Age of domain name or content irrelevant to Google ranking

[djbaxter]

Old Domains Don't Benefit You In Google Nor Do New Domains
by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable
July 8, 2019

Google's John Mueller had to come on Twitter and once again dispel the myth that the age of a domain name does not matter in terms of Google's ranking algorithms. New or old domains can rank well and it doesn't help your site rank to register your domain name for a longer period of time.

[T]he myth about domain name age is not new in the SEO field. We covered it numerous times, in 2018, 2017, 2016, we've covered Google saying that they do not use domain registration length as a ranking factor before but it was back in 2009. We even discussed this topic a few times in the past and each time, we discussed it it came back up. In fact it didn't stop domain registrars from using this as a marketing tactic. So here is our 2019 version of the same story.

Oh and then the whole 301 redirect dilution topic we covered a numerous times:

@JohnMu

We forward the signals with redirects, so there wouldn't be any 301 dilution. I don't see how age alone could be a good signal -- content doesn't get better automatically just because it's old.

8:06 AM - Jul 5, 2019

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[mborgelt]

Thanks for sharing! I encourage all of our clients and partners follow John and Gary on Twitter. They shed light on so many myths that SEOs and business owners spend hours, if not, years spinning their wheels.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

Age alone isn't a good ranking signal, but it does have an impact. If you're going into a vertical with a brand new domain (or a relatively new domain), and all the other incumbents have domains that are 15-20 years old... it's going to be tough.

Age of domain doesn't always mean someone sat on the domain for 15 years and is now just spinning it out for the world to see. There has probably been linked or unlinked mentions, or at the very least some sort of association with the brand.

It's worth paying attention to, but not the biggest factor to consider. At the very least an indirect correlation with difficulty to break into the top SERP for a set of queries.

 

[Greg Schueler]

I believe a lot of people confuse "domain age" with "site age". Having a site on a domain for 10 years will allow many benefits to build up over time. Just having a domain registered, no benefits.

 

[Eric Rohrback]

I believe a lot of people confuse "domain age" with "site age". Having a site on a domain for 10 years will allow many benefits to build up over time. Just having a domain registered, no benefits.

Very true. Domain age is a good indicator of difficulty, but you need to look at the organization/entity that is behind the domain.