How much weight does domain age really carry?
-
One of my clients competitors launched a new site in January 2014 (totally new site on a domain that had previously never been used). The competitor has very few backlinks (only double digits), most of which are directory links (dofollow and nofollow). Their authority level is good but not as high as others who rank on top pages with them and their on-page optimization is lacking in a few areas.
For all intents and purposes, the site should not be ranking where it is from what I can see. However, it is literally skyrocketing up the ranks faster than I would have ever imagined.
The only thing I found that this domain has going for it is age (roughly 4 years). Does this carry more weight than I think it does?
When compared to my clients site, we have more backlinks (similar mix), higher DA and PA and better on-page optimization for the same keywords. However, our domain age is only a little over 1 year.
-
You can also use Google Alerts to both monitor your competitors website changes, as well as general mentions of them on them web.
Mike
-
Great question! You can always do a site search on Google or use Screaming Frog (best recommendation). You can use Screaming Frog and and keep an eye out for new pages.
Doing it manually can be time consuming but you can always use their content as a basis for new content ideas within your client's site.
-
Thanks Hillary
Any tools you recommend for checking their site size and growth rate or just a manual inspection of their site for fresh content?
-
How quickly are they adding new content to the site and are they using Twitter/FB/Pinterest/G+ as a resource for getting their URLs crawled more frequently? That's worth checking out.
-
My thoughts as well. I didn't expect age (especially in this situation) to play a large role. The site in question is climbing fast against everyone in the competitive landscape. OSE and AHREFS are not showing any new links (or at least none that they have picked up yet).
What else should I be examining? There has to be a reason for the push.
-
In my experience, I still consider it to have some weight, but not enough to beat out a better resource that is producing better content and getting more links.
I don't think age is a top-level factor to consider, but it has enough weight to get a leg up on a property that is similar in status.
The difference between a 4-year domain and a 1-year should not be a factor in this case. Something else is in play, and it sounds like it's time to dig even deeper.
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
-
Deciding on domain
Hi, I have a company website that I have access to and it's bcannon.remax-mississippi.com. It allows you to choose a domain and have it 301 redirected so I changed it to Oxfordmissrealestate.com. I noticed that the page and domain authority for bcannon.remax-mississippi.com was pretty high so I took off the Oxfordmissrealestate.com domain and just left it as this subdomain. My question is, would you leave it how it is as the subdomain or change it? Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | Veebs0 -
Can you canonical from one domain page to a different domain page
We are a boating site and have our main site with all it's products. We have an engine section within our main site. But we also have an outside domain, specific to a certain manufacturer of engines. So we want our customers to still find the engine information for this manufacturer within our main site, as well as find the manufacturer targeted engine site in the SERPS. My question is this: Can I canonical those pages within our main site to pages on the outside domain? Or does are canonicals to be used only within the same domain? Thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | tdawson090 -
Duplicating content on multiple domains
Hey guys, I've started working with a new client recently called Resource Investing News. I'm more a Social Media person, though I do have SEO experience. RIN has about 40 URLs all of which have original news content published on them. One SEO-related issue that I can see here though is that the primary domain re-publishes all of the original content that the other URLs do. In other words: resourceinvestingnews.com will have an article on it that is also published on goldinvestingnews.com with the same date stamp and a link out to the original article. E.g. http://resourceinvestingnews.com/42539-molybdenum-goes-far-beyond-steelmaking.html http://molyinvestingnews.com/5301-molybdenum-steelmaking-vehicle-demand-electronics-lubricant.html Does anyone have an idea if this is something that should be reviewed and/or whether the content is being negatively affected in search? Many thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | blahblahblah20150 -
Looking to Buy a New Domain for 10 Years
I want to Know, for how much year i should buy a new domain for optimal SEO Results. Should I Buy it for 3 Years, 5 Years or 10 Years
On-Page Optimization | | Ganesh340 -
Branded keyword domain not appearing in Google
Hi, I have a site called www.emv-cards.com but the site has a very poor showing on Google for the search term 'emv cards' and this does not make sense to me. It has position #6 on Bing but is not in Google's top 50. Any assistance would be appreciated. regards, George.
On-Page Optimization | | sirgeorge0 -
How to fix duplicate issue among multiple root domains
Hello, I’m doing SEO for one E-commerce website which name is Lily Ann Cabinets & I’ve around 300 different root domains which having same linking structures, same design & even same product database for all 300 websites, but currently I’m focusing only on Lily Ann Cabinets website & trying to get ranking on some targeted keywords, but website is not performing well in Google.com For Example: http://www.lilyanncabinets.com/ (Main Websites)
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit
http://www.orlandocabinets.com/
http://www.chicagocabinets.org/
http://www.miamicabinets.org/
http://www.newyorkcabinets.org/
http://www.renocabinets.org/ So please can anyone tell that Will it create duplicate issue in search engines or may be due to this reason website doesn’t have good ranking in search engines, then how can I fix this issue? Do I have to make different structures for Lily Ann Cabinets?0 -
Value of Domain Names
Hello, I have an ecommerce site that sells personalized gifts. I am wondering about the value of purchasing domain names for specific products and have them point to a landing page. For example: the domain name personalizediphonecases.com would point to my page of that product. Is that a good idea? Thank you!
On-Page Optimization | | Confections0 -
Hyphens in Domain Name
I have a client who is a business broker. I have just begun working with them, and they are trying to determine the best domain name to use - they have several. business-broker-alabama.com vs businessbrokeralabama.com Which one of these has more value? I know that search engines have somewhat devalued keywords. The first one probably has a little more SEO value, but is going to be a drag in terms of marketing -- saying "business hyphen broker hyphen alabama" is going to get old for them. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | csmithal0
