Hello all, I am comming to the realization that instead of registering a new domain for a new site, you should look at buying an old domain to exploit the age of an existing domain. I have heard alot that an aged domain is a great asset in SEO. What I'm wondering is how much additional beifit is there to buying an aged site that you can leave in tact and simply add to? What am am interested in is: How much greater SEO benifit is an aged site over an aged domain that you would replace the content on. And then how much additional benifit is there to an aged page on an aged site if you want to SEO that page rather than a new page on an aged site? Further, how much benifit is there to not changing the content on an aged page over an aged page left as is? I hope this is making sence, because I'm finding it a bit hard to find the right words for the question. Any advice is appreciated.
Yes an aged domain may help you. The problem is in finding a good quality aged domain. A lot of people try to sell their domains after they get banned or penalized by a search engine. I have heard that aged pages and aged sites may be favored by Google, but at the same time they also like fresh content. It may be easiest to buy an existing aged site and work on getting more links to it. If you instead buy an aged domain and put a new site on it, it would probably take longer to get rankings. Search engines are wary of trusting content on a redesigned website.
The age of the domain is a small factor in your site's rankings, but I don't think it's a big enough factor that most people should even worry about it. Your time (and money) would be better spent looking for a domain name that contains your keywords and can be easily branded. The longest I've ever waited for first page rankings is 1 year (in a very competitive niche). Since I'm trying to build a business and a brand I don't see a year as too long to wait for top rankings on a well branded domain name.
Once again, nobody knows. I had a domain a year with a static placeholder page that included text related to our keywords. Then launched site when the content was ready into wordpress. Had a great first two months then got chucked out of the sandbox. Still working to get back in, sometimes google ticks me off.
I believe that the Aged Site is for the same owner. Not the new one. Old content that has links or good SERP position should be kept if possible. And then modified as needed. Age of a page does matter but how much is open to debate. Reason: Many of the development tools rewrite to page when published and that would make it a new page. Content, should change monthly just to change the last-modified-date . Google will then index it again. Otherwise I don't think the content age matters. Note: But the age of the internal links on that page is important for the internal Page Rank calculations. And all outbound links should have the NoFollow attribute added. But if it is a important outbound link, then the age of that link is priceless.
More important than any of these is age of links. Links that have been around for a lot longer, especially from authoritative sites, are far more advantageous than just an aged domain.
An older domain is likely to bring you some benefit, but given that this is just one of many factors in the Google PR calculation, buying an older domain alone won't make much difreence. It's also about how you promote it.
Thanks for the info guys, I'm not so worried about the branding side of it for the sort of project I am thinking about. I agree with the comments that age of links is important, I think I remember reading this in some of Brad Callens stuff as well. The main thing I want to bring to such a site is link building on high profit terms (not neccessarily high compeition terms), so it seems a good option is to look at buying into an old site that has some old organic links but is underutilized due to lack of keyword analysis and anchor text then add to the site to take some high CPM terms with good link biulding. Thanks for the advice.