I have a site that has been around for some time (local plumber) and has good links. The site was taken down for a little bit and redesigned while having SEO work done. It now ranks #2 for Cleveland (+keyword) in the google SERP's.... Is this a matter of good SEO and an aged domain, or having the new SEO work done and it's feeling the effect of it but will likely diminish? Example: It went from not even being ranked in the top 2 pages to being #@ in the SERP's Thanks in Advance
Having an aged domain can give you preference in SERPS, and of course good SEO always helps out. In all honestly, I would say that it would be a combination of your SEO work that was done, plus the aged domain. Each of these would go hand in hand in giving you better rankings.
Having a domain name that has been around a while is good but you still need to the standered SEO stuff
Aged domain helps a little... Good SEO work is what has got you to that rank, the key in staying there, is to do your daily dosage of SEO. Try to get some dynamic content on your website, something that changes daily, this will increase the refresh rate, causing Google to crawl your website more often, which will retain your rank. Keep it up
I think its the combination of both. And it definately seems like that SEO work done on your site paid off well.