How to trust the age of a domain

[anand84]

I am looking to buy a domain name that the owner claims is 2 years old. Now, I need to know two things:

1. When was the domain registered
2. Did the domain exist with content throughout this period.

How do i gain information on both these parameters?

Thanks

[htdawg]

try doing a whois search for the domain. It should show when it was registered.

[anand84]

Hi htdawg

Thanks. Any idea on the second part of the question. If I am not wrong, even if a whois search shows a domain to be 6 years old, if it did not have content existing for sometime in this period, Google nullifies the age and starts anew when you add content...

[htdawg]

you could try going to archive.org and do a search with waybackmachine.
If its old enough there should be pages from the site archived there.

[mvander]

Good Advice.

I do feel that even if #2 (no content the entire time) isn't fulfilled that the age still has some merit, obviously not as much as if it had content all the time of course.