An age-old question for Google
LeonEveryone wants to know how to improve their website’s ranking on search engine biggie Google. But most of the time it feels like one giant lottery.
Even when certain questions are put straight to the guys at Google, Matt Cutts and Maile Ohye, we’re still no surer of the correct answer.
During a recent live chat with webmasters from around the world this question came up:
Does the age of a website/domain affect its ranking?
This first answer came from Maile Ohye: “A site’s reputation can be a indicator to search engines, but of course, it’s not everything. Having a site for a long period of time can establish credibility with users, and as a search engine we also want to reflect this type of credibility. Of course, newer domains can also gain users and credibility. It seems like running a good site is a bit like running a reputable business. So yes, if your domain has been credible for years it can help. If you buy an old domain and put all your content on it in hopes of getting instant rankings, that’s not the best idea.”
But, when the question was rephrased, Matt Cutts answered: “In the majority of cases, it actually doesn’t matter – we want to return the best information, not just the oldest information. Especially if you’re a mom/pop site, we try to find ways to rank your site even if your site is newer or doesn’t have many links. I think it is fair for Google to use that as a signal in some circumstances, and I try never to rule a signal out completely, but I wouldn’t obsess about it.”
So what is it guys? Presumably the answer is more like this: “Sometimes age matters, like, when we say it does.”
Did you know?: There are about 200 factors that go into determining a site’s ranking in the search results. If only we knew what they all were.
