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Is Age + Content Better Than SEO + Backlinking?

by Martin Luxton
15 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Time and time again we hear that the key to long-term traffic is backlinking.

So I'd be interested to see people's opinions about this site

The Jacobite Heritage

It hasn't been updated for 5 years and I don't see a lot of recent linkjuice yet it has a Google PR of 5. It has a lot of original content and is ancient in internet terms.

What could be interesting is that dated links it does have mostly seem to come from educational sites.

Martin
#age #backlinking #content #seo
  • Profile picture of the author NashRyker
    The PR definitely takes time to build. And if they have backlinks from .edu sites, that has helped with that.

    I've found that in niches with less heavy competition, SEO and backlinks is all it takes to get great rankings in google rather quickly.
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  • Profile picture of the author tommen
    An old domain name often gets more credibility than a new one for some reason.Back linking from relevant sites and quality content is the way to go.Personally I like to visit blogs in my niche and comment on them to get links back to my blog.
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisJamesG
    You can't really do a great deal about age except play the waiting game. And SEO is improved with backlinking and content, so I would focus on increasing frequency and volume of content and a spend a bit of time building quality backlinks. The other two will come in time.

    Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author Kevin Lam
    I'll have to be honest, I don't know which is better, "content + age" or "backlinking". My reasoning is because within 2-3 months, my site went from non-existent to a PR3. And EVERY time my PR went up (from 0 to 2 to 3), my rankings improved.

    I actually don't do as many backlinking as I should (haven't for the past 10 days), but even so I'm on page one for many difficult keywords. I'm competing against SEO/SEM firms in Dallas and Texas. So yeah, it's a very difficult market to get into. I'm on page one for all the major keywords, including "dallas marketing" and "texas marketing".


    I would think backlinking would outweigh the latter, but from my experience, it seems age and content is doing a pretty good job.

    On another note, I wrote a blog entry about the "Mary Steadman" scam. If you search for "mary steadman scam" I'm #1 for it. I actually get about 100 visitors from this thing. Not that it's a commercial keyword, but I get traffic from it without backlinking and something very unrelated to what I have on my site.
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    • Profile picture of the author Adam H
      Age + Quality Backlinks is the winner imo , although when you say about age whats your perception of Age ?

      • A domain thats been registered but just set as packed page forever
      • A domain that has been previously worked on and has an excising site/backlinks already.
      I find the second option is a killer one, Normally i plan my projects while im finishing another one , So if i pick up a new domain Ill get some content on it , make some half decent backlinks and then leave it for 4 - 6 months maybe longer.

      Once i start the project its often well got some PR, SERP's rankings etc, Of course if your good at picking up Dropped domains before they drop you have everything to work , Ive got 2 sites that are most likely now 2 of my best sites which i picked up before they were dropped. Both with qaulity backlinks and age.

      Just my 2 cents
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      • Profile picture of the author banker0679
        it depends on these things

        most ppl think that the age of domain has a huge factor but that's not the biggest factor to google

        here are the top factors

        1. Age of links (old domains have old backlinks pointing to them)
        2. Age of first index or archived
        3. Age of domain

        (all backlinks from the same domain)
        Your old domain could have been created 1995....archived in 2001..and have 10backlinks from 2001

        My domain could have been created 1995..and first archived in 2000 and have 10 backlinks from 2000

        there are other factors but if these were the only 3 factors then i would rank better
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        • Profile picture of the author Kevin Lam
          Originally Posted by banker0679 View Post

          it depends on these things

          most ppl think that the age of domain has a huge factor but that's not the biggest factor to google

          here are the top factors

          1. Age of links (old domains have old backlinks pointing to them)
          2. Age of first index or archived
          3. Age of domain

          (all backlinks from the same domain)
          Your old domain could have been created 1995....archived in 2001..and have 10backlinks from 2001

          My domain could have been created 1995..and first archived in 2000 and have 10 backlinks from 2000

          there are other factors but if these were the only 3 factors then i would rank better
          You're right, it's based on when the pages were indexed, not just when the domain was registered. Even then, I have found having quality and relevant content is serving me very well. I know I owe a lot to my internal linking to rank higher in the SE.

          Btw, very good examples.
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  • Profile picture of the author Smokey_Joe
    The key to this is backlinks - the only thing pagerank is based on is backlinks, and there are no ways around it. Age can make some difference only in the sense that an older page has had more time to gain backlinks. Other than that, age is not significant.

    Great content is good, but it still has nothing to do sith pagerank. If the site has a number of quality links, it is well understandable it has a high pagerank itself.

    Therefore the answer to your question is backlinks.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin Lam
      Originally Posted by Smokey_Joe View Post

      Great content is good, but it still has nothing to do sith pagerank. If the site has a number of quality links, it is well understandable it has a high pagerank itself.
      The question at hand isn't whether great content has anything to do with PR, but simply what is better, "content + age" or "backlinks" only. You're basing your answer on simply because more backlinks equals higher PR, but you very well know that sites with PR0 and PR1 could still outrank other sites that are PR4 and PR5. That sometimes has to do with age and other factors.

      Btw, Martin, you have a very decent amount of backlinks and content, so it's hard to determine what was the main benefactor to your position. I'd have to say all of the above applies to your site.
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      • Profile picture of the author banker0679
        what does 'great' content have to do with ranking?

        Google is a robot..and cannot determine the quality or 'greatness' of content

        they do so by seeing how many links are pointing to the page or website and on page optimization with title tags and other factors

        you can write the worst content and still rank higher than your competitors because you did on page optimization AND off page optimization
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  • Profile picture of the author banker0679
    recent links to a website doesnt determine the PR of a site

    if a site has 1 PR 6 page pointing to it then it would most likely have a PR 5



    Originally Posted by Martin Luxton View Post

    Time and time again we hear that the key to long-term traffic is backlinking.

    So I'd be interested to see people's opinions about this site

    The Jacobite Heritage

    It hasn't been updated for 5 years and I don't see a lot of recent linkjuice yet it has a Google PR of 5. It has a lot of original content and is ancient in internet terms.

    What could be interesting is that dated links it does have mostly seem to come from educational sites.

    Martin
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  • Profile picture of the author maestro2010
    The more old a domain is the more authentic your site is considered by G or any other search engines.
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  • Profile picture of the author freelistfool
    I believe it's SEO and backlinks. If you put up original content, do the proper on page SEO then get good related links back to your site you'll get PR and rise in the SERPs.
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