Hello, I've read that the age of the domain is a factor in how google ranks sites. I was wondering how does google go about determining the age of a domain? I recently registered a domain that according to the waybackmachine.org has been used for sites as far back as 1999 (last records are Feb 2006). Does this necessarily mean that google will see it as an old domain or would it only count the domains age from the time that I registered it? Thanks for your help. Jordan
Age is one factor but if the domain name is not being used but just registered, it would not be as valuable as a newly registered domain name which has contents and lots of backlinks. A simple Whois on the domain name will show you the registrant details and also would yield the date of registration and expiration. The age would come into importance when comparing two sites with pretty much close in all comparison the older one would get precedence. It is sort of like the coin toss to break a tie.
Google is a top level registrar (although they don't sell , so they have all the database. you can see the list from here : http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html
Yes I missed that point the domain creation date is the date that the domain age begins.Dropped and registered domains don't have much difference than the newly regged domains.