Domain Authority and Google keywords

[PHDAustralia68]

Hi there,

We have a domain authority of 33, one of our competitors has an authority of 10, yet they appear to list higher on many keyword searches in google. Is there a reason for this? Our site is 5 months old, and their site is over 3 yrs old.

Thanks for your feedback

[PHDAustralia68]

thank you very much....

[JamesNorquay]

Hi,

I would not only base domain authority for ranking,

look at the following -

• Content of the two websites, ages do they have more/better content?

• Website mentions in Google type the two URLS and compare data?

• Age of the domain does have a factor if it has been indexed for the period, I know if the domain goes out of the index you can run into issues, what counts the best is how long the domain has been indexed within search engines not the first time the domain was purchased.

Regards,

James Norquay

[AdiRste]

Quality link building, just keep going.

[PHDAustralia68]

Thanks Erica.... I feel like we do a good job on site and we seem to have more incoming links than this other site.... the only thing I can see is domain age...

just can't believe this is valued so highly

[mrlee]

Yes of course. Websites from the 1990s and early 2000 and that are still updated rank much better than new ones, ever if they are not very well SEO'd.

[seoug_2005]

Does Age of a domain have an effect on rankings ?

[kennyrowe]

There could be a variety of reasons as a higher DA doesn't guarantee better ranking than your competitors.

A couple thoughts off the top of my head:

1. Age of domain. You do have a newer one.

2. Pertaining to those specific keywords, they could have better backlinks or better SEO'd pages for those keywords.

3. Do you have a proper .xml sitemap submitted to Google Webmaster Tools?

I'm not sure what your skill level is, but I'd read through the Beginner's Guide to SEO and assess what your own site for what's lacking. Then make some good changes on it. Also look at your competitor's site and figure out what they're doing well and what they're doing poorly, so you know how you can build your site to be better than theirs, which will eventually pay in those better rankings.