Are old websites more favoured by google?

old wesites higher serps

[glitterball]

I have 2 websites, one called WidgettyWidgets.com (relatively new) and another completely unrelated website (very old).
I have a backlink on the completey unrelated website with the anchor text of 'Widgetty Widget'. This unrelated website has not been updated in 4 years (apart from this link) and has a page rank of 4 and 9 backlinks showing in Google.
The WidgettyWidget.com website has a page rank of 3 has been fairly optimised (no hidden text etc) has 7 backlinks showing in Google (including a Yahoo link).

The unrelated site is higher in the serps for 'widgetty widget' than 'widgettywidget.com'.

Is it just me, or is Google giving less relavant results?

[allanp73]

I found the same thing happened to my site. I was finding places which had high pr where I could get a link. There site had a pr 5 and my site only a pr 4. When they added my link suddenly they showed up for the widget keyword phrase that I targeted; even though, the only place on their entire site that used the phrase was in a link to my site. It annoyed me because the link, though probably helped my pr slightly, lowered my ranking by one spot. I think Google sometimes puts to much emphasis on pr and text which appears as a link.

[mack]

I think some older pages rank higher on the serps simply because they have been around longer and obtained more links over time.

Going by the example you gave this may just be a poor serp?

One more point did you link between your sites? it is possible that the link you made, gave relevance , to the un-related site... Just a though.

Mack.