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Aged Domains: What you need to Know

18. Jun 2007 | 22 Comments

I’ll start with a quick fact. If I start a new domain it normally takes me anywhere up to 3 months to start ranking, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer.

That’s 3 months of link building, writing articles, linkbait & working. That’s a lot of time.

If you’re starting out in Affiliate Marketing should you really be waiting around for your sites to come through Google’s filters? OR would your time be better spent hunting down some domains that could rank for you in as little as 2 weeks?

Bingo

Despite what many people say I feel there’s really no such thing as the Google Sandbox. It’s just that newer sites are subject to more filters than older ones. The more trust your website gains the less it becomes filtered & the easier you’ll find it to rank.

There are 2 basic ways to beat these filters & rank your sites quicker.

  1. Build natural strong links from relevant sites (not too quickly)
  2. Buy an aged domain with authority already

If you are planning on making Affiliate Websites then can you really afford to wait up to 3 months for a domain to start ranking? How much in potential revenue is that? Even more, say you’re creating a website to promote a particular product, what happens if you get filtered & by the time you end up ranking the competition is too fierce?

Don’t get me wrong, it IS possible to rank new sites quickly & it can be done (depending on the keywords) but what if you could buy an aged domain & rank right away & make money right away.

So what do you look for when buying an aged domain?

Age: This for me is the most important factor, the older the better. Pre 2000 is always a winner.

Banned: Check the domain hasn’t been banned.

Backlinks: Check Yahoo Site Explorer to see how many backlinks the domain has.

.Edu Backlinks: Does the domain have any authority backlinks?

Indexed: Has the domain been indexed before? search engines calculate a domain’s age from when it was first indexed. If a domain has a good Search History then you’re onto a winner. To check this out fire the url into Way Back Machine.

Price: What price are they asking for? You can pick up a good domain for around $10-100 if you look in the right places, a small price to pay for not having to wait to rank.

Pagerank: Generally Pagerank isn’t an issue for me although many sellers will try to sell the domain based on Pagerank. I’m more concerned about age & IBL’s. Although if pagerank is an issue please check to see it’s not fake.

Where to look?

I don’t think I really need to say any more on this subject. Buy smart, rank quicker, make more money :)

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22 Comments on "Aged Domains: What you need to Know"

KC TAN 18. Jun 2007, 11:15 pm

Actually it does not matter if the domain is banned.. As long as you take over and make sure that your new site is conforming to the Webmaster Guidelines, Google will always resurrect your domain after you submit a reinclusion request.

I bought a banned domain several months ago and the domain is unbanned by Google. The domain now enjoys its age bonus =)

Joey 19. Jun 2007, 1:38 am

Thanks for pointing out another way to look at purchasing domains. I like buying already registered domains. One of the things I look for is backlinks. I’ll start checking out the age now too.

eagles325 19. Jun 2007, 4:36 am

What is the easiest way to check if a domain is banned?

Nick The Geek 19. Jun 2007, 6:02 pm

Pre-2000 domains for $10???

Everybody form an orderly line … behind me! ;)

Martin 19. Jun 2007, 9:23 pm

thanks for the tips

Artifexus 20. Jun 2007, 1:13 am

Nice tips; I think I’ve being keeping my eyes out for domains with most of these attributes, but you’ve gone into more, good detail here.

I have 2 questions: 1) Like eagles325, I want to know how I check if a domain is banned, and 2) why pre-2000 for age? why not simply 2+ or 5+ years?

Thanks.

Rian 20. Jun 2007, 7:43 pm

Ive never bought an aged domain, but I would look at a few things.

1) I would look at the type (.com, .net, .info, etc)
2) I would check the domains page rank and alexa ratings.
3) I would check its backlinks, not just for quantity, but for quality links from authority sites. Specifically, I’d want a domain that had one-way links coming from sites like squidoo, ezinearticles, usafreeads, etc. Google plays favorites with these sites.
4) I’d try to match the domain name’s “name” to the keywords I was going to bid on. So if I was promoting a golf ebook, I’d want the world golf in the domain name itself.
5) i wouldnt pay too much for a promotion domain. if it was a long term site, perhaps but they can get expensive.

Thats all I can think of at the moment.

SEOidiot 27. Jun 2007, 7:53 am

dangerous marketplace out there for domains at the moment

dave 15. Jul 2007, 2:49 am

Some really good suggestions. Thanks

Smart websites make money 09. Nov 2007, 12:42 am

Indeed, just that I am curious about those high PR expired domains, parked to a reseller that lose the PR once they are rebuilt. Any advice in this direction?

stirlyn 14. Dec 2007, 1:08 pm

Hi, thanks for the info, one question what if the domain was first registered a number of years ago but it has since been deleted and returned to the registry. Does this man it loses whatever age related bonus it has? It exists in wayback machine from 2004.

Kenric 09. Jan 2008, 1:47 pm

I was able to get a new domain indexed within a week. I don’t know if this helped but the day I went live I started an aggressive PPC campaign for my keywords. My site was indexed two days later, although none of my targeted keywords ranked in Googles top 1000. I started a precise SEO campaign at the same time. A week later they started coming in at the 600-700 area. Then a jump to 150’s, then 60’s. It’s been 69 days since I went live and I’ve got them down to 10-30’s.

Spot 18. Jan 2008, 12:30 am

I put a link from two very strong homepages (each about 2 years old with tons of quality backlinks) to a new domain and it started ranking well almost immediately for cool terms. Maybe its simply a question of link trust and age.

Jerry 22. Jan 2008, 8:41 am

Great posts. I got a lot of ideas from this one, the Digg Power User, and the Affiliate Links post.

I have heard most of the standard ideas, but you have some pretty original ones here. I’ll try them and see if I have any luck.

Thanks!

J.R. 29. Jan 2008, 3:01 pm

Is there someplace online where you can check to see if a domain has been banned?

Thanks

J.R. Jackson

Internet Marketer 23. Feb 2008, 8:12 am

Definitely some great advice here. If your looking at getting ranked quicker with search engines you definitely need to get aged domains.

Great blog!

Sincerely,

Jamie Boyle

Better Online Education Blog 02. Mar 2008, 6:26 pm

This post is so insightful. Could you do another segment on this issue. Specifically, I am searching the web for info on

1)SUBJECT MATTER - Whether or not the SUBJECT MATTER of the aged domain has to match that of the new domain to reap the seo benefits

2) QUALITY VS. QUANTITY OF LINKS - ARe 2 .edu or .gov links worth 20 low authority links

3) PageRank vs TrustRank - What are the different factors that may be involved in judging both and how do you use them when buying

4) Can you simply purchase domains with say +4 PR and link these domains to your new domains. Will that pass on PR and get your new domain ranking quickly? (that’s if you don’t put the new content on the old domain)

Thanks, looking forward to anyone’s thoughts on this!

diet reviews 15. Jul 2008, 2:30 am

This is something I am starting to look into - just because of the initial boost it can give you - right now anything is helpful!

it is just such a minefield - I am using a website to check out aged domains and they just seem to come with so many potential issues - made even worse if they could be costing you a bit of money!

Still nothing online is easy! - thats kind of what makes it fun

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