Domain Age. What's a good age?

[bronxpad]

I have a new site that ranks very well and is rich with content. I know that it would rank better but since it's new I'm assuming that it is being held back. My question is how long does it take for a site to mature?

[Ask_MMM]

I've found a few different topics about this and it seems to be the consensus that domain age does(n't) matter... people don't seem to really have a definite answer.  There is a study that shows that a large percentage (over 50%) of #1 search results are domains over 10 years old, but younger than 10 years seemed to be pretty even.  The target keywords would also play a factor.. if the keyword you're going for has been around for a long time, the older domains that are ranking for that keyword will be much harder to topple with a young domain.

Another side note is just the number of links a site can accumulate over 10 years over a very young domain.

[stevefidelity]

I think this is one of those things that SEOs hear a little bit about, then stress out about. Although high rankings & an older domain may be highly correlated, that does not mean that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between ranking & age of domain. It's simply natural that the longer a domain is around (and the longer an actual website resides on that domain) that website/domain has more opportunity to build up its domain authority and their rankings.

[bronxpad]

So what is the best strategy for competing against other sites who have domain age and authority. I am a Realtor and my site is up against some large national sites. I am targeting local keywords with local info. Thanks for your advice.

[bronxpad]

Now I see sites above me that have domain age on their side but they don't have as many links. I have a lot of links that are organic. I also have a more robust site full of unique content that my competitors don't have. So in this case what steps should I take? Thank you for your advice.

[stevefidelity]

Hi Joel,

Just took a look at your website. I'll give you some quick points.

Bluntly, your website needs work. It needs to be completely re-built.

If you want to to build up authority for your site, you need to do so through link building. If you want to get natural links as opposed to paying for links or submitting to low quality directories, you need link-worthy content. That takes me back to my first point about a new website.

SEO Moz's Open Site Explorer is a great tool where you can take a look at the websites that are ranking well for your top keywords, and you can see where those sites are getting their links from.

[bronxpad]

Thanks for your advice, I appreciate it. I used the Open Site Explorer tool here but for some reason I don't see the links that are pointing to my site. Google Webmasters shows i have over 1000 links which are all natural links and another tool shows that I have over 750 links.

What would you change about the site?

How would you rebuild the site?

It is a work in progress so your advice helps.

Thanks again.

[KeriMorgret]

Open Site Explorer isn't a live crawl, and the data there can be a little old. There is an update scheduled for tomorrow, so I'd wait a day and check for your links tomorrow -- the data will be a lot fresher then, but still a few weeks old.

Keri

[bronxpad]

Thanks Keri