Domain Age

One SEO related question which is often asked throughout webmaster forums is how important is domain registration age for SEO. The points behind this question include:

    * well-established sites have old domain names, so by reverse logics, an old domain should mean that the site is well established;
    * spammers register and drop domains quickly, thus logically spamming sites usually have newly registered domain names.

Google’s patent “Information Retrieval Based on Historical Data” of 03/31/2005 reviewed by WebmasterWorld forum hugely accounted for rumors implying that Google does look into domain registration (1) and renewal (2) dates:

    (1) … the date that a domain with which a document is registered may be used as an indication of the inception date of the document.

    (2) Certain signals may be used to distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate domains. … Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.

In conclusion, the age of a domain does have some value, especially if there are mutliple inbound links to the site that have been long established as well.