Registering domain names will result in identifying information being exposed to the general public. The Whois information can be a gold-mine for spammers.

Domain owners can eliminate this problem by opting get their domains privately registered, where their details are kept absolutely private. This however is concern for some that the private registration of domains will have a negative impact on their search engine rankings.

Google has now affirmed that private domain registration won’t hurt search engine rankings.

The Search Engine Roundtable post quotes,

“According to JohnMu, it typically doesn’t impact rankings, so you need not worry if you are already implementing it. However, if you’re a business, why would you hide your identifying information? What does that say about your company? What happens if your web site gets hacked and there’s no obvious or working contact form on your site? It’ll be hard to get reached by Google or someone else who stumbles upon your site in that case. Thus, while it’s a hassle at times to have to worry about your identifying information, losing your rankings altogether due to intrusions can be a lot more costly to your business”.