Does Google consider the age of a site?

Do sites that have been around longer earn bonus points?

[sparticus]

I was just wondering if anyone had come across really old sites (more than five years old for example) that are getting good results, even though they aren't very well optimised. Does Google consider sites which have been around longer to be more relevant?

[htdawg]

i think age plays a role for links the longer a site has been around people will have linked to it. and the size of a site also plays role for certain top phrases.

[seaboy]

Not for me - I have a clean site that has been around since 1997 and has all but vanished.

[mack]

I think it is true that matured sites do well simply because they have become established and have had more time to atract good quality inbound links.

Mack.

[Nicola]

Spammers again, are using old sites to their advantage.

The longevity of dropped/expired domains on Google is shocking the age of some of the already reported spamming domains is unacceptable.

When are Google going to accept that they have no defense with regard to this practice and remove them manually?

I have reported whole groups of inter-linking hi-jacked domains to Google and months later, they are still there.

Googleguy?

[Nicola]

AND, before someone posts, here is the place to report abuse to Google, well I've tried reporting spam (we are talking 100% expired domain - duplicate html spam of the highest order) and what do Google do?

NOTHING.

Is there a backlog? Are they expecting the currently pathetic algo to weed these offenders out?

[ronin]

Nicola, Google are never going to manually remove spam sites if they can possibly help it. It goes against their scalability ethos. They collect the spam reports, analyse the common spam trends and build algorithms which can counter those trends... over time.

[Nicola]

Scalability ethos? Well they're catching dolphins in the tuna nets this time. :(

[lgn1]

Well I have been around since 1998, and have been in the top 5 for my money keywords for almost as long. But last
thursday I was gone.

Google should consider the age of a ontopic, non spamming
industry leader, but they don't. You get brownie points for being claims free on insurance, why can't yo get brownie points for being long time spam free on google.

[GregR]

I put up a website 6 days ago on a newly registered domain name. The website is Keyword1Keyword2.com.
Zero SEO.
Interesting SERPS.

Keyword1Keyword2 872 results #1

Keyword1 Keyword2 39,700 results #1

Keyword1 3,040,000 results #7

Keyword2 5,560,000 results #12

[Nicola]

No comments regarding spammers and deleted domains?

I guess that's because there is no answer.

[cabbie]

>>No comments regarding spammers and deleted domains?

Nicola,my view is this.These aren't deleted domains,they are valid domain names that have a new lessee.What the new owner of that lease does with the domain is entirely up to him or her.Its noone elses business but his and the people who link to that domain.
The webmasters have to take responsibility for their own links and if they continue to link to a site then that is their perogative and It would be unfair for google to permanently ban a name on the basis that someone had leased the name before.

[Nicola]

I am actually talking about spammers using deleted domains as a tool to gain PR.

They use multiple domains, all interlinked, along with the existing links from the domain's previous life. The pages I reported were all duplicates of each other.

That was months ago. They are still in the serps. If the Google algo is so perfect, then why has it failed to throw out obvious offenders like this? But at the same time penalise honest webmasters who have decent normal sites.

[cabbie]

As I said who is to say they are spamming?Those names wouldn't have pr if they didn't have inbound links and just because the domain changes hand doesn't mean that you can judge what is a valid link or not.
It is the responsibility of the webmasters linking to these sites to take their link down if they think its not warranted.Not YOU nor GOOGLE can judge this.

[Nicola]

So 100 domains, all with exactly the same index page is ok then?

Why didn't someone tell me earlier? I'll go an buy some previously owned domains and spam the serps then. :)

[MyWifeSays]

It is my understanding that Google doesn't count links that it found prior to the expiry of a domain. I remember GG saying this months ago.