While I was renewing a domain of mine with a well-known domain registrar, the support person who was on call with me said that I'd improve the SEO ranking of my domain if I increased the registration length from 1 year to 5 years instead.

The explanation that he gave me was something along the lines that a search engine like Google doesn't like to send users to domains and businesses that may no longer exist, and that by registering my domain for 5 years instead of just 1, Google would have higher confidence that I'm serious about keeping my business around for the long-term.

Needless to say, I was quite skeptical.

Does the registration/renewal length of a domain name affect its SEO and search result ranking for search engines such as Google?