Is domain age no longer a factor?
-
Most of you have already seen the Matt Cutts video saying that domain age is insignificant after a few months. Do people agree with that? I have a friend who has a domain that is over 12 years old, but the name is not great. gaport.com for a business that sells primarily carports and garages. After watching this video, he wants to rebrand his site with a new name and scrap the old domain for something more marketable. Before he does this, I'd like to know if domain age really isn't a factor anymore?
Thanks,
Ruben
-
“Overall Domain, age does play a role, but a small role & it’s not a very strong ranking factor as compared to others.
The main Problem associated with buying Old Domains is you have to find out with what it was associated before?
Even best SEO Experts have failed to get a spam free domain in one go
Because domains that get Expired might have been used in past for the purposes of Gambling, Spamming, Illegal Content, Adult Websites etc.
We have written a post in detail on this topic, whether Domain Age is an SEO Factor or not?
Do check it out & give us your valuable insights.
[link removed by admin]
-
if we talk about a domain by itself it is not a privilage to have an old one. Your domain is listed in dmoz and yahoo directories and has more other backlinks. And those backlinks are more valuable then the exact age.
-
Although domain name age might not be important, other aspects of a mature domain could give support to rankings.
I redirected a domain that held #1 rankings for a commercial keyword unchallenged for ten consecutive years. This was a domain, popular in its niche, that was getting over 500,000 pageviews per month.
Changing the domain resulted in the loss of over 1000 people per month arriving at the site through domain queries typed into the google search box, lots of direct visitors from the domain typed in browser address bar, probably lots of people clicking its entries in the SERPs because of domain recognition, loss of huge sitelinks.
Once you switch the domain all of that tribe support - measurable by Google - disappears. BAM!
After 301 redirecting the site dropped immediately in the SERPs, recovered quickly to #2 and then retook #1 after domain queries were back up over 1000 per month. - but that took many months and lots of lost sales for the former level of tribe support to reestablish on the new domain.
It currently is at #3 with a couple big brands above it. Revenue is down.
I can't say if it would still be holding off those big brands - because Google seems to be giving them strong favor these days - but if I could go back a couple years, I might not have changed the domain.
-
Ruben -
It sounds like the consensus of the coverage on Matt Cutt's statements show that:
- Google still uses domain name age as a factor, but it sounds like it's not nearly as important as unique, high-quality content, and other trust signals such as external links.
- Google does pay attention to domain name age, especially during the first 2-3 months of a domain's lifetime.
I still think domain name age is a factor for how pages rank, as Google still does like pages that "have withstood the test of time." (Google also likes fresh new content, too.)
My hunch is that your friend would take a short-term hit on traffic, and in order to get the site to rank well, the site will need to focus on a high-quality user experience, great content, etc.
I could perhaps see an interesting section on the site devoted to the best (or worst) garages and carports.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Multiple links from same domain (different pages) considered in credibility of backlinks?
Hi, Let's say there are multiple backlinks from different pages of same domain to different pages of other domain like below: Website A: Page 1 -----------> Website B: Page 1 Website A: Page 2 -----------> Website B: Page 2 Do the pages of Website B pages will get backlinks authority equally or they don't get much backlinks impact as they have multiple backlinks from same domain? There were old school stories that Google ignores second link from same domain.....etc... So, please suggest on this. Thank you. Note: The question is NOT about content relevancy or domain authority score of the backlinks.
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
Google's Importance on usability issues in sub directories or sub domains?
Hi Moz community, As the different usability issues like pagespeed or mobile responsiveness are playing a key role in website rankings; I wonder how much the same factors are important for sub directories or sub domain pages? Do each and every page of sub directory or sub domain must be optimised like website pages? Does Google gives same importance? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Domain location is a ranking factor? Back links & website?
If a website trying to rank in US and it has received many back-links from domains hosting from other countries; how it will impact website ranking? Can a website hosted in country will rank well in other country? How much the hosted location matters? Like....domain hosted in Germany but trying to rank in US?
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Do more internal links from sub-domains to domain (website) hurt rankings?
Hi, We have nearly 10 sub-domains. Couple of our website top pages including homepage have been linked from every page of these sub-domains; from footer or top menu. Is this kind of linking is bad as per Google? What is the right way of linking between website and sub-domains?
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Domain Migration Question
Lets say there is a brand that has one primary product type at different optional tiers. (Think something like SMB/Enterprise/Individual) Lets also say that 1 year ago this brand migrated from having everything under 1 domain (Domain A) to moving 2 of their product tiers to another domain (Domain B), a new domain. They have done some initial SEO work on this domain and had a pretty successful migration but it has also been decided that they are going to no longer offer one of these product tiers and they intend to eventually migrate everything back under the 1 domain (Domain A) They just are not sure whether they should do this now or later.
Algorithm Updates | | DRSearchEngOpt
During this next year or so there is also going to be some likely re-branding/design, etc...stemming from this decision, on the domain, meaning content changes and all that fun that goes into a migration/re-design/re-branding strategy. The timing of this has not been fully decided on. Here is the question: Should they a) Migrate back to Domain A first and then do the re-design or b) Keep 2 separate domains for now, figure out the re-design/re-branding, make content changes and then migrate Site A over in a year or so after all changes have been made? My concern with option a) is that they migrated a little less than 1 year ago and will be migrating back which I feel could have a negative impact on the content and the domain. The positive side I see here is that this impact could be just as large even if we waited so doing this now might be a better, more efficient use of our time if we can migrate and make content changes fairly close together or concurrently.
My concern with option b) is that the tier they no longer offer makes up the majority of that sites business and traffic, leaving us with not much in terms of content that ranks well and garners much traffic. Trying to optimize for the remaining product tier by itself on it's own domain could be quite hard and then having to migrate it in a year or so back to Domain A could negatively impact any small organic impact I can make on applicable pages/domain. Does anybody have any input here? I am leaning towards Option A and but wanted to get some other opinions. Thanks Everybody! Edit: So far, this has received a lot of views but no input. I am hoping to have a bit of a dialog on this so any ideas or input is welcome.0 -
Duplicate content on a sub domain
I have two domains www.hairremoval.com and a sub domain www.us.hairromoval.com both sites have virtual the same content apart from around 8 pages and the sub domain is more focused to US customers so the spelling are different, it is also hosted in the states. Would this be classed as duplicate content ? (The url’s are made up for the question but the format is correct)
Algorithm Updates | | Nettitude0 -
2 Domains With Same Name But 1 With A Number
We have been marketing a website for a client with a domain name example2.com. Their main site example.com is used to post information about their services and example2.com is their eCommerce site they use to sell their products. After the Google Penguins update, we have lost all rankings for example2.com. We did not do any unethical, black hat SEO and I am pretty sure its wasn't just mistakenly blocked. We use the same strategy for our other clients and they have not been impacted. Do you guys think the domain name has anything to do with it? Whats odd it example.com is now ranking for some keywords that example2.com used to rank for. We have never marketed that website or anyone else for that matter. I have been scratching my head over this one for the past week and this is the only feasible problem I can think of.
Algorithm Updates | | ArgosSEM0 -
Why is a link considered active, but is no longer on the page?
How come links sometimes show up in OSE or Yahoo Site Explorer and then when you go to the page, they're not there anymore? Why is a link indexed or considered active but is no longer on the page?
Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum0