How important is the domain age?

[lucia]

With regard to YouTube not being sandboxed (assuming it wasn't), I think you also need to remember that the sandbox doesn't mean Google will never return results to your site. It means that it tends to dramatically downgrade your site.

If you are the only site that matches a search term well, Google will return your site when people seek that term.

Also, Google not only uses backlinks but also analyzes which search results are clicked by users.

When YouTube was very new and a candidate for the sandbox, it probably was in the sandbox -- for at least the first week. But what happened? It was phenomenal and there was nothing else that matched the search term "YouTube" (or even "You Tube".

Google would have seen lots of people searching for "YouTube" (which at the time would hardly have been a competitive term); lots of people would also search for descriptive terms. (Downloadable videos? ) They'd be trying a variety of things until they recognized the match they wanted. Then they clicked (and didn't use their backbutton to find another match.)

Google would notice this behavior and notice these people clicked on the result for YouTube itself. Many of these people don't have blogs, don't have sites and don't drop links. But since Google also watches outclicks, their clicks helped pull YouTube out of the sandbox fast!

Of course, once people found the site, all the bloggers posted videos with links to YouTube. YouTube then accumulated backlinks on good sites very fast. The pattern truly looks like a great new site, and Google noticed.

If you create a phenomenal new site everyone really wants to find, the sandbox is irrelevant.

[theluckyy1]

There is no way to really tell but G does give a nice chunk of credit to age!

[theluckyy1]

to get indexed quicker create 1 way links coming in from new sites

[Cornbread]

A lot of people describe the sand box as a switch that is turned on when a site is new and then turned off at some point when it has aged. But from my experience that is not a good description. It is just one of many factors that play a part in the complex Google algorithm. An aging delay penalty factor is a better description than a "sand box" as a site ages the factor is diminished ever so slowly over time.

A site like You Tube gets so much natural traffic and so many inbound links so fast the other positive factors outweigh the negative factors cause by the ageing delay. Kind of like a sprinter running downhill with a tail wind will beat a sprinter running uphill with a face wind.

[dburr99]

I would be willing to guess that if you had a controlled experiment where you had the same domain with same content and links that the older one would get a little more kudos from the big G.

[MattK]

I've just done some very quick domain age research for my favourite term: team building. These are the results from Google.co.uk (search the Web), as you'll see there are lots of sites with .com extensions, but all of the domains are well established (old!).

The top 20 sites and their domain age are as follows:

(Rank) (Domain) (First Registered)
1. www.teambuilding.co.uk 1996
2. www.teamtechnology.co.uk 1996
3. www.teamtechnology.co.uk 1996
4. www.actiondays.co.uk 1999
5. www.managementhelp.org 2000
6. www.businessballs.com 1999
7. www.wildevents.co.uk 2000
8. en.wikipedia.org 2001
9. www.citychallengeuk.com 2001
10. www.impactfactory.com 1998
11. www.maximillion.co.uk 1996
12. www.innovativeteambuilding.co.uk 2002
13. www.businessballs.com 1999
14. www.teambuilding.co.nz 2001
15. www.chillisauce.co.uk 1999
16. www.teambuilding.com.au ?
17. www.teambuilding.org 1998
18. www.teambuilding.com 1995
19. wilderdom.com 2002
20. www.team-wise.co.uk 2000

[Brent Moeller]

Hi All,

I think it really depends on the market you are targeting. I have a dating site that is pushing 1 year of age, and it took 3 months just to rank on page 160, and now its up to page 3 several months later.
I targeted Pit bull pictures with another site, and it was on the first page within 4 weeks.
So it seems as if Google didn't care about the domains age .
So does it depend on your market?

[MattK]

I agree with Brent, I think the competitive nature of your market does contribute alot.

[zagu060807]

Originally Posted by Seo Madrid

I've heard that G considers the domain age as an important SEO factor, as that works filtering some spammy domains. How important do you think this is?

It is important because it came out of the sandbox and has accumulated several backlinks than the newer sites.

And the most common factor is that old sites are trusted by Google, unless it was penalized before.

[mauiman]

I've had izit.com for 9 years 12 days now. Think it's worth more because it was created so long ago? I only put up a temporary site to give it some air about 4 months ago.

Oddly I've noticed that the Alexa rating has continued to climb and is closing in on 200,000 without ANY effort of any kind. It was getting hits for years before there was ever anything there. Not sure what that traffic was about unless people were assuming something was there or they were hoping against all odds that the domain was available.

[Red80]

Over time (WayBackMachine) your domain actually increases your page strength.

[Mihai]

Google gives high importance to older, already established domains.

[Cornbread]

Originally Posted by Red80

Over time (WayBackMachine) your domain actually increases your page strength.

I don't believe that for a minute. Page rank (strength) depends on inbound links and not domain age.

[Mihai]

Originally Posted by Red80

Over time (WayBackMachine) your domain actually increases your page strength.

Domain age has nothing to do with Google Page Rank. PR is influenced only by links and their quality.

[coolguy27]

Originally Posted by Seo Madrid

I've heard that G considers the domain age as an important SEO factor, as that works filtering some spammy domains. How important do you think this is?

It is believed that Google may take how long you have owned a domain into account when determining the trust factor of a website...

Because the more old the domain the Google the more Google trust the domain.

It is one factor in SERPs.


"Domain Registration Time - Google patent - Domain Expiration Date
If Register for 5 years, Google knows you are serious."

[Cornbread]

Originally Posted by coolguy27

It is believed that Google may take how long you have owned a domain into account when determining the trust factor of a website...

Because the more old the domain the Google the more Google trust the domain.

It is one factor in SERPs.


"Domain Registration Time - Google patent - Domain Expiration Date
If Register for 5 years, Google knows you are serious."

Believed by whom? Trust factor is determined by inbound links, once the ageing delay penalty is reduced at about 6-9 months, your newly domained web site can easily have a higher trust factor, page strength and better rankings than a site that is 20 years old if you have enough quality inbound links. My NFL Draft Web Site is living proof, it is only six months old and already outranks many old established web sites in my field.

[coolguy27]

Originally Posted by Cornbread

Believed by whom? Trust factor is determined by inbound links, once the ageing delay penalty is reduced at about 6-9 months, your newly domained web site can easily have a higher trust factor, page strength and better rankings than a site that is 20 years old if you have enough quality inbound links. My NFL Draft Web Site is living proof, it is only six months old and already outranks many old established web sites in my field.

Maybe you're just lucky Google loves your domain.

[nik123]

Originally Posted by Seo Madrid

Let's say that we're talking about keywords where everybody has high authority and have a good bunch of good quality BL. I was wondering, in that situation, how important can the domain age be.

For example, keyword "broadband" in google.co.uk (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...e+Search&meta=) the first result has less BL than the next ones, but is registered in 1996, so I's wondering if that can be an important factor. Obviously, in order to rank in the Top10 for such a keyword with 83 million results, all sites have good optimisation.

It seems like it's very important based on your observations...but again its not the only factor. The broadband keyword density and positioning are taken into the consideration as well.

[Myamsterdam]

Domain age considered as a trump card in SEO

[Cornbread]

Originally Posted by Myamsterdam

Domain age considered as a trump card in SEO

I would disagree, quality inbound links are the trump card. Domain age is just a factor in the over all algorithm. After about a year the factor is almost nil, hardly a trump card.