Does Site Age Matter?

[ronhollin]

Let’s say site A has been around a while. Site A is # 1 for a specific keyword. Ok, now site B, a competitor, comes into the picture. Optimizes their site to compete with site A. Google does its dance and site B is picked up after submitting. Now, my question is this. What if site B's site is optimized 'better' than site A's for certain keywords. Would site B get listed above site A seeing that it has a better optimized site?

[CromeYellow]

All else being equal, yes in my opinion. Age does not seem to affect ranking.

Cy

[crobb305]

If it is 'optimized' better in the eyes of Google, then it could outrank. But depends on many other factors, including off page factors (such as incoming links, etc). Complex question with no easy answers. If you are implying age of site may play a role, not sure about that.

[edited by: crobb305 at 5:15 pm (utc) on May 6, 2003]

[deft_spyder]

While 'time in existance' might be a very -small- part of the algorythm, it doesnt make site A invincible from being overtaken by a better site (better in SEO, size, content, etc).

Site A does have the advantage of most likely having more inbound links if they are a quality site. But an agressive team at site B could overtake them if A isn't on the ball.

[edited by: deft_spyder at 5:17 pm (utc) on May 6, 2003]

[ronhollin]

Site A definity has more links than site B, however site be is (on average) adding 5 incoming links per day. Site B is on a very very aggresive imcoming links campagin.

[FleaPit]

ronhollin, unless you have anything to do with site B I would start getting site A up to scratch. Forget about the other guy, concentrate on your own game and you won't go far wrong.

[chiyo]

Is this still hypothetical? :)

Don't underestimate the **quality** of incoming links. The REALLY good links (for an info site) come in over many months from people you dont even ask. They are just not available by "chasing links", though if you pay it is easier.

Different for a commercial "product" or "service" site though.

The other site my well optimize in response as well!

[ronhollin]

This is my site if you haven't figured that out yet.

chiyo what do you mean here?

The REALLY good links (for an info site) come in over many months from people you dont even ask. They are just not available by "chasing links", though if you pay it is easier.

[crobb305]

The title of this thread changed after I made my first reply. Now that I understand the question better, I will say, from my own experience, that age *may* play a role. I own two sites, one of which is nearly 2 years old. That site moved up steadily in the serps during the first year, while backlinks stayed fairly constant. The only thing I could figure was that age was factoring in. Since I have been at the top of the serps, more sites have linked to me. It is a snowball process really. The higher you get, the more incoming links you get, and so on and so forth. I still contend that age matters some (in a direct sense, not just indirectly through the addition of new links, etc).

[vincevincevince]

chiyo means:

Write to someone with e.g. a content high, .edu page, with good PR asking for link exchange. Oh, you guessed it, the answer is no.

Create great content which that site owner sees, and he'll pop up a link for free.

[ronhollin]

Ok thanks guys. Oh yeah, btw I'm now listed in Google but why is my PageRank bar still grey?

[chiyo]

Hi Ronhollin, I meant that the high PR links usually are unsolicited, at least in our cases. Universities, magazines, newspapers etc. They are not normallt the kind of links that can be "chased" or be on a reciporcal basis. Those who have high PR and are SEO savvy are much slower to link out to new sites.

In commercial sites, there are usually none of these unsolicited links anyway. And if you want Pr for a commercial site, increasinlt you need topay get the best PR links, eitehr through directorit listings or those courageous pay for Pr text link guys!

Hope that is clearer.

Also to add, if the two sites are basically offering the same thing as you suggest, they should both be near each other on the SERPS for the keywords both are targeting. Browsers will many times check out both sites, and chosse the best one for them. So i think just small changes in ranking wont make much difference.

Watch out for the ransom note too! (The description google provides for your site - this can be more valuable than a few ranks)

[Oaf357]

It's a catch 22. The older a site is the more often it has the opportunity to be indexed. So in a way it helps but I wouldn't say that older sites are favored in the algo.

[rfgdxm1]

I've never seen evidence that site age matters. However, as time goes on a site will tend to pick up more backlinks, which may have very desirable anchor text. These new links may be so low that you'll never see your PageRank change. However, over time this boosts the rankings. This is particularly so because the Google algo weights so heavily keyword in anchor text. A new site at PR6 that gets that way from a single link from a PR7 page with "keyword" in the anchor text won't stand a chance against an old site that is PR6 that got that way with 100 links from low PR pages with "keyword" in the anchor text.

[Jenstar]

If the site is old enough (particularly mid-90s) they tend to have more backlinks just based upon the fact that people gave away a lot more links back then, without being concerned about getting a link back in return. Nowadays, people aren't as likely to freely give a link without wanting one in return. I have noticed this in some of my fields, with the competitors being around since 95 or 96.

[jdancing]

A friend of mine has had a site since 1998 and it is top 10 for several competitive keywords. His pages are the ugliest thing you ever have seen, the HTML is bloated and sloppy because he uses MS Word as his editor. Recently he added a few new pages that are nothing but text documents created with Word and within a few weeks those pages made it to the Google top 15.
He has almost no back links, (PR3) and what he has are mostly dead-links from and old directory listings which he has no idea how he got listed in. He does not know what an H1 tag is or how to put a graphic in on his page yet his pages all achieve amazing search engine rankings. Recently he removed all links between his pages on his site because “he didn’t want to confuse visitors by giving them options to click elsewhere”. He is counting on direct hits to each page from Google, which is not a problem with his pages ranked so highly.

On the other hand, I have a site that competes on some of the same keywords and have been utilizing every SEO technique known to man… I have worked on getting over 50 one-way links to my site with perfect anchor text, optimized the text, built content, and created clean HTML code for Google to easily read. However, no matter what I do, I can not get closer than within 10 spots of his placement.

This leads me to believe that Google heavily weights the time a domain has been listed in their directory and gives it a boost.