Hey there, I was wondering how google calculates domain age? Somebody had my domain before me. Does domain age start over when I bought this domain? Some domain age checkers have been given me the duration I owned it and others have been given me the duration when the domain was first bought by the previous owner. Please advise. Thanks in advance. Sincerely, Travis Walters
You can buy a domain name and sit on it for 3 years, but if there is no content on the site for the bots to cache then it will not matter. After the 3 years you decide to put a site up, to Google that site is brand new because its the first time it has been able to cache the content. In your case I would think that google will look back at the first cache it has of the site, which is probably the old owner and use that in determining the age of your site.
From a good post I was reading on sitepoint (couldn't find it in quick search) they explained how search engines can easily read whois records as can we and can determine if a site has changed owners or not. If this has any weight on age or ranking it is really unknown, I would personally assume it would but I'm sure it is some how calculated in.
Hey there, Thanks for the responses. In my opinion, it should be when the owner changes - unless the theme stays the same and the pages do not get deleted. So maybe it does a combination of both, looking at the cache theme, and looking at the whois records for changes. Well, I guess my site has one of two possible ages then heh.. Thanks again for the responses. Sincerely, Travis Walters