Is anyone monitoring the age of their competitors domains, and if so, has anything been observed that happened on/around March '08? 4 Examples of search terms tracked and the respective average (mean) age of the domains http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chart15uq5.jpg http://img151.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chart152vc5.jpg http://img257.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chart153sa3.jpg http://img151.imageshack.us/my.php?image=chart154nt2.jpg The data is for 4 different search terms, spidering 500 results (roughly 400 domains) Typically, you'd expect the "average domain age" to be stagnant or increase slightly. Understandably, domains can be/bought sold so "older domains" can come back into play. However, you'll notice that the definite trend is a decrease in domain age in March '08. Anyone else seen similar?
Of course Google is letting newer sites climb in rankings. Today, they have to balance new content on blogs against older established sites. I have noticed that blog posts, in particular, can climb for a few days but they slowly fall back in rankings as they age, so it's almost like a reverse scenario is happening. Also, it's well known that Google has been "inflating" new sites with corporate backing. Just look at most of the sites that get listed in TechCrunch, most are not even a year old but because they're corporate financed and mentioned at TechCrunch, they get PR6-PR7 in less than six months and dominate the SERPS while other independent webmasters build hundreds of thousands of backlinks and are lucky if they can get a PR4 or PR5. That's because all the corporate "authority" sites are linking amongst each other and shutting out the independents. Google wasn't that way a few years ago but they've become the whore for the VC's quick cash cow sites like Twitter, Rojo, Seesmic... all junk Web2.0 crap. Honestly, Google's SERPS are absolutely hated these days. Wikipedia dominates almost every search and most of the time it's hard to really find anything relevant. Luckily most of us know what forums or blogs to search for info we need and can almost bypass Google.
some helpful research and it just goes to show that with age comes wisdom in the search results pages!
i've noticed something that Bryce said too...post climb very quick on the first page, even if the blog is new, but they don't last there... well unless some seo is done, but at least they have a chance.