Webmaster ToolBox

The older they are, the better.

All the search engines prefer domains with age over those that are brand new. Why? With the influx of spammers, search engines had to ban many spammy site. So what do spammers do? They make news ones and thus proceeds this vicious cycle until one day, the search engines “cartelled” and forced down the ranking of newer sites.

Thus the analogy of domains to wine. Nobody wants bad wine and no search engine wants to rank a new site.

The good news is that you can buy old domains and utilize their age to your advantage. Many people are under valuing the price of a vintage domain and sell it for nothing! I was in the market for a nice, brandable old domain and found Drasky, a domain that has been around since 1998. I bought it for a measly $40. Since its short, I can set up subdomains and use the site for whatever I want and rank well.

So if your in the market for and aged domain, here are some things you should look for:

• Has the domain ever changed registrars?
• When was it registered?
• Is it in archive.org?
• Is it DMOZ listed?
• What was the previous site about?

If you have positive answers to those questions and the domain is rather cheap, buy it.

I received an offer for drasky.net the same day for $150 (which I rejected) so even if you don’t plan on hosting websites on the domain, you can always sell it for more.

Edit: Make sure that the domain has never switched registrars.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to subscribe for updates or at least bookmark this below.

Filed under: SEO