Domains or domain names can be relatively recent or much older, depending on when you established your site. It is a common belief that an aged domain can affect your SEO result to a considerable extent, resulting in changes in your rankings on search engines.
How much truth there is in this belief and how aged domains can actually make a difference to your SEO results are some things worth examining in further detail. You can understand more about these aspects through this concise guide.
Does an Aged Domain Affect Your SEO Results?
Generally speaking, aged domains are not actually major factors when it comes to changing your SEO results or rankings on search engines. Although there are ways in which they can contribute to the results, the actual age of the domain itself does not have much impact on the ranking.
There are definitely other factors that some domains have that might make them rank better, which is why it might seem like some older and more established domains rank better. However, newer domains are equally likely to rank high if they meet all the other relevant criteria.
Domain age tends to refer to when you initially registered your domain. It is possible for aged domains to rank lower or higher based on the quality of their content and the level of activity involved.
In fact, according to John Mueller, a search advocate at Google, the domain age does not help your rankings at all. Thus, if you are thinking of buying an older domain just to improve rankings, this might not actually have the desired effect at all.
Note that domain age does not refer to how up-to-date your content is and only to when your website was established. Given that the age of a domain has correlations with several other factors, however, it is important to examine these in further detail.
Why Do Some Older Domains Rank Better?
Although aged domains might not necessarily affect your SEO results in a direct manner, there are still some situations in which an aged domain might end up ranking better as compared to a newer one due to other indirect influences.
In some cases, the aged domain might even rank lower due to these. Let’s understand some potential reasons behind this below.
Backlinks
According to domain experts at TheDomainWorks, it is possible for aged domains to have more and better backlinks. Backlinks are links to your own website that other websites and blogs use to support their information. These can indicate expertise in the information you provide on your website, while many backlinks are also the result of collaboration.
Both expertise and collaboration can take time to develop, which is why aged domains can sometimes rank higher.
Content Quality
The quality of the content that you provide on your website can also sometimes take time to develop. Older domains and websites may have already undergone several experimental phases and changes in their rankings, giving them a more thorough understanding of how search engine rankings work.
However, even newer domains can ensure good content quality from the moment they are registered and live by making their content more readable and user friendly.
Trust
Trust is another aspect that can sometimes affect your SEO results. The longer your domain is around, the better you can perform due to the trust and familiarity established with the indexing and ranking criteria that the search engine uses.
This kind of trust also extends to your audience and readers, bringing in more traffic to your website in addition to better conversions.
Updates
It is important to make frequent updates to your website so that all the information you provide continues to remain relevant. This kind of relevance can affect your ranking on search engines, in which case it might seem like newer domains might do better.
However, even older websites that remain on top of updates can perform well.
Updating and renewing your domain on an annual basis is also important here.
Sandbox Effect
The sandbox effect is an effect in Google’s search rankings that tends to rank newer websites slightly lower in terms of SEO. This is not meant to immediately and randomly rank newer domains lower, but can occur as a result of filters and signals in place that newer domains might not yet be able to meet.
As trust and authority continue to build and the website keeps up with the signals, the rank can improve.
Final Thoughts
Aged domains do not directly affect your SEO results. A website does not rank higher or lower on search engines simply by virtue of how old or new it is. However, there are some related factors, such as backlinks, quality of your content, trust and updates to your content, that can help you rank higher.
Usually, since older domains have had more time to establish these factors, some of them might rank higher as compared to new ones.
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