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What's an old domain worth for SEO?
Hi
For a new website project I can choose either a newly registred domain name or an older (8+ years) one.
Would the old one bring something special for SEO / global ranking? Did read various advices on the subject and would love to have your opinions...
On the long term I guess a new one with the right name can be better than an old one with a name not as good but in the short name, what would you say / what are your experiences?
Thanks!
Comments
If the domain was developed and got some links before 7-8 years than this will help. If always was parked, nothing helps.
Thanks for your answer, @WHT
In this case there are some links, and they are related to the topic of the new website.
I'm pretty sure it's worth buying an old domain. I believe Google likes old domain, and the domain age counts in some SEO checks I believe. (Don't quote me on this though!
)
Not so sure it "likes" old domains, it will certainly be weighted positively, however that is only one element.
It's a good signal as there's less churn and burn with older domains. Obviously other factors like backlinks and actual domain name come into it to reach a value.
Obviously, DO get a domain name that matches what you're doing and helps users come back to your site again and again to reap the most possible benefits from your efforts to promote whatever you're doing.
I would recommend that you avoid buying something to just get a tiny boost in initial ranking, especially as it sounds you have misgivings about how well the name would fit to your site.
You can't rely in SEO alone to build your brand nowadays. Does it really matter to you if your site starts at the -TOP- of page 22 rather than in the -MIDDLE- of page 22 initially? Needless to say, you're still on page 22!!!!1!
If you have something to offer, people will eventually link to it and share it, regardless where you start in PageRank or other meaningless indicators of website performance.
Like say, google, amazon & yahoo
Tiny? Not if you know what you're doing.
SEO is not for branding, it's for traffic.
Yeah, right. Why try to be successful, just wait and people will recognize it by themselves... hopefully before you die of old age
Point taken, but those were quite early players. Facebook & netflix made it more recently with more relevant names.
Thanks for the answers.
I already have the domain. It wouldn't cost me anything. The name is not perfect but if it can help my website start get some traffic in less than 10 years that might be worth it to keep it rather than try to find a better sounding name.
It both cases it would match the site & might allow users to come back. New domain name could be more adapted but it would be new.
That was my question: does it impacts so little or does it bring something more? like let say page 10 rather than page 22?
Nice one.
I'll probably do something with the old one. Seems like it's worth it.
Please, tell us how to jump pages ahead in Google rank by buying an old domain name that has been parked for X years and I'll buy one tomorrow. I just don't think that's how Google rank works.
What I meant is no amount of tweaking the settings on your site or domain will get you actual traffic from search engines at the outset. Even if you made a working cold fusion device, news articles and established players in the market will still dominate the search results before you do something non-SEO to get traffic and interest. Even the largest player, E-Cat, is only mentioned on page 2 when I search, all of page 1 is just news outlet pages and general info.
I'm not saying you shouldn't try. What I'm saying is, SEO too early may not be an optimal way to go. I think a better strategy is to try and get attention by non-SEO channels at the start. Google -will- notice if people are interested in it, data from everything flows into their rank algorithms and affects things. Of course, such an approach depends on the idea being kind of new and exciting - if you're trying to sell something extremely generic, like a VPS service, and don't want to give out deep discounts LET-style, SEO may be the only option.
No. You'll have to figure that out yourself, like most of us did. But to make things clear:
SEO is now a slow game. It's not like say 2009 when you'd rank a site over a weekend.
While I certainly agree that SEO is not the "do this and you're done" thing, I don't see why you need to do either SEO or media buys or social or offline.
Sure it will notice you, and you'll keep ranking below the guys who actually do SEO because being noticed doesn't mean getting ranked by merit of itself. Could work on a non-competitive niche of course, but I suppose you're not targeting say "second-hand sea shells"
dang, you've exposed the most profitable niche of 2069
"Power to the people", "democratizing profits", "seo lives matter", "gender equality in digital marketing".
Now that's bunk. Ask me something in a field that -I- know something about and I'll honestly tell you everything I know about it. My competitive advantage doesn't come from me knowing things that others don't.
So the only way to get higher in rank is to pay one of the SEO gurus (who operate on knowledge that is not public)? You can still fool Google from your basement, making a site with 10x less interest show up higher by manipulating "backlinks" and other parameters in a non-organic manner? Please.
Funny, if it's a field of knowledge you're ignorant about, how are you in a position to refute it?
Isn't the unique and regularly updated content which boost SEO?
links, social shares, link relevance, it's also nice to have somewhat fresh content if it has to do with news/releases/new products
domain age and index count is also nice to have to pick up more traffic from long tail keywords
Well, I'm not totally ignorant about SEO. I'm not a SEO guru though, as one would presumably have to be to "rank a site over a weekend" in 2009.
Thanks friends for all the inputs, pretty interesting thread on a (way too) complicated topic...
How does it feel to be the higher man?
Does your plumber operate on highly secret knowledge? No. Does he make money with his knowledge? Yes. The secret? Time & experience in the field. As I said, you'll have to discover it yourself - or, you know, pay the plumber.
Is the earth round? Use your logic unit for a second and think what's more probable - a huge industry is nothing but a lie or you having no idea what you're talking about?
You are totally ignorant about SEO. In 2009 all you had to do was blast a ton of links on a virgin domain. Nothing more, piece of cake.
Now it's much harder and that keeps ignorant people thinking that Google is some omnipotent and omniscient force that is to be feared. That's great because the reality is that with Google raising the bar, competition got less as people simple fear work and complexity. And since they can't handle complexity and work, it naturally follows to them that it is something impossible. Because hey if you can't do it, who could?
So what would you consider the important steps? The plumber would tell me what are the different steps he would do to setup a shower...
Gasp Could fortune telling be real? Or, by the same logic, mortgage backed securities?
I'm a skeptic, especially if people can't explain how their talent works.
Now that something concrete, thanks for explaining how that works.
But this seems to depend critically on not being caught doing this and manually assigned a page rank of zero (i.e., banned from Google). Of course, in that case I suppose you'd advise a client to just start building their brand over under a new shell that you'd link blast on a virgin domain ...
You simply need to accept that people can deliberately manipulate the ranking of a website for any given query. It's not just about improving rank though, the bottom line is most usually $ so conversion rates and how targeted traffic is play a huge part.
Personally, what I see of SEO 'sceptics' is a blind faith that the 'order of things' in Google results is like a gospel truth. SEO and information retreival/arbitrage is a powerful thing, with many caveats.
All besides the point though, "an old domain has worth for SEO".
Top of the list: High quality backlinks
Sure. They also take interns. Same thing - to learn the craft, one has to invest time and effort.
You have a point but you forget that on SEO there are measurable results. You either rank or you don't.
That's perfectly fine, no one is trying to qualify to you. But do let me know when was the last time you asked your doctor to explain how his talent works. (I actually have, asking for his opinion in some very fine details of a specific issue being dealt. He came back with paper references and was impressed that someone actually took the time and effort to study and verify was he was saying).
That specific tactic was called "churn and burn". You don't do it on authority sites. There are other tactics for those, as you can guess.
Also use opengraph or schema.org tags on your site if you can, some of my sites appear a lot better with mark ups in search results. It will help with CTRs from google.
This is great for examples
https://www.serpwoo.com/blog/experts/rich-snippets-microdata-for-ecommerce/
Still a bit OT but worth a look over http://www.similarweb.com/landing/search-marketing-benchmark-2015-whitepaper
Which is a fair comparison, because doctors are allowed to practice without high school + undergraduate degree + medical school + residency program, and it's illegal to do SEO if you dropped out of high school.
When I have a site worth hiring outside consulting for, to help SEO it properly, I'll be in a better position to evaluate whether SEO is bunk or not. But my guess is, what I'd be told by a SEO consultant, if I insisted that I want a clean operation with no risk of being banned, that the best course of action is to do what I was already going to do anyways: put content out there that is interesting and that people will link to (and work hard to seed this process through social media, etc). Plus suggestions to do stuff like SERP, etc, that is not strictly speaking even about SEO alone, but more about providing a good user experience.
Have you ever once asked to verify your doctor's diploma? No? Don't tell me your path to choosing a doctor had nothing to do with his papers... but his fame for results... oh wait!
That's cool, what you do with your site is your business. Nobody here cares to tell you what to do - if and when you need advise, you'll find a consultant you like and he will do that. You think the strategy above will bring you the money, awesome - enjoy your money... only thing you need is for the strategy you picked to work. Let the rest of us do unproductive stuff that don't work, what do we know?