Domain Age
Domain age is the age of your domain/website and it is a ranking factor.
Among the hundreds of weighting factors that Google considers in determining how to rank search engine results, one of them is the age of your site — in other words, how long that domain has been around.
Even though everyone likes to call it domain age, I like to call it “website age” because it is not the age of the domain, but the age of the website that matters.
Domain age isn’t referring to just how long you’ve owned a given domain name, but instead, how long it has been since Google first indexed that domain, or saw a link to it.
Many people think that buying an old/aged domain will help them in SEO. Because of this factor, many companies purchase “aged” domains that have been around for a while, for the extra bit of SEO value. However, it may not help them as just because a domain has been registered for 10 years, it certainly doesn’t mean that Google considers it 10 years old — it must have had a site indexed by Google.
I covered this topic in more detail in this video
Importance
Website age is an important factor since Google knows that anyone can start a website these days and include all the SEO goodies in it. But hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day!
A genuine reputation and quality content on a website can only be built up over time in most cases and Google knows it, of course.
Time Frame
If your site is new don’t stress, you can still get better rankings within few months. I have achieved first page rankings for many of my clients’ new websites within 4-5 months (though of course more time for very high competition keywords).
What you can do
You can’t really do much. After starting a new site, you just have to wait for the site to be indexed and let it age.
However, if you buy a domain and you think it’s going to take months and months to develop the site, I would recommend at least make one or two pages live with just the text in it (with On-Page SEO done), so the site gets indexed and that way domain starts aging. You can always make changes to the page and add other features but at least by making it live this way, the age counting starts earlier.
Page Age– We talked about domain and site age so far, how about age of a single page? Do the old pages on your site have more SEO authority than newer pages? Mostly yes. I’ve noticed in many cases that old pages (provided they are quality content pages) usually have higher PA (page authority) than newer pages.
Use the Moz bar to check this (as explained in earlier modules). If you see that any old page on your site has high PA, why not add a link on this page to your important service pages/money-making pages and let your own site’s page pass some SEO juice to your money-making page!
Is it ok to add more content on an old page from an SEO point of view? Yes, it is fine. In fact, I personally think Google likes an old page constantly updated with new text. Avoid removing old text though. Just add more to it, if you like.
Domain Name
Exact Match Domains basically means domain with your target keywords in it. Ex: BuyShoes.com has the main target keyword “BuyShoes” in the domain.
I don’t think it is super-important to have keywords in the domain names, but it won’t hurt if you have keyword-rich domains. If you can, I would still recommend getting the domain with your primary keywords in it.
I know many sites with keyword-rich domains are doing well. But it’s also important to know that those sites have taken care of all the other SEO factors as well.
NOTE: Even though keywords in a domain may not matter much, keywords in URL does matter a lot, as mentioned earlier. So, if you have domain site.com (non-keyword based), you still should add keywords in URL, something like- xyz.com/KW
example: site.com/buy-shoes-online [Full URL Book is already provided earlier.]
TLD (Top Level Domain)
Below is a typical breakdown of a domain.
Protocol (https or https will be discussed later in Site Security module) and domain names are already discussed earlier in this Book. Now, let’s talk about TLD (top-level domain). Some examples of TLD are:
.com
.net
.org
.edu
.gov.au
Google trust .edu and .gov.au are more than usual domains, because it’s not easy to get them, and only trusted authorities such as schools/colleges/universities and government sites can have it.
Is country-specific TLD better?
Yes, if your target audience is in Australia, then you should buy .com.au domain, and if it’s in India, then you should buy .co.in and so on. If your target audience is global, then .com is fine.
Google gives preference (considering all other SEO factors taken care of) to country-specific TLDs. So, if a user is searching about buying products online in Australia, then Google will of course show them the Australian online stores (.com.au) rather than international (.com) sites.
There is an exception though. If all .com.au sites are super low authority and .com site has much higher authority then .com may rank higher. Authority, by the way, is built by all the SEO factors mentioned in these modules.
NEED HELP?
If you’re planning to get a new website or website redesign, we can help you with domain name ideas, guide you with the best way to buy a domain, find the best hosting in Australia for your site, and website design and development.
Contact Us now if you need help – (07) 3076 6921
Vikas Rana
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