{"id":19905,"date":"2017-09-08T17:26:44","date_gmt":"2017-09-08T15:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hetzner.co.za\/help-centre\/?p=19905"},"modified":"2026-04-30T16:06:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:06:57","slug":"do-i-need-domain-search-registration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/domains\/do-i-need-domain-search-registration\/","title":{"rendered":"Do I need domain search registration?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beware of Search Engine Registration scams<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You may receive emails claiming that the visibility of your domain names on search engines is at risk and that you should pay to secure your website ranking through a <strong>domain search engine registration<\/strong> service.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These alarming &#8220;notices&#8221; are essentially scams that take advantage of unsuspecting people using familiar-sounding terminology.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The most luring aspect of these email alerts is that they look sincere and express urgency. Moreover, the emails are worded to sound official with a call to immediate action. They are often personalised with your name and contact details and appear formal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In reality, these scammers hunt registrant details from public <a href=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/domains\/what-is-a-whois-search\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Whois<\/a>\u00a0records. For this reason, you will often receive an influx of such emails after registering or updating the records of a domain.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Note: Since the implementation of GDPR on 25 May 2018, Whois records are no longer publicly visible, which should drastically reduce this type of spam.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Domain registration vs Search registration<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/domains\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Domain registration<\/strong><\/a> is a legitimate service and is the process of registering a domain into your &#8220;ownership&#8221; through a registrar, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.registry.net.za\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ZARC<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c<strong>Domain name search engine registration<\/strong>&#8220;, however, is not required. \u00a0The mails inform you that you need to register your domain with Search Engines in order for them to &#8220;find&#8221; and rank your website. This is not true. While it is possible to\u00a0submit your new website to Google or Bing to kick-start it for visibility, there is no fee.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Are you on Google?<\/h3>\n<div class=\"cc\">\n<p>Inclusion in Google&#8217;s search results is <strong>free and easy<\/strong>; you don&#8217;t even need to submit your site to Google. Google is a fully automated search engine that uses software known as &#8220;web crawlers&#8221; that explore the web on a regular basis to find sites to add to their index. In fact, the vast majority of sites listed in their results aren&#8217;t manually submitted for inclusion, but found and added automatically when their bots crawl the web.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Below is a sample of such a scam email:<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-28056\" src=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/domainnotice.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1462\" height=\"946\" srcset=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/domainnotice.png 1462w, https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/domainnotice-300x194.png 300w, https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/domainnotice-1024x663.png 1024w, https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/domainnotice-768x497.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1462px) 100vw, 1462px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If you are unsure of the validity of a domain-related email, forward it to our <a href=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/contact-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Customer Support team<\/a> for clarification.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false,"plain":"<h2><span >Beware of Search Engine Registration scams<\/span><\/h2>\r\n<span >You may receive emails claiming that the visibility of your domain names on search engines is at risk and that you should pay to secure your website ranking through a <strong>domain search engine registration<\/strong> service.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span >These alarming \"notices\" are essentially scams that take advantage of unsuspecting people using familiar-sounding terminology.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span >The most luring aspect of these email alerts is that they look sincere and express urgency. Moreover, the emails are worded to sound official with a call to immediate action. They are often personalised with your name and contact details and appear formal.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span >In reality, these scammers hunt registrant details from public <a href=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/domains\/what-is-a-whois-search\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Whois<\/a>\u00a0records. For this reason, you will often receive an influx of such emails after registering or updating the records of a domain.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nNote: Since the implementation of GDPR on 25 May 2018, Whois records are no longer publicly visible, which should drastically reduce this type of spam.\r\n<h3><span >Domain registration vs Search registration<\/span><\/h3>\r\n<span ><a href=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/domains\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Domain registration<\/strong><\/a> is a legitimate service and is the process of registering a domain into your \"ownership\" through a registrar, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.registry.net.za\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ZARC<\/a>.<\/span>\r\n\r\n<span >\u201c<strong>Domain name search engine registration<\/strong>\", however, is not required. \u00a0The mails inform you that you need to register your domain with Search Engines in order for them to \"find\" and rank your website. This is not true. While it is possible to\u00a0submit your new website to Google or Bing to kick-start it for visibility, there is no fee.<\/span>\r\n<h3>Are you on Google?<\/h3>\r\n<div class=\"cc\">\r\n\r\nInclusion in Google's search results is <strong>free and easy<\/strong>; you don't even need to submit your site to Google. Google is a fully automated search engine that uses software known as \"web crawlers\" that explore the web on a regular basis to find sites to add to their index. In fact, the vast majority of sites listed in their results aren't manually submitted for inclusion, but found and added automatically when their bots crawl the web.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<span >Below is a sample of such a scam email:<img class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-28056\" src=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/domainnotice.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1462\" height=\"946\" \/><\/span>\r\n\r\n<span >If you are unsure of the validity of a domain-related email, forward it to our <a href=\"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/contact-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Customer Support team<\/a> for clarification.<\/span>"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beware of Search registration scams claiming that the visibility of your domain on search engines is at risk and that domain search registration is required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lsx_disable_title":"0","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[155],"tags":[18639,18621,17222],"topics":[10381],"class_list":["post-19905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-domains","tag-do-i-need-domain-search-registration","tag-zarc","tag-zacr","topics-domain-faq"],"acf":[],"additional_meta":{"category_title":[{"term_id":155,"name":"Domains","slug":"domains","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":155,"taxonomy":"category","description":"Registering and Transferring Domains ","parent":0,"count":73,"filter":"raw","term_order":"61","cat_ID":155,"category_count":73,"category_description":"Registering and Transferring Domains ","cat_name":"Domains","category_nicename":"domains","category_parent":0}],"tag_title":[{"term_id":18639,"name":"Do I need domain search registration?","slug":"do-i-need-domain-search-registration","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":18639,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw","term_order":"1912"},{"term_id":18621,"name":"zarc","slug":"zarc","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":18621,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":6,"filter":"raw","term_order":"1917"},{"term_id":17222,"name":"zacr","slug":"zacr","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":17222,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":6,"filter":"raw","term_order":"2375"}]},"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"marketing","author_link":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/author\/marketing\/","author_avatar":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a6ea315e112423b2b955cb020fbce2b0835956c6ad85ff0f13f1db298977eaaa?s=96&d=mm&r=g"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19905"},{"taxonomy":"topics","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xneelo.co.za\/help-centre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topics?post=19905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}