Aged Domain Test...and the results...

[atldl777]

Hey folks-

Having been practicing SEO for over 2 years now. So I decided it was time to start testing and investing in aged domains to assist, well, with several things. So, I wanted to test if a specific type of "PR 4" aged domain held its "PR" after a complete switch of registry's and DNS settings and... since the domain had no back links, could a domain really have that high of a PR just by age alone-especially at only 3 years.....?

Here's how it went...

For this test, I decided to purchase two aged domains. Here are the specs.

Domain 1-PR 4
-3 years old
-No registry drops, registry was not private
-had a wordpress 2011 theme with installed-no content on the site
-had no backlinks to it...
-PR was real, according to SB and info:site verification

Domain 2-PR 3
-6 years old
-No registry drops, registry was not private
-PR was real, according to SB and info:site verification
-had several indexed pages
-had a good amount of content
-22 back links, 3 of which were PR 5's and one PR 3, rest were do-follow. -most of BLs are footer links and exact match anchor text to domain name

So, my hypothesis was that the PR 4 domain would loose it's "PR" after being transferred over and set up, then indexed again. I figured this would only take a month or so at the most.

The site really had no value to it, it was just a domain name with a bit of age to it. Considering this, i wanted to see how long it will hold the PR 4...

Here's the process I followed:

1. Once domain hit my account, I purchased privacy for each domain. For the PR 4 domain, I was unable to add the privacy before the registrar updated. Not sure whether or not this had any influence.
2. I installed WP on both domains
3. Added one fresh, 500+ word article to both domains with a few OBLs
4. Content on both domains is remotely relevant to the domain name...

All of this occurred between 1/20/2012 and 1/22/2012, so two days.

This morning (12/23/2012) both domains still had their PR.

This evening, the domain that had a PR 4 and no back links dropped to 0.

The PR 3 site is still holding its "value." So, what I draw from this is that it's not good to buy aged domains with 0 back links, regardless if it passes the proverbial qualification process and PR tests.

Perhaps what it boils down to is those back links....?

What are your thoughts?

[syedakram1989]

If a page rank domain doesn't have the backlinks then the page rank can be dropped in the next page rank update and if you are having a decent amount of backlinks then the page rank will remain.

[Nicky Papers]

Originally Posted by atldl777

The PR 3 site is still holding its "value." So, what I draw from this is that it's not good to buy aged domains with 0 back links, regardless if it passes the proverbial qualification process and PR tests.

Perhaps what it boils down to is those back links....?

What are your thoughts?

PR is one of the most OVERRATED aspects of SEO. In your example for first domain, what difference does PR make if there is no content on the domain and there is no link profile?

Questions:

Domain 1: Is this an exact match domain? What's the value in terms of ranking the domain? Is it niche specific?

Domain 2: Was the second domain an exact match that contains traffic? Any associated traffic being that it's an established site? How many pages are indexed? (providing the exact number of pages would be helpful!) The site has only obtained 22 links in over 6 years which is minuscule and questionable as you noted that most of which were footer links? What tool are you using to evaluate back links? Are these links from 22 unique domains or literally a total of 22 links?

Your hypothesis held true because you used extreme examples of inflated PR. However, your deductive logic should be expanded to include:

1) Aged domains (exact match) should still be used regardless of PR or the number of backlinks in appropriate instances. (think microsites!)

2) Your perception of "value" is entirely different from what other may deem valuable. (your PR 3 site in particular)

3) Boils down to backlinks? There is a total of 22 which in the grand scheme is nothing. Seriously?

Sorry, but I had to step in and throw my two pennies in the pot before people read that you've been "practicing SEO" for over two years and take your testing and "investing" in aged domains at face value.

I strongly encourage the use of aged domains. Start with checking out the aged domain market on GoDaddy Auctions. Stay away from Flippa, stay away from private deals, start with GoDaddy Auctions first to get a feel for how the market works and how you can really put aged domains to work within your campaigns.

[Matt Baker]

Do you think an old domain is easy to get a high ranking? Matt Cutts says that domain age won't affect in SEO.. but there are many SEO experts talking about aged domain is easy to rank. I'm confused.

[Kris79]

Originally Posted by Matt Baker

Do you think an old domain is easy to get a high ranking? Matt Cutts says that domain age won't affect in SEO.. but there are many SEO experts talking about aged domain is easy to rank. I'm confused.

It's all true, but:
Domain age does not affect rankings directly. But it is important in few scenarios:
for example if you have old domain (few years) and new (few weeks) and you suddenly drop many links in short time, young domain will be pushed down in the rankings but older domain with history will not suffer that much. In this scenario new domain will be considere as spam more easily.


In most with aged domains come other factors like:
- multiple pages with high PR
- high homepega PR
- backlink profile
- traffic
and this is what is really important.

Age has also one factor to Google: it means that Google has some preatty good history of this domain: about owners, about backlink profile, about OBL from webpages of this site. All this information can be used to detect unnatural behavior and affect rankings this way.

[Kris79]

Originally Posted by atldl777

All of this occurred between 1/20/2012 and 1/22/2012, so two days.

This morning (12/23/2012) both domains still had their PR.

This evening, the domain that had a PR 4 and no back links dropped to 0.

The PR 3 site is still holding its "value." So, what I draw from this is that it's not good to buy aged domains with 0 back links, regardless if it passes the proverbial qualification process and PR tests.

I would like to give you my point of view here.

There are two types of PageRank.

So called "toolbar PageRank" with range from 1 to 10 - all in SEO world are talking about his, and all the tools in the world are using it, this is your PR4 or PR3 of your domains' hompeges.
It is updated randomly, sometimes once per month sometimes it might take longer.

Second one: lets call it "The Real PageRank" from 0 to 1 - internat, and not revealed to the world, this is PR used by Google in their ranking algorithms. This one is updated even many times per day.

Based on above information I must say that when you do some changes to your domain/pages Google will notice this very quickly and update their real PR accordingly but you will notice the change in PR later in time. But you can detect it by monitoring changes in your rankings.

The best solution to check value of domain would be to compere few parameters of it's webpages:
you can compare PR with mozRank, and Domain Authority.
If difference between PR and mozRank is big this is a sign of something bad going on.
(mozRank is updated on regular basis, every month)


Kris

[MikeFriedman]

Sites do not just lose pagerank because of ownership changes.

Now a site that has no backlinks is going to lose its toolbar PR at the next update, but it has already lost its real PR most likely.

One thing, when you installed Wordpress, did you set it to the correct www or non-www domain? Wordpress defaults to the non-www. However, it might have been the www version of the domain that carried the PR. The non-www version may have been a PR 0 all along, which is what you are seeing now.

There are many times you can find a domain where only one of the www versions has any PR.

[atldl777]

Thanks for the input folks.

[FrankTheTank]

Any updates on this? Every post or page I read about aged domains is filled with different guesses or estimates on how G will treat them. I am still trying to decide between aged or keyword matched domains and I can't find a good answer.

[StevenJones]

PR is over rated, move on! I did got some value out of your research though and I want to thank you for this.

[leorocking25]

Age domain test is done through the age domain check tool. It is use to find the age of a domain. To rank a website the age of a website is one of the major factors. Age can also increase the amount of money that can be made from advertising on the site, or sale of the website.