Trying to figure out the algorithms of the major search engines can drive a person insane. Especially since they are ever changing. When website owners find out that doing something to a website makes it rank higher, they jump all over it and try to do as much of the thing as they can. Unfortunately, this leads to abuse of the <strong>SEO practice</strong> and thus limiting its value in the algorithms. An example of this is <strong>reciprocal links</strong>. When people found out that building link popularity would help increase your rankings they started getting as many reciprocal links as they could. Software programs were created to automate this process and help people get thousands of reciprocal links. The search engines quickly caught on that people were doing this so they started counting reciprocal links differently than one way links. Over time, people have figured out how to manipulate pretty much every true SEO principle. There is one thing people can't manipulate, one thing people can't fake...it's time. You can't make a website any older than it is. No matter what you do a website is as only as old as it is. That is why Google made age a part of their algorithm, because you can't manufacture age. Sites that have been around for awhile have an advantage over newer sites, all else being equal. When I take on a new client that has a site that is 5 years or older, I start to salivate because I know the potential of the website. I know that with the proper SEO practices in place, I can make that site move up quickly in the rankings. Don't get discouraged if your website is brand new, I do recommend however that you have patience because the one thing you can't hurry is time. Source: SearchReadySEO
That is well-known. All other factors being the same or equal or comparable, the domain or website that has been around for a longer time would probably get a higher rank than a new domain that just sprung up yesterday in the rains.
Domain age is kind of important, but what is most important is that your domain has a lot of high quality content to give it low bounce rates, and that your site has a lot of high quality links to it. No one ever got to #1 for a high search volume keyword by just having an old domain name.