As a website owner, your goal is to be found by your target audience. One of the best ways for people to find you is by searching on Google and finding your website on the first page of Google. That is why in this series, I am covering the 200 plus known and speculated Google Ranking Factors when determining which website gets the coveted placement on page one.
What is Domain Age?
Domain age is based on the date you purchased and registered your domain name typically with your web host. The theory is that older domain names might have an edge in the search engines for several reasons.
- History with the search engines
- Older Domains have the potential to have links pointing back to them
- Typically older domains have more content indexed in the search engines
So is Domain Age a major ranking factor? The answer is no. It is a minor factor that Google considers and of course all things being equal, the older domain should do better in the search engines. If you look at the list above, you might notice that 2 out of 3 items, you can actually control. If you create high quality content on a consistent basis that gets shared on various social media networks, then you might get some quality inbound links.
Does this mean you can buy a domain name today, write a bunch of content, market it on social media and rank well by the end of the week? The answer for 99% of websites, would be no. Unless you’re getting high quality links from sites like:
- Wall Street Journal
- New York Times
- Mashable
- A .gov website
- A .edu website
This is typically not possible for the vast majority of websites. Google tends not to give a site much value for a few months. This is because websites are very easy to create and links still hold a lot of weight, albeit crappy links hold very little weight. So you can anticipate your articles and website won’t rank well for around 6 months or longer if you don’t consistently create high quality content.
What about Buying an Older Domain Name?
This seems like a good solution right? Except that when you purchase a Domain Name, you will need to have it registered and if it’s owned by a new entity that is not recognized, then you will not get all the benefit of the Domains Age. You might get the benefit if you purchase a fully created website that already has a lot of links pointing to it. But don’t expect it to be as much.
The Takeaway
Domain Age is a minor Google Ranking Factor but if you have a website that is at least 6 months old that has a lot of high quality content that is consistently added and also receives a lot of high quality links pointing back to each article, then you can out rank a website that has been around for a significantly longer time if that site doesn’t have the same level of content or links.
So don’t worry too much about this ranking factor since you can control some of the main areas that typically benefit older domains, like links and content.
Hopefully you enjoyed this article that talks about Domain Age as a Google Ranking Factor for your SEO Strategy of your website. I also created a video that talks about this topic. Check it out above.