Do older domains have more creditability in the eyes of search engines

[abd]

Do older domains have more creditability in the eyes of search engines? This is a question that is often asked by my fellow workers. Do you think this is the case or does it not really matter?

[Brendan]

To google.. yes they do matter to a small extent.

Google uses a number of factors to assign a rank or authority to a domain.. and one of those is domain age.

But its not the only factor google uses. If you have a brand new domain, with loads of good quality keyword specific back links to a young domain, vs an old domain with no or little backlinks and poor content the young domain can certainly rank higher.

Often an old domain will rank higher due to the fact that over the years it has been live it would have organically built up backlinks and cached content in the search engines, so it gains more authority.

[HWT]

What about second hand domains?

I have a new website on a pre-loved domain.

[Brendan]

Interesting point.. I believe google would see the domain as still an aged domain, unless it had expired and was renewed.. not sure how the search engines see those.

I will look into it!

[HWT]

I am very, very surprised I got that domain. Normally when you go looking there is never anything good free.

I've actually snagged 3 very nice domain names recently and already had one existing, the goal this year is to get the ad revenue across all of them high enough to live on. Right now two are pretty much content free, one doesn't even have a site on it and the final one is 80% done so I have a lot of work ahead of me :)

[lelah_jones]

I believe Google would see the domain as still an aged domain...