Are old links worth more juice?

[Tom-Anthony]

In the last week and a half at a couple of shows in London, and including today on SEOmoz Q&A, I've heard polarised opinions on this topic, so thought I'd throw it out there to see what other people think, and what evidence/experience people have with this.

Basically - some people are saying older links are worth less than new links, and others are saying old link are worth don't devalue and are possibly worth more.

I have to admit, I don't have a strong opinion on this, as it is really hard to judge on live projects, and I think it is a case by case thing.

Any thoughts?

[AlanMosley]

I dont have any evidecne an old link is any better then a new link simply because it is old. A lot depends on the linking web site, if it is gaining authority and rank then your link will also gain value. But this can be the reverse.

[Getz.pro]

Age of links are not what is important and have no factor in rankings or passing of juice. However, the older a link is, the more likely it is to gain more authority and therefore pass more juice.

Again, age is not the factor but the importance of the page containing the link.

This was just asked within the week with great feedback. Scroll down a bit and check it out

[Thos003]

I heard Danny in one of the Moz chats mention that they could move up a few spots in the rankings with a blog push, but it's a temporary gain.

Either way, I feel both are useful, and yes I think keeping a steady flow of links is your best bet for difficult rankings.

[Tom-Anthony]

Yep, I think I agree with your point about new links = quick boost, and old links = authority. This agrees with my general view that old links don't weaken with time, and also form a solid base for your link profile. However, hearing these conflicting viewpoints recently really piqued my interest.

[Thos003]

I believe you will find verbage about historical data in Google's patent. http://www.seomoz.org/article/google-historical-data-patent

You can also read the following from Google's Page Rank Patent 6285999

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the assigning includes:

identifying a weighting factor for each of the linking documents, the weighting factor being dependent on the URL, host, domain, author, institution, or last update time of the one or more linking documents, and

adjusting the score of each of the one or more linking documents based on the identified weighting factor."

It is not specific on if newer links are better or older links more valueable. Since Google does pay a lot of attention to trends and hot topics I think there could be an arguement for newer links being better, but perphaps only on a trendy base. Meaning new links = quick boost, but old links = authority.