Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Fresh backlinks vs old backlinks: A solid ranking factor?
-
Hi Moz community,
Backlinks being a major ranking factor, do they must be very recent or fresh to make a ranking difference compared to the backlinks which are years old? We know usually fresh content ranks well, but I wonder how much the fresh/recent backlinks impact in rankings. Do the years old backlinks from related and reputed website have same impact on rankings?
Thanks
-
Hello,
It is important to always keep developing new relevant content. The value of a particular link can be affected by many factors and the age of a link can be one of them.
Personally, I believe many links are considered more relevant after they have aged for a while. I have noticed that links that are 3 to 6 months old and are of high-quality pass more ranking value that brand new links. Also, the quality of the traffic you are getting through those links is an important factor.
As links start ageing and producing more and more traffic I really think they get more value from the search engines.
Best Regards
-
I would imagine that the date of which a link was acquired does, in fact, impact the links value.
More importantly, though, I would say it is much more important that you keep getting new links - For instance, if you got a few backlinks on really great sites a few years back and then just let those sit without acquiring new links, Google might think your company has dropped in relevance and that people no longer care about you.
Old, credible backlinks are good - consistently getting new backlinks is better.
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
-
Do you think profanity in the content can harm a site's rankings?
In my early 20's I authored an ebook that provides men with natural ways to improve their ahem... "bedroom performance". I'm now in my mid 30s, and while it's not such an enthralling topic, the thing makes me 80 or so bucks a day on good days, and it actually works. I update the blog from time to time and build links to it on occasion from good sources. I've carried my SEO knowledge to a more "reputable" business, but this project is still interesting to me, because it's fully mine. I am more interested in getting it to rank and convert than anything, but following the same techniques that are working to grow the other business, this one continues to tank. Disavow bad links, prune thin content.. no difference. However, one thing I just noticed now are my search queries in the reports. When I first started blogging on this, I was real loose with my tongue, and spoke quite frankly (and dirty to various degrees). I'm much more refined and professional in how I write now. However, the queries I'm ranking for... a lot of d words, c words (in the sex sense)... sounds almost pornographic. Think Google may be seeing this, and putting me lower in rankings or in some sort of lower level category because of it? Heard anything about google penalizing for profanity? I guess in this time of authority and trust, that can hurt both of those... but I wonder if anyone's heard any actual confirmation of this or has any experience with this? Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | DavidCapital0 -
Do the sub domain backlinks count for main domain and increase authority?
Hi all, I just wonder if the back links for different sub domains will be counted and considered to rank the main domain better or they are just limit to sub domain pages? There are many websites which has got multiple sub domains which receive backlinks? So the backlinks to main domain and sub domain weigh same at Google? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Google ranking impact: Returning visitor vs New visitor
Hi all, If a website's traffic increase in "New visitors"; will this impact rankings? Do the website overall traffic affect rankings? How much this is related with ranking improvement for main keywords? Just because thousands of visits increased for website, will it count as a strong ranking improvement signal? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Flat Structure URL vs Structured Sub-directory URL
We are finally taking our classifieds site forward and moving into a much improved URL structure, however, there is some disagreement over whether to go with a Flat URL structure or a structured sub-directory. I've browsed all of the posts and Q&A's for this going back to 2011, and still don't feel like I have a real answer. Has anyone tested this yet, or is there any consensus over ranking? I am in a disagreement with another SEO manager about this for our proposed URL structure redesign who is for it because it is what our competitors are doing. Our classifieds are geographically based, and we group by state, county, and city. Most of our traffic comes from state and county based searches. We also would like to integrate categories into the URL for some of the major search terms we see. The disagreement arises around how to structure the site. I prefer the logical sub-directory style: [sitename]/[category]/[state]/[county]/
Algorithm Updates | | newspore
mysite.com/for-sale/california/kern-county/
or
[sitename]/[category]/[county]-county-[stateabb]/
mysite.com/for-sale/kern-county-ca/ I don't mind the second, except for when you look at it in the context of the whole site: Geo Landing Pages:
mysite.com/california/
mysite.com/los-angeles-ca-90210/ Actual Search Pages:
mysite.com/for-sale/orange-ca/[filters] Detail Pages:
mysite.com/widget-type/cool-product-name/productid I want to make sure this flat structure performs better before sacrificing my analytics sanity (and ordered logic). Any case studies, tests or real data around this would be most helpful, someone at Moz must've tackled this by now!0 -
How much link juice does a sites homepage pass to inner pages and influence inner page rankings?
Hi, I have a question regarding the power of internal links and how much link juice they pass, and how they influence search engine ranking positions. If we take the example of an ecommerce store that sells kites. Scenario 1 It can be assumed that it is easier for the kite ecommerce store to earn links to its homepage from writing great content on its blog, as any blogger that will link to the content will likely use the site name, and homepage as anchor text. So if we follow this through, then it can be assumed that there will eventually be a large number of high quality backlinks pointing to the sites homepage from various high authority blogs that love the content being posted on the sites blog. The question is how much link juice does this homepage pass to the category pages, and from the category pages then to the product pages, and what influence does this have on rankings? I ask because I have seen strong ecommerce sites with very strong DA or domain PR but with no backlinks to the product page/category page that are being ranked in the top 10 of search results often, for the respective category and product pages. It therefore leads me to assume that internal links must have a strong determiner on search rankings... Could it therefore also be assumed that a site with a PR of 5 and no links to a specific product page, would rank higher than a site with a PR of 1 but with 100 links pointing to the specific product page? Assuming they were both trying to rank for the same product keyword, and all other factors were equal. Ie. neither of them built spammy links or over optimised anchor text? Scenario 2 Does internal linking work both ways? Whereas in my above example I spoke about the homepage carrying link juice downward to the inner category and product pages. Can a powerful inner page carry link juice upward to category pages and then the homepage. For example, say the blogger who liked the kite stores blog content piece linked directly to the blog content piece from his site and the kite store blog content piece was hosted on www.xxxxxxx.com/blog/blogcontentpiece As authority links are being built to this blog content piece page from other bloggers linking to it, will it then pass link juice up to the main blog category page, and then the kite sites main homepage? And if there is a link with relevant anchor text as part of the blog content piece will this cause the link juice flowing upwards to be stronger? I know the above is quite winded, but I couldn't find anywhere that explains the power of internal linking on SERP's... Look forward to your replies on this....
Algorithm Updates | | sanj50500 -
Correlation of Rankings with Personal Pronouns?
Has there been any tests or studies that associate writing in the first person or using "emotional" feeling phrases to higher rankings. More specifically to a blog structure. I'm trying a blog option with a local telecommunications company, however I'm having flashbacks of writing those 5 paragraph essays when taking the SATs. The owner decided he should take on the responsibility and it's like he just can't bring himself to write from a personal perspective. He's a bit stuck in the "professional" mindset and worried about appearing unprofessional. I empathize with his perspective, but I know it's not going to work..or maybe it will? it's just not going to be interesting to readers, but perhaps google will appreciate the fresh content. I don't think letting an employee takeover will be an option as he's very protective of the company's image. So would you ditch the blog? or continue with the dull posts?
Algorithm Updates | | squareplug0 -
Manual query to search for backlinks?
Hello, I've been using open site explorer, dabbled with seo spy glass, and other back linking sites, but I was wondering if there was a manual way of searching for back links? Such as site.www.widgets.com +keyword -widgets.com to show me results of all the sites pointing to www.widgets.com, or pointing to the keywords linking to widgets.com. I do enjoy Open Site Explorer, but it takes a few months index the back links ive done.
Algorithm Updates | | Modbargains0 -
Rankings changing every couple of MINUTES in Google?
We've been experiencing some unusual behaviour in the Google.co.uk SERPs recently... Basically, the ranking of some of our websites for certain keywords appears to be changing by the minute. For example, doing a search for "our keyword" might show us at #20. Then a few minutes later, doing the same search shows us at #14, and then the same search a few minutes later shows us at #26, and then sometimes we're not ranked at all, etc etc. I know the algorithm changes a lot, but does it really change every couple of minutes? Has anyone else experienced this kind of behaviour in the SERPs? What could be causing it to happen?
Algorithm Updates | | d4online0