Does Your Aged Site Have Too Many Wrinkles?

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Domain age, page age, and link age are all important for your search engine optimization. Especially with Google, an older site has a much better chance of ranking well for a particular keyword. That may be because an older site has a lot of other things going for it – more links, etc. But it’s also likely because Google’s age-factor algorithm tends to favor older sites as more trustworthy.

The reality is, however, that brand new sites may have more to offer searchers on the most relevant and up-to-date information. So there is a balancing act with regard to relevance that the search engines have to perform in order to deliver information to searchers.

How do you know when your website is too old?

While the age ranking factor can go in your favor, it can also work against you. While you might have more links than the upstart, you could also have a few more negative blips like bad links, bad neighborhoods, and corrupt files. Keep in mind that search rankings are as a result of a variety of search factors, not just a few. And some of those factors may be negative. If the negative outweigh the positive then you’ll see yourself slipping in rankings – sometimes right before your very eyes.

That’s why it is always good to perform a site review. Periodically, you want to go through your entire site and see where you might have issues. Clean up those issues as soon as possible. Diminish your negatives and increase the positives. It may be time to apply a little skin cream, Old Site. Your age is showing.