Google penalising for domain names?
Today Google announced that as from May 1st 2015 websites will get penalised for using web addresses, so what are people to use instead? Google says that people should start utilising IP addresses instead – for example Google.com will be replaced with 216.58.208.78. If you enter 216.58.208.78 into your address bar you will notice it loads Google.com.
So why are Google suggesting this? Well they say that URL’s are getting long and they distract users from the content. Now that we have a strong meta data system and powerful search like google, web addresses are legacy and unnecessary. This will save you money on domains as IP’s are free.
CNN have started that they will turn off their domain name within the next week, you will be able to find the site by searching for CNN or going to 157.166.226.25
So what happens if you haven’t removed your domain name by May 1st 2015? We have a quote from Google: “We have set a one month deadline for people to remove their web addresses from their website. Any website which still has a web address will be moved to page 28, we will make Page 28 infinitely long to fit in all the websites. If a website still has a web address by June 1st 2015 we will remove it from Google all together”.
It has been stated that using IP’s instead of web addresses will improve web loading times as there is no need for domain lookups.
It is recommended that you talk to an SEO expert about making these changes, a study has shown that SEO experts with beards are more likely to get results. An SEO expert will also be able to explain that today is April the 1st which means it’s April Fools day!
