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
-
How to increase domain authority?
Hi, I created a new blog about 2 months ago and the domain authority is still at 1 but the page authority is booming like a rocket. How do I increase DA? Please visit my blog and suggest the possible ways. Regards,
On-Page Optimization | | suzy470 -
Is it better to shorten my existing url to use only keyword after domain with a 301 redirect from existing url
I have a long existing URL that has included my key word but the url has about 5 additional words in the text ( eg url would have " /super widgets in stock at the widget store " as url text after domain. keywords is super widget The URL was at the top of search results for my keyword for many years until recently. Is it better to shorten my url text to now use only my keyword " /super-widgets " after the domain with a 301 direct from my existing url to optimize it Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | mrkingsley2 -
Domain athority for a redirectiones domain
Hi everyone: I create a new version for a website, his DA was 38, but it was redirectioned (with search console and 301 redirection) for a new domain. The website with new domain is working two months ago and still have DA: 1 and PA: 1. How many time take to DA and PA to start to grow up? Thanks for the answers
On-Page Optimization | | diegodiaz850 -
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 -
Redirecting to new domain
Hi, I switched my ecommerce site to a new domain, how can I get my new site indexed aneast art building links when my oils site is still indexed?
On-Page Optimization | | GTCarter11870 -
Domain authority dropped a lot in last month
I thought I'd asked this earlier but it seems to have disappeared. My client's domain authority has hovered at around 42-46 for the past 6 months. But in the past month it has dropped 6 points. Organic search traffic is up, no keyword rankings have fallen, external links are up slightly, but not massively. Competitors remain roughly the same DA although theirs are only around 14/16 anyway. What should I be looking for as to the cause?
On-Page Optimization | | mfrgolfgti0 -
Duplicate content on domains we own
Hello! We are new to SEO and have a problem we have caused ourselves. We own two domains GoCentrix.com (old domain) and CallRingTalk.com (new domain that we want to SEO). The content was updated on both domains at about the same time. Both are identical with a few exceptions. Now that we are getting into SEO we now understand this to be a big issue. Is this a resolvable matter? At this point what is the best approach to handle this? So far we have considered a couple of options. 1. Change the copy, but on which site? Is one flagged as the original and the other duplicate? 2. Robots.txt noindex, nofollow on the old one. Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | CallRingTalk0 -
Does anyone know of a Domain auction site that includes MOZ rankings?
Trying to locate a site that has this as part of the search criteria
On-Page Optimization | | hooopdream0