View Full Version : Is site age a big factor in how you rank?
mg1000
05-06-2007, 07:25 PM
My competitor has been around for 2.5 years.
I have been around for 9 months.
I have more content than my competitor (I really pushed hard to write good origional content for my site), yet my competitor gets 20x more uniques in a day than I do. And it's almost all from Google.
So my question is: is Google holding me back because I'm only 9 months old?
I want to know if I'll eventually get there, because my traffic so far in May is actually a little lower than April, and in general I haven't seen major spikes in traffic the last few months.
So Im a little bit down about it, and want to know from someone who has experienced this how it usually works.
History is important but so is content. At 9 months I'd say history is more important. Make sure your content pages are being indexed and give it time. At the one year /18 month mark you should be about equal. Your content and hard work could put you ahead!
mg1000
05-07-2007, 05:44 AM
History is important but so is content. At 9 months I'd say history is more important. Make sure your content pages are being indexed and give it time. At the one year /18 month mark you should be about equal. Your content and hard work could put you ahead!
Thank you! Gosh I hope so. I just wanted to hear some hope :)
Thank you! Gosh I hope so. I just wanted to hear some hope :)
Good luck!
mg1000
05-07-2007, 04:56 PM
Wait, just to clarify, so I should be seeing a BIG difference in the next 3-4 months, when I hit the 1 year mark?
lakruwan
05-07-2007, 11:45 PM
You will definitely see improvement as time goes on. If you have good original content there is no reason you will start to gain on your competitor.
But content is not the only factor, since your competitor has been around for a while, and may have a higher link popularity as well as equally good copy (just speculating here).
May be a little link building will help you , but as anyone will agree it will take time.
Halfdeck
05-08-2007, 02:17 AM
Obviously, you need to do some marketing. You can wait for the site to age for 20 years - waiting will not help you if you gain no links over that time period. Compared to the power of relevant trusted authority links, domain age is much less important.
mvandemar
05-08-2007, 03:25 AM
Thank you! Gosh I hope so. I just wanted to hear some hope :)
You want some hope? Check out doshdosh.com, one of the more well written blogs I have seen. Currently #10 for [make money online]:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=make+money+online&num=10
Age of domain? He started it in December. Not huge competition, but Overture does have that phrase being searched on 43k times in March. Google trends shows that it had about the same search volume as [mortgage refinance (http://www.google.com/trends?q=make+money+online%2C+mortgage+refinance&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all)]. I tried running a keyword difficulty check on SEOMoz, but it's still queued. The youngest domain I saw in there was 2 years old, a couple over 4 years, and a 7 year old one.
So keep your chin up and try and maintain a positive attitude, it helps. :D
-Michael
mvandemar
05-08-2007, 10:29 AM
I tried running a keyword difficulty check on SEOMoz, but it's still queued.
Just to follow up, the report did finish by the time I got up today. According to SEOMoz, that phrase has a difficulty rating of %70, which means:
Highly competitive term, top rankings require on-page optimization, well-established history and robust link strength
So, while standard lore is that you wouldn't rank for that phrase without "well-established history" (ie. an older domain), this guy did. It can in fact be done. Effort in the right direction can outweigh age.
-Michael
All true! The goal of great content is to attract links but, you could also do a little link building to help. Important links are soooo important!
Either way it takes about a year to have some "history" with the search engines. The first year is pretty important but, a few links from CNN could put you over the top in just a few months.
lakruwan
05-14-2007, 11:14 PM
All true! The goal of great content is to attract links but, you could also do a little link building to help. Important links are soooo important!
Either way it takes about a year to have some "history" with the search engines. The first year is pretty important but, a few links from CNN could put you over the top in just a few months.
I couldn't have put it any better. A few links from authoritative sites will always eclipse a 100 poor links. When it comes to links i believe quality far outweighs quantity. Even if it takes time always try to get big guns to link to you....how to do it is up to you.