MrWumpus - 6:27 pm on Mar 10, 2009 (gmt 0)

Site/domain age matters a lot in certain niches, and possibly age of backlinks. Trust me, as I am very familiar with several old sites that rank #1 despite all kinds of 'SEO' problems.

I also know of sites that are 10 years old and have not been touched in 6+ months yet still outrank newer, more sophisticated (better) sites in the same niche. If I put them side by side and asked you to pick the better site (design/content/backlinks/everything), you would never guess the old one. Your brain would then attempt to find a reason the old one ranks higher and the only ones you might come up with are "age", "authority" and possibly age of backlinks (who is to say Google doesn't weigh old links from since-gone sites?).

We don't slap our elders and neither does Google. Old sites, especially ones that might seem stale, have special value to Google. Probably because they represent consistency, authority, genuineness. They are often run by smaller, less sophisticated companies who may or may not even have an SEO consultant. Google isn't going to punish them for poor SEO and isn't necessarily going to reward the new kid on the block for good SEO. Clearly there are other factors, and age appears to be a big one.