Domain Age one of the Biggest Factors

[Brett_Tabke]

Most of us know that the age of a domain is one of the single most important criteria of the Google algo. I'd put it as a top ten - maybe top five - filter. It is a gate keeper.

The real question to me is if that matters on a parked or doa domain? We have some domains 10years old this month that have never had sites on them. I am wondering if there is a default value there because of the age? Is it a pure whois thing? Or is it an age of the inbound links thing?

[beren]

I'd be interested in hearing what people think about this question, too, and I almost posted a thread about it.

I would tend to think (no evidence) that an active site on a domain makes the domain more valuable that if it were just sitting around. But I don't have any proof.

Anyone?

[youfoundjake]

I have a 1 year domain that is about to expire in 13 days. I am currently ranking 750 for a competitve 2 word term, the holy grail of my sector.
I just renewed the domain for another year.
I will see what happens to my position.
But at the same time, I did just submit an article so there will be an influx of links that may push me up as well, but more should be revealed on this.

[jakegotmail]

there must be a difference b/t a 10 year old parked domain and a site that has been in google's index for 10 years.

[tedster]

I'm thinking that so many people own a warehouse of stockpiled domains for experiments and possible throw-aways that it can't be just a pure Whois thing.

[stever]

>>I'm thinking that so many people own a warehouse of stockpiled domains for experiments and possible throw-aways that it can't be just a pure Whois thing.

And likewise there are surely enough people who just threw up a blank index page (or even "Coming Soon") with a title that it can't be just age of domain...(or, if it is, there will be a rush of people searching for underconstruction.gif)

[Alex70]

I was reading on one google patent lately about domain age, so no doubt it counts. I renewd a site on july 2006 for 10 years. Notihng has changed since then. I woldn't put this on top 5. Sorry my 2 cents...

[mcjim]

I wonder if G knows that my site is 10 years old since I used the Google removal tool a few years ago and it took an entire year to get reindexed.

[BigDave]

I think there is something to the domain age, but I think general history of the domain and pages and rate of change and ranking on similar terms means a LOT more.

[ALbino]

I get the impression that the important factor is Index Age and not Domain Age.

[dataguy]

I've heard MC talk about domains having different types of websites over the years... as if it was easy for him to tell that a domain once was about one subject matter, and then changed to a different subject matter. I believe he referred to this as a sign of trust. I heard this at least once at PubCon/Vegas.

This made me think that the length of time a domain has been used for a specific topic is what really matters, not just the length of time the domain has been registered. Of course if the domain was parked on your own server, with a simple page with info about whatever subject matter you will eventually build-out on the site, this may be enough to allow the trust to build.

[hvacdirect]

There's probably a database entry for time that the site has had certain keywords that it has ranked for.

10 year old parked domains will probably do great for "coming soon" and "under construction"

[pageoneresults]

Index Age and not Domain Age.

Those two are key factors. It is not just the age of the domain but also how long it has been in the index. I don't think parked domains count (much). Or do they?

Another factor, WhoIs turnover. Has that domain exchanged hands once, twice, thrice?

Age of inbound links.

All sorts of stuff. This is a loaded question. ;)

[netmeg]

Is there any real way to tell how long a domain has been in the index? I can't think how you'd do that. My personal domain was taken out in 1994, and it doesn't expire until 2015. Maybe I should be selling subdomains for billion bucks a pop.

[youfoundjake]

Netmeg, this is going to be a huge assumption, but how far back are you in archive.org? Can that be a rough cooralation between how long you have been in googles index? post 1998

[mattg3]

i've got live PR2/0's that are 10 years old and 9 year old 5 and 6 all in the index since Google's birth and in altavista before. Age is only a factor if it was active and linked. My business partner has the "wasting money on domain names" hobby and didn't result in anything besides the ones I choose 10 years ago.

[edited by: mattg3 at 7:42 pm (utc) on Jan. 11, 2007]

[pageoneresults]

But how far back are you in archive.org?

I personally think that archive.org is a key player in all of this. ;)

[jimbeetle]

I simply assume that Google has a "date" field for items in its database.

[Atomic]

I would guess that the age of incoming links, which is related to the age of a domain, has a lot to do with whether or not the domain age is a major factor or not. There's probably a lot more to it than that but age alone shouldn't be enough.

[netmeg]

Netmeg, this is going to be a huge assumption, but how far back are you in archive.org?

Earliest entry I found was November 12, 1996. But I have no idea when I was first indexed in *Google*.

(Boy, how embarassing it is to go back and find one's very first attempt at a web page, gack)

[Gissit]

There was a lot of talk about site footprints a while back and if I were a gambling man I would bet that Google keep a historic profile of sites as the basis for the trust rank (it's what I'd do).

I'm more into the idea that Google does not rank a site better for any particular thing (appart from keywords and IBL's), rather it de-rates all sites based upon certain criteria and those that have the least infringements are left at the top.

[AndyA]

I'm sure domain age is a factor, I'm just not sure it ranks high enough to be much help. I have a site in Google's index since 2000, domain was never used before (unique name), and has always had an active site on it. The domain name expires in 2011 or 2012, yet my Google traffic is almost nonexistent.

So, while domain age may be a factor, it would seem almost anything could override it, because this site is white hat.

[youfoundjake]

Bear with me as I don't have alot of info on this, but from a common sense point of view... It would seem that if archive.org has pages from your site going back a long time, that will lend itself a "trust" ranking based on not being one of the fly by night websites, but an actual business model that has withstood the test of time.
I think google, in its infinite wisdom (tongue in cheek) knowing that in the early days did not have everything index, may refer to the cached pages stored in archive.org, to the extent that it refers to the DMOZ listings.
I know that the top 3 SERPS for my industry have been in archive.org since january 1998. It helps that the top result is THE defacto website for my industry, but number 2, also goes back to 1998, and number 3 started in 2001.

I think it may be another assumption that if archive.org has pages from those 3 sites back that far, that once google broke away from standford to a standalone company, pages will have been indexed then as well. So in my humble opinion, there will be a footprint path from archive.org to google.com as well as some whois information thrown in that helps determine the calculation of worth for domain age, but how that fits into the algo as a whole, I would never presume to know, but would still imagine that the accumalation of those 3 would have SOME kind of impact.

[potentialgeek]

Is it easy for Google to search archive.org in automated fashion? Can archive.org handle all its reqs? How many searches would G have to do of archive.org to keep track of every site's trustworthiness, and would archive.org be able to handle the load?

p/g

P.S. I thought archive.org had run out of space because I didn't see any updates last year, but now I see many for my site in 2006.

[julinho]

Is it easy for Google to search archive.org in automated fashion? Can archive.org handle all its reqs? How many searches would G have to do of archive.org to keep track of every site's trustworthiness, and would archive.org be able to handle the load?

Archive.org is a private enterprise, owning a private database, that they can sell to anyone with enough money.
Once the purchaser gets the disk with the DB, there is no more need of internet connections.

[topr8]

erm why would google need to use archive.org it's got its own records

there are posts here in this thread confusing the number of years forward a domain has been paid up and the number of years backwards it has been in use/registered

[pageoneresults]

erm why would google need to use archive.org it's got its own records.

I'd have to ask the same and insert dmoz.org. Why would Google use the ODP? ;)

[smells so good]

on a parked or doa domain?

Age of domain is unquestionably a factor. One could safely presume there are potentially hundreds of other factors. (How many items were listed in the patent?)

Picture yourself a domain, parked for the last 8 years, now interviewing Google for a SERP's rating. What sort of case do you have to make, besides your age? Your peers have already surpassed you, and you may need to come back for another review.

[dauction]

Algos use relational variables

Domain Age weight is given weight in relation to it's time in index, it's growth or lack of ----new content, new pages , new links etc.--- just as each of those variables are

A 10 year old indexed domain that has added little new content , no new pages and few recent quality inbound links ..

cannot compete for rank with 2 year old indexed domain with updated content , new pages and recent quality links

Even on "evergreen" topics .. I'll bet there is even a variable for historical perspective..

How we looked at a topic 10 years ago and how that topic is viewed today ..

[Rlilly]

How acurate is archive.org to depend on, my site was online early 1998 but the archive shows only 2000 onwards?