How much does age matter?

[handcrafteduk]

Hi,

My website is competing for the term 'unique gifts' but no matter what I try I never seem to get beyond the second page in Google. As far as I'm aware I have good SEO on the page and am working on more inbound links.

What I wanted to know is, how much does the age of a site matter? I've had my site for around 3 years. If age is a factor, is there any point in trying to rank any higher for this term if the older sites will always perform better anyway?

My site: Unique gifts from HandcraftedUK

Cheers,

Gary

[handcrafteduk]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure what those stats mean?

There's been a problem with the site uptime today (host problem!). However, this isn't a frequent occrance (typical it should happen after posting something in a forum!!!).

Half the sites on page 1 have .com in them.

[janeth]

The age matters for new sites but after a site is a year old I think Google no longer worries about the age.

[ctabuk]

Originally Posted by handcrafteduk

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure what those stats mean?

There's been a problem with the site uptime today (host problem!). However, this isn't a frequent occrance (typical it should happen after posting something in a forum!!!).

Half the sites on page 1 have .com in them.

Hi run it by SiteReportCard: Web Site Optimization and Promotion Tools and note the load time.

[incrediblehelp]

3 years is plenty. I would start looking at the back links you have earned and see if they are adequate to rank well for your targeted keywords.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by incrediblehelp

3 years is plenty. I would start looking at the back links you have earned and see if they are adequate to rank well for your targeted keywords.

After a quick glance, this is exactly what I'd do.

Dave

[astro]

Originally Posted by janeth

The age matters for new sites but after a site is a year old I think Google no longer worries about the age.

Janeth,
I have been impressed by many of your posts on this board, your reasoning and logic makes sense to me. But if I may disagree a touch here.

I am beginning to believe age gets more attention from G. according to number of years than they care to admit. I was surprised recently when one site I built 4 years ago as a favour for a friend who has never asked me to update or alter in any way, shape or form has started to hit page one in G. The only explaination I can think of is age. The site was built in 2 hours flat (in publisher on his 'puter!) and meta tagging nicked then altered slightly from one of my other web sites. His site is now starting to push ahead of a couple of my other websites.

I cannot explain why other than age.

Astro

[janeth]

Originally Posted by astro

Janeth,
I have been impressed by many of your posts on this board, your reasoning and logic makes sense to me. But if I may disagree a touch here.

I am beginning to believe age gets more attention from G. according to number of years than they care to admit. I was surprised recently when one site I built 4 years ago as a favour for a friend who has never asked me to update or alter in any way, shape or form has started to hit page one in G. The only explaination I can think of is age. The site was built in 2 hours flat (in publisher on his 'puter!) and meta tagging nicked then altered slightly from one of my other web sites. His site is now starting to push ahead of a couple of my other websites.

I cannot explain why other than age.

Astro

I've been wrong many times before so this would not be the first. I've never tested the age thing before but would think at some point it would all have to even out.

[handcrafteduk]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I really do enjoy using this forum...No where else do you get such good and varied information.

Hopefully one day when I've got a bit more knowledge I'll be able to help others out also.

[deepsand]

Per Google's patent, both the site's age and the length of the most recent domain name renewal are considered to be factors in determining quality; the greater the age and the longer the registration term, the better. The reason for such is that these variables serve as reasonable surrogate measures of the site owner's likelihood of being and intending to be in operation over the long term, with such persons having a greater vested interest in providing goods and/or services of value.

Age, of course, one has no control of; length of registration, on the other hand, is easily controlled.

Note, though, that Google does not reveal the weighting factors assigned to any input variable, including these 2. And, as these are independent of any other variables which you have at your control, such as your site's content and organization, none should be favored over any other.

[1stgirl.com]

ctabuk,

SiteReportCard is great.

Is the load time of 34.28 seconds ok?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by 1stgirl.com

ctabuk,

SiteReportCard is great.

Is the load time of 34.28 seconds ok?

That depends on the access method involved. For dial-up, it's ok; for broadband, very bad.

Note that the "Load Time Check" value displayed on the summary page is actually the time for a 28.8K modem; to see the times for other access methods, click on the "Load Time Check" link.

[vinay11111]

I would like to add one thing more here :

Apart from age if the website domain name is going to expire in near future then also it causes negative impression in search engines and may effect the rankings

[kevinfg]

I have one of my domain name less than 2 years, and basically what i've been doing is continue to gather trusted back links from related web sites to score higher for Google. This has worked for me, while Yahoo has been a breeze without much back link, i've simply applied on-site SEO only to score on the first page.

[ctabuk]

Originally Posted by handcrafteduk

Thanks for the advice everyone. I really do enjoy using this forum...No where else do you get such good and varied information.

Hopefully one day when I've got a bit more knowledge I'll be able to help others out also.

That is exactly the kind of post that makes it all worthwhile - rep points awarded. David

PS sort out the load time

[monfis]

Originally Posted by astro

Janeth,
I have been impressed by many of your posts on this board, your reasoning and logic makes sense to me. But if I may disagree a touch here.

I am beginning to believe age gets more attention from G. according to number of years than they care to admit. I was surprised recently when one site I built 4 years ago as a favour for a friend who has never asked me to update or alter in any way, shape or form has started to hit page one in G. The only explaination I can think of is age. The site was built in 2 hours flat (in publisher on his 'puter!) and meta tagging nicked then altered slightly from one of my other web sites. His site is now starting to push ahead of a couple of my other websites.

I cannot explain why other than age.

Astro

Hi astro,

from my own experience with aging sites I agree with you - age matters! My oldest and very stable ranking site is 11 years old now and every "birthday" the Google present arrives in form of
a ranking improvement. Of course it's often hard to spot if you are active with SEO works, but in this case there is a stable content that has nothing to do with news and updating is not a really important factor (another issue Google knows to distingish very well), so I can see the aging effect on rankings very clear.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by astro

The site was built in 2 hours flat (in publisher on his 'puter!) and meta tagging nicked then altered slightly from one of my other web sites. His site is now starting to push ahead of a couple of my other websites.

I cannot explain why other than age.

The alteration plus a few earned natural links can do wonders.

[davidweb]

Originally Posted by janeth

The age matters for new sites but after a site is a year old I think Google no longer worries about the age.

I think age filter is not applicable in the current situation. We managed to score good rankings for a site which was launched just 3 months ago.

It shows that Google doesnt pay "MUCH" attention to domain age.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by davidweb

I think age filter is not applicable in the current situation. We managed to score good rankings for a site which was launched just 3 months ago.

It shows that Google doesnt pay "MUCH" attention to domain age.

What keyword did you rank the site for?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by vinay11111

I would like to add one thing more here :

Apart from age if the website domain name is going to expire in near future then also it causes negative impression in search engines and may effect the rankings

Can you substantiate this?

As for Google in particular, I recall no mention in their patent re. domain registration other than the length of term of such, as I've above noted.

If a domain's been registered for a sufficiently long time, as determined by the SE, whether by virtue of a few long terms or many short terms, what is the significance of the nearness of the expiry date of the current registration term?

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Can you substantiate this?

As for Google in particular, I recall no mention in their patent re. domain registration other than the length of term of such, as I've above noted.

If a domain's been registered for a sufficiently long time, as determined by the SE, whether by virtue of a few long terms or many short terms, what is the significance of the nearness of the expiry date of the current registration term?

I've seen clients accidentally let domains expire and have never seen a change in ranking or traffic. As a matter of fact I know of one that got the site back online the same day and keep right on going like nothing happened.

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

I've seen clients accidentally let domains expire and have never seen a change in ranking or traffic. As a matter of fact I know of one that got the site back online the same day and keep right on going like nothing happened.

Which is consistent with Google's mention of age and length of term in their patent, and no mention of nearness of expiry date.

Of course, if the domain was expired at the moment that Google decided to re-crawl and re-index the site, I suspect that it would immediately be removed from the active index of the particular data center doing the indexing.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Which is consistent with Google's mention of age and length of term in their patent, and no mention of nearness of expiry date.

Of course, if the domain was expired at the moment that Google decided to re-crawl and re-index the site, I suspect that it would immediately be removed from the active index of the particular data center doing the indexing.

I am not sure if they would remove it the first time around. But it could be.

[astro]

Originally Posted by davidweb

I think age filter is not applicable in the current situation. We managed to score good rankings for a site which was launched just 3 months ago.

It shows that Google doesnt pay "MUCH" attention to domain age.

I believe G. operates a "honeymoon" period for new web sites suitably tagged and submitted. I have launched and been number 4 within days, it's keeping it there which proves skill and is difficult! All too often there is a slow drift downwards after a few months.

Anyway Janeth nothing wrong in being wrong! it proves you have tried which is better than 'nowt! Besides it could be argued you can be wrong 49% of the time and still be ahead of the game.

[/astro]

[coolguy27]

Age really matters because the time and efforts consumed in a certain sites is worthful... But that depends since some sites are penalized even they are many years old...

[vinay11111]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Can you substantiate this?

As for Google in particular, I recall no mention in their patent re. domain registration other than the length of term of such, as I've above noted.

If a domain's been registered for a sufficiently long time, as determined by the SE, whether by virtue of a few long terms or many short terms, what is the significance of the nearness of the expiry date of the current registration term?

I agree its nowhere mentioned in Google patent, but this is from my own experience of last year when I was workin for pharma websites. As this is largely spammed industry and ppl register website for short term to get initial benefits from spamming such websites i never noticed in top resuls.

I may be wrong but still I would strongly hold to the fact that your website domain shpuld not be going to be expire son atleat not in 6 to 8 months time

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by janeth

I am not sure if they would remove it the first time around. But it could be.

Now this is definitely easily testable.

All we need is an indexed site, for which the domain registration is about to expire.

Any volunteers? Or, should we get Mikey to do it?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by vinay11111

As this is largely spammed industry and ppl register website for short term to get initial benefits from spamming such websites i never noticed in top resuls.

(Emphasis added)

That says it all.

[crankydave]

Google has, for some time, has considered expirey dates. An instance I'm aware of, from sometime ago, a domain that was visited daily went entirely supplemental when it expired. It was confirmed it was because of the expiration.

Now, whether or not it is weighted is another matter but they do look at it.

Dave

[vinay11111]

Originally Posted by crankydave

Now, whether or not it is weighted is another matter but they do look at it.

Dave

Better make sure to renew the domain registration. It won't harm

[inertia]

Originally Posted by handcrafteduk

Hi,

My website is competing for the term 'unique gifts' but no matter what I try I never seem to get beyond the second page in Google. As far as I'm aware I have good SEO on the page and am working on more inbound links.

What I wanted to know is, how much does the age of a site matter? I've had my site for around 3 years. If age is a factor, is there any point in trying to rank any higher for this term if the older sites will always perform better anyway?

My site: Unique gifts from HandcraftedUK

Cheers,

Gary

Your age shouldn't have too much effect on your SERPs - not after 3 years. I would make a few small changes to your SEO. Firstly, there are some empty h2 and h3 titles. Fill them with keyword rich titles. Also, the keyword repetition of "unique gifts" isn't very high. Add more textual content. Add more pages, more text to the home page, more articles etc.
Also you have both www.handcrafteduk.com and handcrafteduk.com live. Use .htaccess to sort that out - Redirecting a homepage using mod_rewrite / .htaccess
Do these things along with the other suggestions about load time and i reckon you'll get up. Which will be an excellent achievement for the keyword "unique gifts".

As a bit of a side line discussion. Can people have a look at the site that appears first for "unique gifts" - PinkCatShop: Unique Gifts, Gift Ideas, Funky Accessories & Unusual Presents!
Why does this site do so well?
This is a great example of tool bar PR meaning nothing.

[handcrafteduk]

Again, thanks for the replies everyone.

Originally Posted by inertia

Firstly, there are some empty h2 and h3 titles. Fill them with keyword rich titles.

Sorry to sound like a complete novice but I'm not sure what you mean? What do I need to change?

Thanks again


UPDATE: no worries...Sorted it!

[WDC]

Originally Posted by vinay11111

Better make sure to renew the domain registration. It won't harm

I fully agree

[billc]

I find new sites that put together well, get listed well to start. To keep them there is the hard part.

[Peter (IMC)]

Your age shouldn't have too much effect on your SERPs - not after 3 years.

That´s not necesarily true. It depends on the industry what ages are concerned. And a 3 year old site can still have a very low link and anchor text age.

[Roshan]

Hi

It doesn't matter that how much your domain age, a new domain is also performing well if your site have good on and offpage optimization, but some time it effetc the SERP specially in Google to make rank stablity.

[janeth]

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

That´s not necesarily true. It depends on the industry what ages are concerned. And a 3 year old site can still have a very low link and anchor text age.

All things being equal except age, do you think it matters once a site is a couple years old?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by Roshan

Hi

It doesn't matter that how much your domain age, a new domain is also performing well if your site have good on and offpage optimization, but some time it effetc the SERP specially in Google to make rank stablity.

Per Google's patent, both age of domain and length of term of most recent registration do count.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by janeth

All things being equal except age, do you think it matters once a site is a couple years old?

Depends completely on the market you´re in. Try getting high rankings for web hosting related keywords with a website that is only a couple of years old. That's not going to work unless you can manage to get some really good links from really well known authority sites (i.e. very high PR). And then still I doubt you'll get those positions easily.

I remember one example of a webmaster complaining for years that he was stuck on the 4th page of Google for a certain keyword he wanted very much. Didn't matter what he did but he just didn't get higher rankings. Then one day he showed me a SERP. And his site was there in the top 10. What did he do? Nothing! Just took that long for his age factors to come of the right average age. And all his competition is older.

Most markets are easier and age factors aren't your biggest concern after 1 to 2 years. But some markets are really old (in internet terms)

[Janna122003]

Originally Posted by handcrafteduk

Hi,

My website is competing for the term 'unique gifts' but no matter what I try I never seem to get beyond the second page in Google. As far as I'm aware I have good SEO on the page and am working on more inbound links.

What I wanted to know is, how much does the age of a site matter? I've had my site for around 3 years. If age is a factor, is there any point in trying to rank any higher for this term if the older sites will always perform better anyway?

My site: Unique gifts from HandcraftedUK

Cheers,

Gary

How many months since you start building links on this site.

[zeruel]

I believe it is really important. The older the site I think, the more chances of getting ranked in SE's + quality and related backlinks and content...

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by davidweb

I think age filter is not applicable in the current situation. We managed to score good rankings for a site which was launched just 3 months ago.

It shows that Google doesnt pay "MUCH" attention to domain age.

It's important to not look at the age algorithms as a filter. They´re not.

And about the 3 months range. Let us know how the site is doing after another 3 months.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by handcrafteduk

Hi,

My website is competing for the term 'unique gifts' but no matter what I try I never seem to get beyond the second page in Google. As far as I'm aware I have good SEO on the page and am working on more inbound links.

What I wanted to know is, how much does the age of a site matter? I've had my site for around 3 years. If age is a factor, is there any point in trying to rank any higher for this term if the older sites will always perform better anyway?

My site: Unique gifts from HandcraftedUK

Cheers,

Gary

Getting back to the original problem. I searched your site for links to your home page with the text "unique gifts" in the anchor. I couldn't find a single one. Is that correct? If so, do something about that and see if it helps. Don't do a whole lot of them. Just one in your menu, and perhaps here and there in some internal pages. Then just give it time, at least 3 months and see what happens.

[handcrafteduk]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Originally Posted by Peter (IMC)

Getting back to the original problem. I searched your site for links to your home page with the text "unique gifts" in the anchor. I couldn't find a single one. Is that correct?

I do have lots of links pointing back to my site, it's just that none of them ever show up in Google! If I look in the webmaster tools there are 182 external links pointing back to the homepage. Most of these have the anchor text 'unique gifts' but still my site doesn't budge!

I've also got around 30 links pointing into various internal pages of the site (with the relevant anchor texts).

Most of the links I have a try to get from strong PR pages with few other links already on them...More link juice for me.

I'm really not sure what else I can do?

Another thing I considered was extending the registration of my domain by another 5 years to see if that affects my search engine ranking. I'm not sure I will though....I've got a feeling it's a theory with nothing solid to back it up!!!

Thanks,

Gary

[inertia]

Originally Posted by handcrafteduk

Thanks for the replies everyone.



I do have lots of links pointing back to my site, it's just that none of them ever show up in Google! If I look in the webmaster tools there are 182 external links pointing back to the homepage. Most of these have the anchor text 'unique gifts' but still my site doesn't budge!

I've also got around 30 links pointing into various internal pages of the site (with the relevant anchor texts).

Most of the links I have a try to get from strong PR pages with few other links already on them...More link juice for me.

I'm really not sure what else I can do?

Another thing I considered was extending the registration of my domain by another 5 years to see if that affects my search engine ranking. I'm not sure I will though....I've got a feeling it's a theory with nothing solid to back it up!!!

Thanks,

Gary

What Peters referring to is the internal text linking structure of your site. This is very important for telling Google which page should be appearing for what keyword and it might be a case of Google not being able to figure out which page of your site is the most relevant for "unique gifts".

If you have a 200 page site with every home page link as "home" then you will be experiencing no benefit from that. You should change them to "unique gifts".

[handcrafteduk]

Originally Posted by inertia

If you have a 200 page site with every home page link as "home" then you will be experiencing no benefit from that. You should change them to "unique gifts".

Hi Inertia,

So I should change any internal links, pointing to the homepage, to read 'unique gifts'? Is there a risk that Google could see the renaming of the homepage to 'unique gifts' as spammy (is that even a word!!!!)?

Gary

[incrediblehelp]

Originally Posted by handcrafteduk

Hi Inertia,

So I should change any internal links, pointing to the homepage, to read 'unique gifts'? Is there a risk that Google could see the renaming of the homepage to 'unique gifts' as spammy (is that even a word!!!!)?

Gary

Not at all you can internal link anyway you want.

[Peter (IMC)]

Originally Posted by handcrafteduk

Hi Inertia,

So I should change any internal links, pointing to the homepage, to read 'unique gifts'? Is there a risk that Google could see the renaming of the homepage to 'unique gifts' as spammy (is that even a word!!!!)?

Gary

Don't over do it. Start with just the link in your menu that points at the home page. Then wait until it's all indexed and see what happens in the SERP's. Then you can do the next link. If you do everything at once, you will probably lose 90% of your rankings in Google until all those links have come to age again.

[WDC]

Originally Posted by deepsand

Now this is definitely easily testable.

All we need is an indexed site, for which the domain registration is about to expire.

Any volunteers? Or, should we get Mikey to do it?

Whats the conclusion ?

[deepsand]

Originally Posted by WDC

Whats the conclusion ?

So far, we've had no volunteers; and, Mikey's gone into hiding!