New Site: Use Aged Domain Name or Buy New Domain Name?

[peterwhitewebdesign]

Hi,
I have the opportunity to build a new website and use a domain name that is older than 5 years or buy a new domain name. The aged domain name is a .net and includes a keyword.
The new domain would include the same keyword as well as the U.S. state abbreviation.

Which one would you use and why?

Thanks for your help!

[Highland]

It depends on the status of the old domain. A few questions I would have are

• What was on the original domain?
• Is what I'm going to do with it related to that?
• Will any backlinks to that domain link still want to link to my new site?
• Was the original site still indexed with the various search engines or was it involved in questionable activity that got it devalued?

[peterwhitewebdesign]

Thanks for the quick reply. Please see my responses below:

1. There is currently a 1 page site on the original domain.

2. Yes, it will be related to the domain name. It will be a website for a small business.

3. There are only 5 backlinks to the site, All of which are nofollow links that come from two business directory websites.

4. A Google search does show that the site is indexed.

[AlanMosley]

The age of a domain means nothing. So seeing it has no useable links, get the domain you want, not because of age.

[NakulGoyal]

Are the pages that are linking to that old domain "indexed". I guess they are, that's how you found them in the 1st place. How much of a compromise is it to use the old-domain ? Is it a compromise ? Personally I have seen varying successes with old and new domains, same topic. There are just too many factors that influence the rankings. I would look at the top 20 websites that are ranking for atleast 5 variations of your primary keyword and check their domain age. That should lay it out for you. Feel free to post the new domain, old domain or PM me the URL in private and I can check it for you.