5 years old is an aged domain for SEO ?

Discussion in 'Search Engine Optimization' started by dan99, Jul 14, 2008.

  1. #1
    Hi,

    I have a neglected 5 y.o. domain fully indexed in Google but not ranking well at all.

    I have the intention to rebuild the website by targeting different and less competitive keywords in another industry (the domain name is suitable).

    Do you think that a 5 y.o domain could be of help with the new keywords targeting a new market ?.

    Or 5 years online is nothing for SEO marketing ?

    thanks
     
    dan99, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  2. ozan

    ozan Peon

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    #2
    The time since registration is not relevant to search engines (as far as I know).

    When people talk about aged domains, they mean domains that have received backlinks during previous periods of use. This becomes largely irrelevant once the substance of the site (and thus the relevant keywords) changes.
     
    ozan, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  3. lipsigprice

    lipsigprice Banned

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    #3
    hi

    first of 5 year old domin is good for seo

    than no rank because no only domin effect for rank.

    Good Contant and SEM Also For Good Rank.
     
    lipsigprice, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  4. hiteshb

    hiteshb Well-Known Member

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    #4
    age is good factor. Need to do some seo and attract traffic. Age will be a bonus to all this
     
    hiteshb, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  5. aaron_nimocks

    aaron_nimocks Im kind of a big deal Staff

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    #5
    The big deal about people using aged domains is having aged links. If there were no backlinks to the site in that 5 years then its not a big deal.
     
    aaron_nimocks, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  6. vare

    vare Peon

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    #6
    do a back link check on the domain and figure out how many you have, dubble it each day. make sure the inlinks are from relevent websites.
     
    vare, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  7. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #7
    I do notice a slight advantage with age domains, but as Aaron said aged backlinks is what really ads value. I've got 100's of domains 12+ Years Old, some have 10 year old Yahoo Directory listings and these things you can toss any old content on and they rank well out of the gate.

    Both Google and Yahoo (Possibly MSN also) have wordings in their patents regarding the age of backlinks and scoring.
     
    sweetfunny, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  8. Creare SEO

    Creare SEO Peon

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    #8
    I have also experienced older domains performing initally better. Although if you are now aiming towards a different search term and if the old domain has any backwards links and the link text is irrelevant to the new search term then this wont do you any favors.
     
    Creare SEO, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  9. ozan

    ozan Peon

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    #9
    age of backlinks != age of domain

    I would be interested to know if anybody has any evidence whatsoever that the age of a domain is ipso facto relevant. I doubt it, but stand to be corrected.

    If the domain comes with a history of relevant backlinks, you exprerience a PR windfall. Otherwise nothing. Simple.
     
    ozan, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  10. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #10
    Yes, i had an 11 year old .net with no backlinks and it wasn't indexed. I purchased the .com version and put exactly the same page on both, and gave them both a link from the same PR5 page and the old .net ranked first on any query from the page's content.

    Of course an experiment must be repeatable to hold merit, and i have only tried it once however so far so good. I must revisit this one now i've been reminded.
     
    sweetfunny, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  11. seo4china

    seo4china Well-Known Member

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    #11
    Age of domain even without aged links still can help although not as much as if a full site was active during that period. A five year domain even without links is going to perform better or at least avoid the sandbox effect that the newly registered domain would be subject to.
     
    seo4china, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  12. ozan

    ozan Peon

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    #12
    This is interesting.

    Were you getting results between the .com and .net results? Or was the .net directly before the .com?

    If it's the former, then this is the first indication that age may actually matter (assuming that google otherwise treats .com and .net equally, and the backlinks were treated identically).

    I would try to repeat your experiment, but it would be too expensive for me to obtain enough results for it to be reliable.
     
    ozan, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  13. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #13
    Well Google have claimed they are extension agnostic, meaning extensions are treated exactly the same except country tld's which doesn't apply to .com or .net

    Yes the aged .net was outranking the newly registered .com for nearly all queries, and they both had the same HTML page uploaded and a backlink from the same PR5 page.

    I can redo this experiment no problems, i have 100's of domains 10 years and older it just means buying the corresponding domain in another extension.
     
    sweetfunny, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  14. ozan

    ozan Peon

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    #14
    Well I'd certainly be interested to see the results.

    Though I maintain that if the older domain is ranked higher, the difference would be negligible.
     
    ozan, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  15. tehfincheh

    tehfincheh Banned

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    #15
    It could possibly be affected by Google handing the newer domain a penalty for duplicate content.

    Assuming that both pages were identical, the older domain may have been given "first stab" at the content so to speak.

    That's a wild guess, but it's definitely an interesting experiment.
     
    tehfincheh, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  16. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #16
    Ok i've setup another experiment, i used a junk domain 10 Years 7 Months old which has no backlinks and isn't indexed and purchased the .net version also. I have put the exact page up on both domains, and given them both a backlink from the same PR5 page.

    I will also link both from here:

    www.italindex.com and www.italindex.net

    On the page i have used some unique words with zero Google results, one with 5 results and various common words so searches can be done with quotes etc.

    Lets see. :)

    EDIT: I have made a dedicated thread to discuss and track the progress of the experiment, it can be found here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=8507818
     
    sweetfunny, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  17. atticus1

    atticus1 Peon

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    #17
    Ozan, your right about the age of backlinks. However, I do think a domain that is simply aged is also more advantageous than a domain that is not aged.

    The SERPS are all about authority. If a website has good authority than it is going to be ranked higher than sites that have less authority. A site that is older is given more authority naturally. For examples, if Website A is 5 years old and has absolutely no backlinks and website B is brand new and has no backlinks, website A is going to show up in the search engines first. Now, it stands to reason that if Website A gains 100 backlinks and Website B gains 100 links (assuming the links are the exact same authority) Website A is going to still dominate the search engines results.

    This has been my experience from working with companies that have new sites as opposed to companies that have older sites with no inbound links. My point is, if I am going to start an SE Campaign, I will take an old site over a new one any day of the week.
     
    atticus1, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  18. ozan

    ozan Peon

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    #18
    I think I probably agree with this - either simply due to age as you and sweetfunny suggest or due to a penalty for duplicate content as tehfincheh suggests.

    But if all this does is allow google to differentiate between two otherwise identical results, then what is the point? This is what I mean by the difference being negligible.
     
    ozan, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  19. sweetfunny

    sweetfunny Banned

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    #19
    Well other then what i'm doing, how else would you determine if there's benefit? You can't other then make assumptions it has/has not.
     
    sweetfunny, Jul 14, 2008 IP
  20. juliensimon

    juliensimon Peon

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    #20
    still no result about your experiment sweet funny?
     
    juliensimon, Jul 14, 2008 IP