Age of a domain

[uncleseanie]

Have seen this mentioned in other threads. Is the age of a domain important to search engines. If all things are equal will an older site rank better than a new one. If so how important is it in the grand scheme of things ? very, somewhat, not very.

 

[Gavin]

A site will perform well in Google depending on its age. One of the biggest factors to rank well in Google is trust and age comes with trust.

I know a few old sites (5 years +) that sit at #1 on Google for really great keywords and to be honest they shouldnt rank in the top 50 due to dupe content, dead links, networking linking and aggressive link building.

Anytime there is a Google update or index bounce these sites seem to be protected from rank changes like most sites experience. This is why I believe you can have the most crap site out there but if its of age then it can rank higher.

 

[jmcc]

Seems to be born out. I've a site on one domain that dates from 1995 and is always number one for a particular query. Most of the other sites here date from the late nineties. I've one that I haven't used for some years and I might add content to it just to test out the idea.

Regards...jmcc

 

[Arch-Stanton]

I have read a thead on a webmaster forum, whereby, if you register a new name, you should buy it for five years, the SE's see the expiry date and assume that the domain name is in for the long haul and treat it better.

However, I don't know if anybody has tested this theory or has any proven results to see if it works.

.

 

[Gavin]

I've one that I haven't used for some years and I might add content to it just to test out the idea.

It is something that has debated across the web and also how long a domain is registered for such as 1 year vs 5 year.

I would be interested to see how your test would work out as the sites I have been talking about had content since day one. Actually the content hadnt been changed that much since it was copied from another site.

 

[mneylon]

It is something that has debated across the web and also how long a domain is registered for such as 1 year vs 5 year.

though Google et al seem incapable of tracking this with ccTLDs ...

 

[Redfly]

though Google et al seem incapable of tracking this with ccTLDs ...

If they even track it at all.

Seriously though, I think it's a well known FACT that search engines give weight/trustrank to older domains and as you can probably tell, I am a firm believer that the longer the domain is registered for (into the future) there will also be some additional weight.

Although future dating of a domain is marginal at best, from the "tests in my head" I find it to be true.

 

[yfs1]

All you have to do is look at the money and old domain commands vs. a new one.

I have seen two word (no hyphens of course) domains go 4-5 figures easy when they are 10+ while a newly registered similar domain barely get 3 figures.