Domain Age | SEO Domain Age Factors, Domain Age Trust Factors

Domain age is an important factor within search engine optimisation because it plays a part in the trust built up for the website. Think of age in the connection with trust, the older a website is, the more likely it has been created for good use. Spam like websites generally have a short life before being left to rot in the darkest corners of the internet, it is the age factor that helps prevent these websites from gaining high placements.

This system was introduced in order to filter results in a more stringent fashion. Websites that were kept maintained and content driven were more likely to gain successful placement over a long period of time. This is because search engines will look at update frequency, how the website updates, how the site changes and more. Domain age will strip out the websites that are born and die quickly, this helps clean out results.

Domain age can be an obstruction for newly acquired domains and newly built websites, typically this can be overcome within a 12 month period by maintaining the website and giving it attention so that it expands and has a growing link profile. If search engines can see that the website has not been designed to come and go, it will become more trusted and therefore can achieve higher positions.

This principle was once called the Google sandbox, however, it has been proven that there really is no sandbox, instead, it is more like an evaluation period. New websites can still rank and perform well, but it all depends on the market and the competition that the website enters against.

Domain age will play a key part in any SEO project, which is why it is important that new domains need trust building before the website can make a true impact on performance. You will find that websites younger than 1 year will struggle the most, after the first 3 years the domain will have built a trust element within search engines, which is when it can begin to target highly competitive keywords.

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There are other factors that impact how this works, such as the websites backlink profile and content volumes. Websites can quickly go from 0-60 if they are popular with the public and acquire lots of links naturally.

Websites can appear overnight and can achieve high rankings in as little as 6 months, however, this is typical of a niche product or service that becomes popular in a short period of time. Other factors also play a role in the websites performance when the domain is at a young age.

If your domain is less than 12 months old, it is important to keep the site maintained, and to continue working on the websites off site profile. Building backlinks will help the website acquire page rank and weight, which will count towards rankings.