As with many other debates around SEO there is much discussion on whether the age of a domain plays a significant factor in website rankings.
Carry out a search for “domain age and ranking” and you’ll find many posts debating the importance of the age of a domain and how it will affect its ranking in the search engines. In fact this question has been put forward so often that Google’s Matt Cutts has made a number of YouTube videos addressing “How much does a domain’s age affect its ranking?”
Make great content don’t worry nearly as much about how many years your domain is registered for. What makes a really big difference is the quality of your site and the links pointing to the site.
In the video above Matt Cutts says that you shouldn’t worry about the age of your domain instead you should focus on the quality of your site and the links pointing to your site. Despite these reassurances the debate continues. Some people are convinced that domain age does play a role while others say it doesn’t.
Based on our work with both ‘mature’ and new domains (and taking into account the site content, links coming into the sites and the competitiveness of a sites keyword phrases) we have seen differences in the difficulties in getting new sites ranked. If this is the case then newer domains are definitely at a distinct disadvantage.
Google does appears to give preferential treatment to long-established businesses/domain names. Based on this we believe the age of the domain is a significant factor in the ranking of websites.
As a business owner if you are looking for immediate search engine results then the age of your domain name (if it’s newly registered) may prove to be a problem. You can spend money on purchasing an older domain name for SEO benefits but this should be carefully considered and researched. A number of sites show you how to backorder or find aged domains.
If you’re willing to be patient and spend the time establishing your domain name and site, focussing on building quality content and links into your site you will start to see search engine results over time.
Forward Planning
It’s a good idea to think ahead. Research and register a domain name in advance as far as possible of when you want to launch your site.
Once your domain is registered, setup a placeholder page and submit your site to Google via Google webmaster tools.
Begin to build links to your site by submitting to directories or by pointing any other sites you may have to your new domain. By doing this you’ll get a head start in Google’s ranking algorithm before your full website is launched.
