How important is domain Age for SEO?

This is a very important question for new websites.

It can be very frustrating waiting for Google to find you as you know how important it is to be found.

Also you could be paying for SEO and not seeing results.

So how important is Domain Age for rankings and traffic?

Very.

However not always for the reason you may think.

Matt Cutts of Google in a video addresses the issue for HERE for SEO Specialists.

He explains that it would be unfair if older domains always had the advantage. After all new domains would then have no hope of being found.

Older domains have an advantage as they have many more links and engaging articles than a new website.

Google is always on the look out for new content. So a new website with new content and new ideas can in fact be found quickly.

However, this is mostly for long tail keywords and not for competitive primary keywords. In fact this is the experience of a printing contact that launched a new website. After 6 months they are appearing for some minor keywords. They know it will take at least 12 months for any higher traffic keywords to start ranking.

Overall Domain, age does play a role, but a small role & it’s not a very strong ranking factor as compared to others.

Do not be tempted to just go out and buy an old domain without doing due diligence. This will cover any previous issues with the domain, was it associated with gambling or adult content. what are the links to the domain like?

So be patient and keep doing the right thing. Do not try and trick google as you will pay the price for far longer.