Domain Age Question

Curt · Apr 29, 2012

If a domain name is 12 years old, and then the owner does not renew it and it gets dropped. When someone else renews it and whois then says it's only 1 day old. Is Google going to appreciate the true age of the domain?

Also how would this affect the Page Rank?

Thanks, I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to domains but I'm sure someone will have an idea.

scottsmith · Apr 29, 2012

From my limited knowledge domain age has little impact on getting a web site ranking in search engines, as for page rank, if you can get some content back up on the name as soon as possible you have a good chance of retaining the PR.

Edwin · Apr 29, 2012

Google will see it as a new domain. And domain age does have a small impact on SEO, but it's modest (and one of over 100 factors) See
http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#metrics-2 (and comment at the bottom of the page)

dougs · Apr 29, 2012

maybe

maybe...but it is illegal in many countries to store a record of the zone files...hence Google would be in breach of country law to even have this data never mind using it. In the US they can have a zone file, in the UK they should not.

Doug

rob · Apr 29, 2012

dougs said:
maybe...but it is illegal in many countries to store a record of the zone files...hence Google would be in breach of country law to even have this data never mind using it. In the US they can have a zone file, in the UK they should not.

Doug

Not sure if playing dumb or not!

Turn domain age into a score in USA, share score worldwide = nothing illegal.

dougs · Apr 29, 2012

who said that

Not US as they have the zone files...but spain, NL,de, uk ( most have gone)....etc...and share back to US

Doug

sdsinc · Apr 29, 2012

Curt said:
If a domain name is 12 years old, and then the owner does not renew it and it gets dropped. When someone else renews it and whois then says it's only 1 day old. Is Google going to appreciate the true age of the domain?

While the domain has dropped the backlinks are not going away. It may also have been developed and indexed in search engines.
The domain may be 'newborn' but it has history, that counts.

Curt said:
Also how would this affect the Page Rank?

From my experience the PR can be salvaged if you quickly redevelop the domain.

Having an old domain name is nice but if it's never been developed or SEOed the benefit is minor.
Yet some people like them for the credibility.