Protect.
Most people will say it helps stop spam from bots, but any real shopper trying to make sure where they are buying from is genuine will look at such aspects as to establish confidentiality.

We are talking about the internet and many people fake their identity.

Since it is not hard to verify if an business is legal or not we don't see problem with Privacy Protection.

For Web Hosting provider who is for 3 - 5 or more years in the industry I don't believe that anyone will care who has register their domain..

If you are eshop then you better don't use privacy protection

I use it on my domain names but after doing some reading about how private whois information can be sold. My home address, phone number and email address is different from the registrar information even though I use private whois.

Yes, I do use it for my website. Reason behind is, it blocks the spam mail, unwanted offers from other account.

whois protection is not good for seo optimization, and for sale, but it is good for spammers ...

Do you use WHOIS privacy protection for your domains?

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I use whois privacy on the domains that I am using for websites that I have or for domains that I plan on developing at some point. This is mainly because I want to keep things private and cut down on spam as well.

Do you think it is worth paying for it yearly?

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If it help fulfill a need to keep your information private, then yes I think it's worth it.

Most of the registrars that I use I can either get free whois privacy, get it for about a dollar or so or can get it heavily discounted so it's worth it for me.

For personal domains I always use WHOIS protection, however for business domain I would not suggest using WHOIS protection because it will bring some insecurity for a clients and to protect from SPAM emails we're using SpamExperts SPAM filter.

There are many ups and downs down to this every one has great feedback

Customers have been telling us they have been getting calls trying to sell them design or seo services minutes after they sign up for new domain name
so just a heads up robo calling is on the rise Recommend WHOIS privacy protection unless you want your phone number added to every database world wide
If you have phone number with robo calling block then you can go with out WHOIS privacy protection but keep in mind you will still get some calls
recommend you do not give our your personal number have another line many other phone provides that give free phone service

DTS-NET said:

Customers have been telling us they have been getting calls trying to sell them design or seo services minutes after they sign up for new domain name
so just a heads up robo calling is on the rise

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I was getting these kind of calls a lot last year. At one point I was getting multiple calls every day so I had to change my number.

DTS-NET said:

recommend you do not give our your personal number have another line many other phone provides that give free phone service

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I started putting my Google Voice number on my whois contact information after having to change my personal number. I wish I would have thought about this before I started getting the mass spam calling.

Having WHOIS protection really boost your privacy; but also makes it hard to validate ownership and authenticity.
If not using WHOIS, marketers might flood your cell phone, email with lots of offers!

Tip : If you want to avoid marketing spam, avoid promotional cheap domains.[Ex. .com @ $0.99 per year]

What does the price of a domain have to do with spam?

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I don't think, It is good Idea to explain that specific point* :think: Just consider it whenever possible!

I don't think it looks good for a business to use it as it may look like they have something to hide which could lose them sales. That said, it will stop a lot of spam via email and cold calling.

Whois privacy is used to conceal the details of domain owners for privacy purpose. Certain extensions are not available for subscribing for whois privacy. In such case give contact information that is secondary to you and are vague. The amount charged for whois privacy is nominal when damages due to spam and other intrusions can be averted.

Yes, I use the Whois protection tools. It helps to hide the information about domain name and keep your domain safe from hackers. You can also see here person login details.

I use Whois Privacy to know when someone is spamming me by scraping the Whois Data and using that information to contact me, and also to avoid the physical mail spam that sometimes gets sent out to domain owners as well.