age of site a factor in link value?

[kidmercury]

holding all other factors constant, does the age of a site affect how much value a link from it is worth? for example, suppose site A and site B are identical in every respect with the exception of the fact that site A is 1 year older than site B. does this mean that a link from site A is worth more than site B?

any other thoughts on the age of a site and how it affects search engine rankings would be appreciated.

[randfish]

My gut tells me yes, but I don't have data to back that up. However, if you look at 100 top 10 listings at Google for competitive keyword phrases, you'll see very, very few sites that are newer than 2002. That's what I'm basing my guess on.

[I, Brian]

Certain listings only seem to make sense if the age of site containing the target links plays some significant role. But...it's another mystery to face in how such a feature may be applied - if at all.

[seobook]

My gut tells me yes, but I don't have data to back that up. However, if you look at 100 top 10 listings at Google for competitive keyword phrases, you'll see very, very few sites that are newer than 2002. That's what I'm basing my guess on.
my seo book site was #8 for "seo" until I recently got lazy and have not worked as hard on link building...and it fell to #13. the site just turned a year old a week ago and was around the top 10 or so for quite some time now (perhaps since around when this forum started).

I think more than just age the issue is that the authority of the site that matters. for a brand new site or a site with few links I think that there might be about a 3 month delay to rankings (that somehow is algorithmically programmed), but a somewhat authorititive site can get additional ranking boosts for other terms quicker after it has been somewhat established as authoritative.

[I, Brian]

Indeed, I think the whole issue of SEO and link building needs to move away from trying to evaluate links purely on the basis of quantifiable numbers, such as PR, backlink numbers to page, allinurl values, etc - and instead think much more focussed in terms of basic concepts as "recommendations", and "reputation" of the site giving the recommendations.