One SEO related question which is often asked throughout webmaster forums is how much domain registration age is important for SEO. The points behind this question include:
- well-established sites have old domain names, so by reverse logics, an old domain should mean that the site is well established;
- spammers register and drop domains quickly, thus logically spamming sites usually have newly registered domain names.
Generally, webmasters agree that domain age is hardly a powerful ranking factor but opinions vary:
- it can be no factor at all;
- it can play only a single minor factor in the millions of other factors (but it still is);
- it matters a lot (as most participants of this discussion seem to agree, for example).
Google’s patent “Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data” of 03/31/2005 reviewed by WebmasterWorld forum hugely accounted for these rumors implying that Google does look into domain registration (1) and renewal (2) dates:
(1) … the date that a domain with which a document is registered may be used as an indication of the inception date of the document.
(2) Certain signals may be used to distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate domains. … Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.
While the patent does sound rather straightforward (by the way its official version is no longer available online, so it might have been deleted), domain age factor is both overestimated and misinterpreted. My point is simple: domain registration date cannot speak for either quality or trustworthiness of a website as:
- domains can be registered but never used for a long time (parked);
- new domains can be used for highly established companies (with the old domain 301-redirecting to the new one);
- a domain name can be used for illegitimate purposes for years and then sold to a “good” person/ company without any change of the initial registration date.
Thus my verdict to the whole dispute is as follows:
- Website age (and its backlink profile age) is what really matters;
- Domain age can play a minor part only as damping factor - i.e. one of the factors signaling the search engine that this might be a spammy / illegitimate site;
- Old domains may carry more weight due to their past records (i.e. old backlinks pointing to them) - this can be a good point to consider but then again if you are serious about your brand, keep in mind that an established domain already has associations and history before you own it and they might be hard to conquer.
Conclusion: domain registration date won’t of course hurt but it will hardly help. So I would focus on registering a new short niche-related and catchy domain name instead of trying to buy an old (previously owned by someone) one.
Vote for this post : 8
or Buzz it at Yahoo :
Comments
11 responses so far ↓
Aydin Mirzaee on Jul 15, 2008 at 11:43 am
hi Ann,
good post :) When we first registered boknow.com, we got a lot of favorable blog posts and linkbacks. Then, we stopped pursuing this and did not much else to improve SEO or pagerank. After a few months (without doing anything), our page rank increased from a 3 to a 5.
Aydin.
Garrett Pierson on Jul 15, 2008 at 12:02 pm
Ann,
Thanks for the great insight on Domain Age and differentiating it from Website Age. I totally agree with all aspects of your post above and hope all will read and understand this!!!
Aydin Mirzaee on Jul 15, 2008 at 12:27 pm
and Garrett, thanks for pointing out my misunderstanding :)
Nick Stamoulis on Jul 15, 2008 at 12:48 pm
This is a great topic that is often disputed. Great clarification and it totally makes sense that backlinks are what’s most important as opposed to the length of time the domain has been up and registered. Awesome article!
Mercy on Jul 15, 2008 at 12:53 pm
So can we put up like this? Ranking in SERP influenced becoz of the age of links pointing to your site, and not the age of your site itself.
Ann Smarty on Jul 15, 2008 at 1:58 pm
@Mercy: not site age but domain age - I did my best to draw the line in the post. yes, certainly, backlinks are a more powerful factor than domain age, I guess…
Some Guy on Jul 15, 2008 at 2:16 pm
One part that does not make logical sense is the impact the length of the registration may have, for instance if I registered a domain for 5 years but it is in it’s final year nobody would know I had registered it for a 5 year stretch, they would assume one year because it expires this year.
Web Agency Chieti on Jul 16, 2008 at 1:46 am
@Ann
I would also add that not necessary a domain name, also when registered for good purposes, is registered for many year in advance.
My main web site, that next year will be 10 years olds, is payed yearly just for contability matters.
Infonote on Jul 16, 2008 at 3:07 am
From my experience, owning a site with information on various topics, I can state that after 1 year, I have noticed an increase in Search Engine rankings.
Not sure if it is a result of more backlinks like e.g. submitting to directories or because I have more information but I started getting ranked well after 1 year.
There are so many factors that it is difficult to find a true cause.
Nintendo wii on Jul 17, 2008 at 12:16 am
As Ann said that it depends upon the various factors but the most important is backlink. secondly i would like to add that if we buy old domain which is relevant to our industry then it will be very very helpful to gain huge traffic as it is already having huge backlinks and advantage of PR. I have bookmarked this age here for promoting in my stumble upon . http://lindsayhogan.stumbleupon.com/
Internet Eyer on Jul 21, 2008 at 2:55 am
I think that domain age does make a difference, but only a minor difference. That said optimizing many minor things leads to a major change…..
Leave a Comment