Do aged domains have more value?

[Sandra]

I was looking at my sites in SitePrice just for the fun of it, and noticed that a 12 year old 3 words domain name that never developed was worth a lot more than my biggest site, which is reasonably big, but it's just 5 years old, 2 word domain (both .com). The keywords of the 12 old domain are more marketable, potentially. But still, it doesn't make much sense.

Thoughts?

 

[PTTed]

I'm not overly familiar with the site you mentioned. However, after reading their homepage and the factors their algorithm uses for determining values of a domain, it is apparent that they use some weird things when calculating value. I bet a lot of their algorithm has to do with what the advertising value is of the keywords in the domain. It is possible that the higher value domain simply has higher bids and higher keyword search volume inside of Google's keyword planner.

I don't put much value in any of the websites that claim to be able to estimate the value of a domain. The fact of the matter is that the domain is only worth whatever the maximum price is that someone would actually pay for it. All of it is a guessing game. I have had offers by people to purchase domains over the years. They range from ridiculously cheap to (what I think was) overpriced. I told the cheapskates to bugger off. I told the ones that were willing to overpay that I would be happy to sell.

You might have what you think is an awesome domain name while the rest of the market thinks it is worthless. And the opposite can also occur. I wouldn't dwell on it too much. To get a more accurate feel for the value of the site, you would need to do a lot of comparison to other similar domains and find out what they sold for recently.

 

[biGGuns]

This kind of tools always return some fictional values.

Domain age is definitely a ranking factor though. Also the age matters if you intent to sell the domain/site.

 

[PTTed]

PTTed

I assume you are implying it is a Google ranking factor. If it is a factor at all (which I question) it is a rather insignificant one. I say that based on years of experience ranking websites/webpages on old domains and new ones. Based on my experience, the age of the domain is almost completely insignificant. I don't believe that the Google ranking algorithm treats a one year old site any differently than a ten year old website. At least not according to anything I have ever seen. It is so irrelevant in my opinion that domain age does not even enter into my thinking when I go to launch a new project.

What possible logical reason could they have for making domain age a ranking factor?

 

[SEOPub]

SEOPub

I completely agree. There is no logical reason for domain age to be a ranking factor. A site that is 10 years old is not necessarily better than a site created yesterday.

I do think link age is a ranking factor which has misled people to believe that domain age is a factor.

 

[Sandra]

I'm not overly familiar with the site you mentioned. However, after reading their homepage and the factors their algorithm uses for determining values of a domain, it is apparent that they use some weird things when calculating value. I bet a lot of their algorithm has to do with what the advertising value is of the keywords in the domain. It is possible that the higher value domain simply has higher bids and higher keyword search volume inside of Google's keyword planner.

I don't put much value in any of the websites that claim to be able to estimate the value of a domain. The fact of the matter is that the domain is only worth whatever the maximum price is that someone would actually pay for it. All of it is a guessing game. I have had offers by people to purchase domains over the years. They range from ridiculously cheap to (what I think was) overpriced. I told the cheapskates to bugger off. I told the ones that were willing to overpay that I would be happy to sell.

You might have what you think is an awesome domain name while the rest of the market thinks it is worthless. And the opposite can also occur. I wouldn't dwell on it too much. To get a more accurate feel for the value of the site, you would need to do a lot of comparison to other similar domains and find out what they sold for recently.

I've never seen that site before today. Found the detail interesting though.
I agree of course with what makes a site valuable is only what other person is willing to give for it.

This kind of tools always return some fictional values.

Domain age is definitely a ranking factor though. Also the age matters if you intent to sell the domain/site.

Re: Fiction. Yes, I know. It is fun though.

Re: Aged domains. Thanks for the tip. Yes, that's what I was thinking about age and rankings.

 

[ulterios]

I have been a domain investor/owner since the 90's so I can tell you with absolute certainly that those automated appraisal websites are a joke for anyone who knows anything about domains. DO NOT take any of their estimations as meaning anything other than a form of entertainment. Sometimes they can tell you if a domain has some value, sometimes, but exactly how much or even in the ballpark is more rare than winning the lottery!

Those automated appraisal websites base the value of a domain on whatever their programmer or whoever wrote their algorithm thinks a domain should be based on. Do some research and you will find out that anyone that really knows about domains consider automated appraisals as a complete joke.

Also, domain age usually means nothing except with a very certain type of buyer. This used to be something that mattered years ago, a little, but not much lately. Usually domain age only matters to new domain investors (domainers) who think it matters. What the name is, what it's potential uses are, what it's past life (sometimes) were and what happens to be hot at the moment are more important factors to determine a domain value.

 

[projectpop]

I think it might be just that "aged domains" have better name to it, is in there might be more people looking for such domain name and thus a higher value. Some people also get tricked that aged domains gives better PR or ranking factor.

 

[savidge4]

There is value in aged domains.... HOWEVER - you have to keep in mind that all of the big players in search IE Google Bing etc are all REGISTRARS. What exactly does that mean? That means the minute you buy an aged domain, the new information is passed along to all of the registrars of the world... it no longer is a "Aged Domain" it is a newly aquired domain. Just because the domain name was birthed 12 years ago means absolutely nothing.

 

[PTTed]

Yes, proper domains, meaning non spammy, have higher priority, but sudden changes always "kill" all the previous seo efforts and it becomes just like any new registered domain.

If this is true, then how do you explain the efficacy of buying expired domains with link juice and using them for PBN websites? Was all their previous SEO nuked and reset to be like a new registered domain? - Answer: No

 

[jerryperes]

Google looks at the domain age and prefer the old domains to rank at the top of new domains. We can say that old domain name has earned a greater level of trust in google than a younger domain.

 

[lithin]

Age is a factor, but it is not the only factor deciding the value of a domain.
You can easily find lot of 15 year old names being dropped every day.
Most of them are crappy though!

 

[achat]

There are two benefits to purchase an old domain:
1. The longer it was registered, the more seo benefit it will get.
2. It had some backlniks already, so you do not have to start backlinking from scratch.