Does the Age of a Domain Matter?
So, I plan to address some of what are considered to be ranking factors and discover whether they are true or false.
Today, I will start with the age of your domain. Does it matter? Will an older domain rank faster?
Well, the short answer is no. And John Mueller of Google has confirmed this with this quote -
"domain age helps nothing"
It certainly used to be a ranking factor, and as such, people were tempted to buy "pre-aged" domains to get them ahead of the competition. This itself can be fraught with danger. If you buy a used domain, that has previously been involved in underhand practices, that reputation will stick.
Here at WA, you can only buy brand new domains that have never been registered before.
So, having established that the age of your domain means nothing, how about the age of your website that you build on it? Now, that is a different matter. Google views all new sites with suspicion, it needs to see that you are in it for the long-term.
If a website is going to be abandoned, it typically occurs in the first 3 months. That initial excitement of having your own site soon wears off when people realise how much work is involved. So, Google doesn't want to rank a site highly that will never gain authority because it could be abandoned shortly.
Realistically, it is difficult for a site to rank highly for the first 6 months. Continually adding content is key, ideally 2 or 3 posts per week.
Of course, this may not be possible due to work and family commitments. You can still achieve success, but be aware that it may take a little longer.
Join me again next time for the truth about other Google ranking factors!
Recent Comments
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Some outfits still promote aged domains as something that will help to rank; it is good that Google places information out there to counter that, which is good.
I was interested to see John speaking about domains carrying history, which can be good and bad, seems to be counterintuitive and contradictory, to what he was saying.
My take-home is that we should do due diligence before purchasing a domain name. It is a simple process, and we can use a resource called the way back machine, an internet archive, to view historical web instances. Very helpful. I have been caught out previously; the best domain name, in my mind, it was a porn site in a previous life and a very spammy one at that.
I have to agree; it is the content that creates and defines the online presence. We should focus on that!
This is very interesting information and informative. There is an urban myth that age is an important factor in a domain name. That just by being around longer Google values it more.
Domain worth is tied to many factors and age was thought to be one of them. Thanks for the clarification.
Alex
Gosh. I was thinking about this earlier today Diane. I have a domain that is 19 years old but was only ever used for email. I am currently deciding whether to cancel the renewal and let the registration lapse. And I have hung on to it for the last 3 years because "one day....".
The domain is not especially useful for anything but back in the day, using the email service what more reliable than yahoo mail and gmail.
Anyone need a 19 year old domain? :-)
Excellent points worth mentioning. Most people think that “domain age” matter in ranking but it is not so thanks for revealing the truth. I learned some time ago that some people do buy domain names that have bad words in the URL. I thought Google will not rank those bad words in a domain name as I read the Google criteria. Google does state no swear words or cussing allowed in a domain name. Have you investigated if thats the case? I am curious. Some domain names had words that real cuss words but in abbreviation form like texting. Its unbelievable that such domain names like that exist. I never saw any sites with cuss words in a domain name be ranked in Google. Not in the first 20 pages that I see, they do keep it clean and appropriate authority niche with strict business ethics.
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Interesting topic.
I was also wondering regarding this if it's possible that I post sth (my first post) than write and post other articles.
And after six months I delete the first post and post it again, so more people recognize it and it gets ranked well altough it was initially my first post?
Hi - no, if you delete it and re-post it, Google will see it as a brand new post and the ranking process will start from the beginning.
Instead, you can edit it to make improvements and when Google crawls your site and finds the improved version, it may well rank higher.
Ok thanks Diane👍, good to know.