i’ve read different things about the importance of a domain’s age to google.
how important is it?
is it better to start fresh with a new domain or buy/use and existing domain that may be ‘damaged’ in some way?
Re: domain age and google
I wouldn’t buy a “damaged” domain… But a good old domain trumps a new one…
Re: domain age and google
An aged domain is just one of the factors, but just one.
When I opened Butch Dixon, I had had the domain up for six months. I had good rankings on the site before I actually opened it up for business. And I had relatively no links to the site, just one link from two AVS hubs. For all intents and purposes, Butch Dixon was an example that everything people say about SEO is largely bullshit.
It had no links, it was only six months old, it did have some original written content on it, but not heaps.
Like rawtop said, I wouldn’t buy a damaged domain, but whether you use a new or old domain may or may not make a huge difference. I’ve opened lots of new domains and pretty quickly I’m getting good traffic from Google.
Re: domain age and google
It’s just a small factor in Google. Having an old domain age wouldn’t guarantee good ranking. Content is still king in SEO. The number of quality backlinks is still the queen.
Re: domain age and google
It can be a big factor. If the domain has been active and trusted for a long time that counts for a lot. If it’s just been registered but inactive - then I agree with you.
Re: domain age and google
What’s considered a long time? I’ve had new blogs go through the roof after they’ve been up six months and pulling in just as much traffic as sites that I have that are close to 10 years old.
Re: domain age and google
As Rawtop said, it can be a big factor. In fact I would say a really huge factor. I have some really old domains that no matter what I put on them Google loves and Google loves it real fast. With that said, these domains have had relevant content on them for nearly 10 years. It is one of the many reason that I am still keeping the domains and the content that is on them even after the sponsor has long since stopped paying etc. For a while when I was registering new domain names I was doing a basic WP install and just doing a couple posts so that the domain names had at least some Google history before I developed them.
Re: domain age and google
Michael,
As far as old domain names go, here is what I have found. The old domain names that I have that were only linked to from my own network and never really linked out that much do fucking amazing. For example, in the past when I created AVS sites, I used obscure AVS systems that no gay link lists would link to. So all the inks coming in where from my other domains. I never really linked out from those sites. So all the links coming in were from my own sources and there were no links going out to junk sites. I actually have about 50 of those style domain names. Google loves them. Absolutely loves them. Even though many of the avses are dead, I still keep the sites on them just because Google loves the domain so much.
In fact, Rawtop recently asked me in one of my domains was really registered in 2001. Yup. Not only was it registered in 2001 it had content on there from 2001 that only had incoming links and a few outgoing links to high quality sources. Now, that domain I know for a fact would kick major butt in the SE’s with the right SEO applied to it.
Re: domain age and google
I just looked at the age of the domains that rank for ‘gay porn’… For the most part, they’re all pretty old domains. The “new” ones are tube sites, but with one exception they’re tube sites that got established way before all the other tube sites…
lovethecock.com - 3/03
skeezy.com - 11/02
gaytube.com - 4/05
redtube.com - 1/06
hotgaylist.com - 12/02
gotgayporn.com - 3/06 (“newer”, but is helped by having an exact match for term in domain name)
rockettube.com - 2/08 (quite new, but initially had the same owner as other authority gay porn sites)
hungdaddy.com - 3/02
gaypornclip.com - 9/03
lustypuppy.com - 4/04
I do pretty well with bareback related terms and I was registered in January 2002 (though I didn’t really use the domain effectively until years later). Ditto for my condom site WilyWilly - I just realized I registered that domain in 2003 and didn’t use it until much later. It’s doing fairly decent with Google (nothing stellar). But it probably helps that it’s an old domain.
IMHO, domain age (combined with a solid reputation) is a huge factor to get traffic from Google, but it’s not everything. GayDemon.com was registered in April 2000, has a good reputation, but doesn’t currently rank for ‘gay porn’.
Re: domain age and google
It also goes to show you that domain age and links are far more important that originally written content. So why is Google constantly going on about original content, it seems meaningless in these instances.