What is Domain Age?
Domain age refers to the amount of time since a domain name was first registered.
According to SEOs, domain age is an important factor in SEO because search engines like Google consider the age of a domain when determining a website's credibility and relevance.
They also think it is a ranking factor which is not true.
Is domain age important in any way?
An older domain has more historical analytics data available. That means the longer a website exists, the more user traffic stats and patterns it gathers over time.
This data can help website owners optimize their websites for better user experience and search engine visibility.
For popular niches, new sites can struggle to rank well against big brands that have been around for years. In this case, having an older domain can help.
However, domain age alone does not guarantee better search rankings. Just having an old domain name but low-quality content won't help much.
Also, if the old domain has bad links or history, that can actually hurt its rankings potential rather than benefit it. Damaged reputations are hard to overcome.
Email domain age vs website’s domain age
Website domain age and email domain age are two separate metrics that refer to the age of a website's domain and email domain, respectively.
Website domain age is the length of time that a specific website domain name has been registered and is in use.
On the other hand, email domain age is the length of time that a specific email domain has been in use.
An older email domain may be seen as more reputable by email service providers and can contribute to a higher deliverability rate of emails.
This can be particularly important for email marketing, where the success of a campaign may rely on the deliverability of the emails.
Conversely, new email domains may be viewed with more suspicion, potentially leading to more emails being categorized as spam or being blocked entirely.
Domain age is not a ranking factor
Domain age is not a direct ranking factor for search engines like Google, meaning it does not have a direct impact on a website's position in search results.
While it is true that older domains may have certain advantages over newer ones, such as having established backlinks and authority in their industry, these advantages are not solely due to their domain age.
Search engines use complex algorithms to determine a website's relevance and authority, and domain age is not among those factors that are taken into consideration. That’s what John Mueller said:
Other factors, such as the quality and relevance of content, quality backlinks and user experience have a greater impact on a website's search engine ranking.
There are some factors that webmasters take into consideration that have no impact on rankings at all.
That’s what John Mueller says in another reply to a tweet:
Conclusion
a domain's age does not directly affect search engine rankings. However, older sites may benefit from things like more backlinks and reputation built up over time.
But domain age itself is not what search engines use to rank sites. Factors like quality content and website optimization impact rankings more.