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Is domain age really THAT heavily weighted?

by JimmyRose
18 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I was thinking about buying a 4 year old domain with only a few backlinks and a couple of pages of content.

Do you think that the age alone will even make a difference? I know domain age is supposedly a big factor, but what if it has just been pretty much a dormant domain for that entire time? Fair enough, you see a lot of old domains ranking for certain keywords, but they also have tens of thousands of backlinks or more.

If you think it's worth purchasing, how much would you spend on a 4 year domain that has a couple of keywords in it but not a phrase that you want to target.

As an example, say you were targeting monitors. You want to target a bunch of keywords based around "monitors" and "screens", since people refer to them differently. The domain in this case would be "monitorsandscreens.com"

The only way I'd purchase is if the 4 year age will make a big difference. What do you think?
#age #domain #heavily #weighted
  • Profile picture of the author Alex Lehiste
    Generally, webmasters agree that domain age is hardly a powerful ranking factor.

    - Website age (and its backlink profile age) is what really matters

    - Domain age can play a minor part only as damping factor – i.e. one of the factors signaling the search engine that this might be a spammy / illegitimate site

    - Old domains may carry more weight due to their past records (i.e. old backlinks pointing to them) – this can be a good point to consider but then again if you are serious about your brand, keep in mind that an established domain already has associations and history before you own it and they might be hard to conquer.

    With the advantages mentioned above demand for old domain names are always growing among potential people, so when you are in hold of a site which is on for a while with a good domain name, it only increases the value of your site when you want to sell it.
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    • Profile picture of the author Marhelper
      Originally Posted by BryanJoseph View Post

      Is domain age a powerful factor?
      Did I miss something here?

      I have noticed that domain age seems to play a part but how much I am not sure. I would say a site that has been around for a while with older backlinks to it has a nice leg up.
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      • Profile picture of the author N4PGW
        Originally Posted by Marhelper View Post

        Did I miss something here?

        I have noticed that domain age seems to play a part but how much I am not sure. I would say a site that has been around for a while with older backlinks to it has a nice leg up.
        I would think that is true only if the links are related to the new product. If the previous site were promoting delicious family meals and you suddenly start promoting food for boa constrictors, then visitors from the older links might get a bit confused about the connection.

        Buck
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by gobeno View Post

      Generally, webmasters agree that domain age is hardly a powerful ranking factor.

      - Website age (and its backlink profile age) is what really matters

      - Domain age can play a minor part only as damping factor - i.e. one of the factors signaling the search engine that this might be a spammy / illegitimate site

      - Old domains may carry more weight due to their past records (i.e. old backlinks pointing to them) - this can be a good point to consider but then again if you are serious about your brand, keep in mind that an established domain already has associations and history before you own it and they might be hard to conquer.

      .
      Best post in the enitre thread. Gobeno you hit the nail on the head. You could have a domain sit undused for ten years. The thing that Google seems to look at is the website's age from when it was first indexed and the age of the links to it.

      JimmyRose One of the best places to start to see what this domain has done is here

      Internet Archive: Wayback Machine

      Alot of the times you can see what was being done with the domain. That canmake all the difference in the world.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gene Pimentel
    Listen, age doesn't play a that big of a part in the serps. It's a small part of the algorithym from what I have experienced. But there is a way to match any power a competing domain has. Simply register your domain for more years than your competitor's aged domain. Google looks at the fact that you are committed to your domain. I believe (but don't have direct evidence) that the number of years is equal whether your domain is already aged or if you register it for a like number of years.
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    • Profile picture of the author Domainate
      Originally Posted by Gene Pimentel View Post

      Listen, age doesn't play a that big of a part in the serps. It's a small part of the algorithym from what I have experienced. But there is a way to match any power a competing domain has. Simply register your domain for more years than your competitor's aged domain. Google looks at the fact that you are committed to your domain. I believe (but don't have direct evidence) that the number of years is equal whether your domain is already aged or if you register it for a like number of years.
      Yea but Gene, if everyone did that, then the older domains would would win out. Having recently had and sold a domain registered since 1990, having that renewed until 2020 would total up a practically impossible-to-overcome 30 years of registration.

      Having said that, I agree it doesn't play a BIG part, but if you're competing against a bunch of other SEO-aware competitors and match toe-to-toe on many fronts, any little factor could end up making a difference. I would place more importance on exact keyword match and even on extension (com/net/org or ccTLDs targeting a particular country vs. the rest) over age, but if you can't get exact keyword matching domain, getting an aged domain containing the term vs. a newer domain containing the term should improve your SEO efforts, even if just a bit. OR even if you're going the brandable route, an aged brandable would be better than a new brandable.
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    • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
      Originally Posted by Gene Pimentel View Post

      Simply register your domain for more years than your competitor's aged domain. Google looks at the fact that you are committed to your domain. I believe (but don't have direct evidence) that the number of years is equal whether your domain is already aged or if you register it for a like number of years.
      Google doesn't look at registration information in their mainstream algorithms and often ignore it even in manual situations. See this thread for an example: http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...-index-me.html
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      • Profile picture of the author xohaibx
        Domain age matters but what matters more is the kind of backlinks to that domain name. Plus, a domain whose 4 years old but with no good content is worthless. So, domain name does play a minor role in the overall search engine ranking. Also, no matter what domain you buy, if you want to lead your market, then you must constantly put quality content on it.


        Regards,
        MK.
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  • Profile picture of the author salegurus
    OK, let me add my 2 cents worth.
    Agreed, Domain Age does play a part, not the biggest but it does. (Ranking depends on allot more factors)
    Why do i say this, because i have been buying aged domains for my projects some with PR some not. From the results i have been getting all OnPage/OffPage SEO being the same, a keyword rich aged domain ranks better than a newly registered domain.
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  • Profile picture of the author timpears
    If you have age, then that is a good thing. If you don't have it, then who cares? You are going to work without it I would guess.

    Bottom line, I doubt that the age is a big factor. What matters is your content, your back links, and possibly a few other factors. But domain age is way down on that list.
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    Tim Pears

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  • Profile picture of the author Daedric
    Age does make a lot of difference. Being dormant is a lot better than a totally new domain. Aged domain will not get sandboxed as easily as new domains.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bon-Bon
    I think google have a certain level of trust in aged domains. I have seen some aged domains with little or no backlink completely out rank its competitions with tons hundreds of backlinks. However for the purpose of SEO, you should not depend on the age factor alone. There are lots of factor involved in SEO. Also ranking in search engine will depend on your On page and off page optimization.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mohammad Afaq
      I've tried to get this message out over and over again but no one seems to listen.

      I'm gonna post the video (from Matt Cutts) on here:


      Here's the full entry from my blog.
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      • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
        Originally Posted by Mohammad Afaq View Post

        I've tried to get this message out over and over again but no one seems to listen.

        I'm gonna post the video (from Matt Cutts) on here:
        Just for clarification Cutts was not there answering a question about age of domains. He was talking about how long you register your domain for. Say if you register two years or five or ten. A domain can be ten years old and register one year at a time.
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    Domain age is the one thing that can't be influenced by webmasters - everything else including your on page SEO and off page SEO can be "gamed". So, if you were Google how heavily would you weigh age?

    You'd still need good backlinks with the appropriate anchor text and good content with your keywords on the site but I'd think an aged domain would give you a big advantage with all other things being equal.

    I know that the aged domains I have bought have done a lot better, faster, compared to the new ones (even 1 that I used for a totally different niche than it originally was used for!)

    Lee
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  • Profile picture of the author David Louis Monk
    I recently listened to a webinar where the guest speaker was an ex-Google insider. No mention of domain age, but to be safe buying a domain name for two to five years is going to stand you in better stead than for a domain that will expire in 12 months.

    Google critereia is now about be the user experience and giving the visitor the information they are looking for when they land on your website. That is why relevancy counts. That is why if you are paying for adwords, the price you pay is determined by the quality score of your landing page. You need at least a quality of score of 7 not to be paying over the going rate for your ad campaigns. What you need to know is what you have to do to go from a 7 to 10 quality score as this will lower your ad costs significantly.
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  • Profile picture of the author rakesh.iseo1
    Firstly thanks all of you for sharing these facts. Its right that domain age important for Google. But i think if our content and quality is fresh then Google will love our site.
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