How much does domain age play a part today?
-
My specific reason for asking this is due to the need to consolidate two of my client's websites into one main umbrella. The two websites now are duplicating content between each other. They are essentially the same business with two locations. The goal is to have one website to build authority on, reduce management/maintenance time and eliminate the duplicate content issues.
In doing so, we will need to use a completely different domain name for branding reasons. I'm concerned that this may hurt us due to it being a brand new domain name. With the current websites, one domain is 8 years old and the other 2 years old.
-
Thank you so much for your response. It may be limiting to them in some ways for marketing, but its also a beneficial change as well. I think if domain age isn't going to play too much of a part, then all the other factors still justify the change.
Thanks again!
-
How difficult would it be to rewrite the content? There are definite benefits to having two standalone sites, especially since they are different locations it's all on the up and up.
a) Having two sites means possibly ranking on the first page twice
b) In a world where Google keeps changing the rules and keeps penalizing it's good to not have all your eggs in one basket
c) Throwing away a established aged domain with PR seems like a waste, especially if it's ranking
d) Two sites gives you the ability to market differently, if one massage doesn't speak well to a particular audience perhaps the other site will and vice versa
-
Matt Cutts somewhere said that the difference between a domain that's six month old verses one year old is really not that big at all. So we can guess that they use domain age as a ranking factor, but it is not so important.
There is a great infographic about Google ranking factors: http://www.entrepreneur.com/dbimages/article/ranking_factors_infographic_2.jpg
-
With all things being equal, an older domain is typically better for SEO reasons. However, if you are doing your redirects correctly to the new domain, should be no issue.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to build ( Linked domains )
I need help can someone tell me how to build Linked domains from pinterest.com,plus.google.com,facebook.com,twitter.com,linkedin.com to my website muller-designs.com all my competitors are ranking very well and have thousands of dollars of organic traffic and am not talking about the big fishes here are some examples mybarnwoodframes.com or www.framemymirror.com , this are one of my competitors, i have analize well all websites and the major difference we have are the Linked domains i have a couple of hundreds and they have thousands can someone help me anttel how can i create ( Linked domains ) o tell me what's going on with my website i spend a lot of money and time but just don't have good results i appreciate any tip of someone that already have ranked well a website THANK YOU
Algorithm Updates | | alexmuller870 -
Do the sub domain backlinks count for main domain and increase authority?
Hi all, I just wonder if the back links for different sub domains will be counted and considered to rank the main domain better or they are just limit to sub domain pages? There are many websites which has got multiple sub domains which receive backlinks? So the backlinks to main domain and sub domain weigh same at Google? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Domain Migration Question
Lets say there is a brand that has one primary product type at different optional tiers. (Think something like SMB/Enterprise/Individual) Lets also say that 1 year ago this brand migrated from having everything under 1 domain (Domain A) to moving 2 of their product tiers to another domain (Domain B), a new domain. They have done some initial SEO work on this domain and had a pretty successful migration but it has also been decided that they are going to no longer offer one of these product tiers and they intend to eventually migrate everything back under the 1 domain (Domain A) They just are not sure whether they should do this now or later.
Algorithm Updates | | DRSearchEngOpt
During this next year or so there is also going to be some likely re-branding/design, etc...stemming from this decision, on the domain, meaning content changes and all that fun that goes into a migration/re-design/re-branding strategy. The timing of this has not been fully decided on. Here is the question: Should they a) Migrate back to Domain A first and then do the re-design or b) Keep 2 separate domains for now, figure out the re-design/re-branding, make content changes and then migrate Site A over in a year or so after all changes have been made? My concern with option a) is that they migrated a little less than 1 year ago and will be migrating back which I feel could have a negative impact on the content and the domain. The positive side I see here is that this impact could be just as large even if we waited so doing this now might be a better, more efficient use of our time if we can migrate and make content changes fairly close together or concurrently.
My concern with option b) is that the tier they no longer offer makes up the majority of that sites business and traffic, leaving us with not much in terms of content that ranks well and garners much traffic. Trying to optimize for the remaining product tier by itself on it's own domain could be quite hard and then having to migrate it in a year or so back to Domain A could negatively impact any small organic impact I can make on applicable pages/domain. Does anybody have any input here? I am leaning towards Option A and but wanted to get some other opinions. Thanks Everybody! Edit: So far, this has received a lot of views but no input. I am hoping to have a bit of a dialog on this so any ideas or input is welcome.0 -
How to Change Geo Target Location of Country Specific Domain
Hi - I have a country specific domain (www.updater.in), used it for writing blog articles Now when i go to site settings in Webmaster - the Geo target by default is coming for India, and no option of changing geographic target. Is there any way to let Search Engines know (despite .in domain) that site Geo Location is not country specific, but is meant for users from all across !!
Algorithm Updates | | Modi0 -
Transfering newly created targeted landing pages on an existing domain to a new domain
Hi - Hope someone can help me with this please I have a question regarding if its possible or advisable to create and host targeted landing pages and a blog on an existing domain, and then move these pages only to a brand new domain? The existing site has good authority and is established. Due to tight timescales in delivery I suggested creating specific landing pages and installing a blog to build authority and trust over time to target completely new keywords. Also the new pages will be helped by the existing domain authority. I've just found out client may want a whole new site, complete with new branding etc and completely new domain in time. Has anyone experienced migrating specific pages and a blog across to a completely new domain and leaving the existing site as it was. I have a whole host of concerns over this, but the main one is that I will be building relationships and content to landing pages and the blog, aswell as linking out etc and then these URL's will have a re-direct on them, going to a completely new domain.
Algorithm Updates | | McCannSEO
Also, the existing domain could lose any authority gained as although I wont only be targeting these pages, these will be the main ones being optimised and this will look unnatural. Do I? A./ Create blog and new landing pages on existing domain eg - www.testing.com/blog
www.testing.com/new-landing-pages, and then migrate these across to a brand new domain. or B./ Create the new landing pages and blog and leave them on the existing domain - period? Concerns here;
Client wants to re-vamp and have a new style and these pages will not necessarily be supported by the existing site, there is no guarantee that we are even allowed to create new pages, let alone internal linking. or C./ Bite the bullet and simply suggest a brand new domain to start with and explain the timescales and its either complete new domain or work on existing one. If anybody else has any other ideas I would really appreciate them. The client is re-branding and the company who host the existing domain, might not want to support the new pages and blog. I was hoping to provide a short term and long term solution as a brand new domain will take time to build up, especially as they are also brand new keywords we are targeting. However, I dont want the existing domain to be hit with any penalties or flag anything un-natural to Google. Many thanks in advance for any advice.. Tracey0 -
Domain Deindexed because of Redirect
I think this is an interesting topic to discuss though I'm looking for answers too. One of my well performing domain deindexed by Google today. Reason: Redirect from a 9 year old Deindexed domain (Must be penalysed) I believe this is done by one of my competitor. What you people suggest me to do now? Don't you think if this is the way Google treat the redirects after Penguin anybody can use this technique to harm their competitors?
Algorithm Updates | | HeIsHere0 -
Is a slash just as good as buying a country specific domain? .com/de vs .de
I guess this question comes in a few parts: 1. Would Google read a 2-letter country code that is after the domain name (after the slash) and recognize it as a location (targeting that country)? Or does is just read it as it would a word. eg. www.marketing.com/de for a microsite for the Germans www.marketing.com/fr for a microsite for the French Or would it read the de and fr as words (not locations) in the url. In which case, would it have worse SEO (as people would tend to search "marketing france" not "marketing fr")? 2. Which is better for SEO and rankings? Separate country specific domains: www.marketing.de and www.marketing.fr OR the use of subfolders in the url: www.marketing.com/de and www.marketing.com/fr
Algorithm Updates | | richardstrange0 -
SEO Test: Domain Hyphenation [Update]
In May I announced test results for domain hyphenation but after a 3 month followup the results have changed and the hyphenated domain now wins on what seems to be the first link instance advantage. I was unable to discover any other factors which may have influenced this test but if anyone has any ideas I would like to hear about it. Here are the details of the SEO test and revealed URLs.
Algorithm Updates | | Dan-Petrovic1