opinion How Old? Is The Domain AGE a factor that influences your Buying?

[dsant]

How old?... Hi Guys, with the booming of the Liquid Domains, Short Brand Able .com, and some New Gtlds, how really important is for you, the AGE FACTOR when you are buying or pricing a domain name?

How old?... How really important is for you?

 

[HotKey]

If a domain is 25yrs old and somehow ended up in my hands for a cheap price, I would think it's not that great of a domain. Someone either didn't want it, and dropped it, or nobody else thought it was a good enough domain to out bid me.

Who cares what someone else thought, it's the value or use that it holds for you that should matter. I do agree with you though, age does not always equate quality.

First domain ever created: nordu.net, reg'd Jan 1st, 1985.

If I ever had the opportunity to own that domain, I would in a heartbeat, only because of it's intrisic value of being the first domain ever. However, the name itself "Nordu" means nothing to me and is useless for my needs. So, if for some reason it would have expired and re-registered, say in the early 2000's, it would no longer hold any interest to me.

I'm only talking from a collectors point of view. From an investors perspective, it's possible the name "Nordu" may be a high-quality name, in which case age doesn't matter.

 

[DNScholar]

>5 years old domains instrumental for domainers but for end users it does not make difference...imo

See signature..18 year old domain up for sale

 

[adsorbable]

I love aged domains! I wouldn't determine my buying just depending on the age, but its a great selling point if you word it right. Any selling point helps, especially when you deal with customers that are skeptical from the beginning.

Let's say abc.com is the example and lets say its 16 years old. What sounds better?

"We're currently accepting offers for the premium domain abc.com"
or
"The premium domain abc.com (which was first registered in 2000) has now finally become available for public offers"

 

[indiegrind]

I use it in filtering typically because good domains tend to be renewed longer/ dropped less, but age to me isnt going to make me pay more for a name I recognize as having value simply because of the name itself.

 

[hookbox]

If a domain is good I could care less if it's 10 years old or 10 days old. A good domain is a good domain.

 

[VIPL]

I have some early 90's domains if anyone is interested msg me.
No really meaning but can be brandable / business names.

 

[DANEYAL]

My personal perspective is, if a domain is making sense, age does not matter at all. There are domains that were registered way back, and then dropped, without getting noticed (as there are thousands dropping daily), this thing does not undervalue a good quality domain. Creating & finding two words combinations that make sense requires lots of search and time.

Even if a domain is registered for the first time, it does not undervalue its worth, if it is making sense & can guarantee an easy branding opportunity for the businesses.

A very decent example for this is created words accepted & sold at BrandBucket market place, most of them are reg for the first time and they definitely sells at good price.

However you have to make strategy according to your personal financing factors, for how long do you want to hold a domain, how much do you want from them, how do you balance liquidity with profitability, after all everyone requires some portion of their portfolio to sell every year.

 

[Cdomains]

Yup, age is a huge factor for me. Mainly because I only buy classic extensions for collecting purposes, not their resale value. When something is aged, it tells me it has been well-cared for, not a throw-away item like so many things nowadays. What I love about an aged domain, is that even though it's value may not increase with time, it's quality never decreases, it is just as yummy as the day it was registered.

As someone who has been involved with programming, SEO, web development since the early 80's, I can authoritatively say you have no idea what you are talking about.

Age only counts for a domain where it has been in continuous existence for a long time. Once a domain is dropped and no longer maintained it loses all its SEO juice. Sure, depending on how long it has been without a website it may still have some good links pointing to it, but the original site is gone and Google knows this.

Once a domain is dropped and no longer has a site associated with it, the rank will drop like a stone.

Google will not keep a non-existent site high up in the rankings for long.

So age is mostly worthless. The only thing aged domains have going for them is that many good names were regged a long time ago, and when they are dropped you have the opportunity to grab a good one.

 

[Cdomains]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there cases when the age is reset. Like expired auctions or drops.

Yes, and there is that factor too!

 

[HotKey]

As someone who has been involved with programming, SEO, web development since the early 80's, I can authoritatively say you have no idea what you are talking about.

I appreciate your opinion, however, the topic of this post was whether or not aged domains influences one's buying. Pretty straightforward. Pretty sure I mentioned something about being a collector too. As someone who loves aged domains, and buys them, I can authoritatively say yup, age is a factor for me!

If you like, why not start a new thread titled "SEO, Web Development, and Programming - Relevant to Aged Domains?".

 

[ZapNano]

ok but if you have for sample 2 very similar domain names and one, is a 20 Years Old and the other is only 1 Years Old, do you think should have the same value??

If you are looking for aged of something; they are all in the nursing home.. And from that example, you can then visualize and answer of your own question..

 

[Cdomains]

I appreciate your opinion, however, the topic of this post was whether or not aged domains influences one's buying.

I know what the thread was about, I just wanted to point out that age is a small factor when considering the value of a domain for investing.

I appreciate that some people may not care about how age relates to that, but I thought I would put it out there anyway.

I did not mean to offend, and I did not think a new topic was necessary as there already is a thread on the topic.

 

[golan]

For me, there are few factors in domain age:

1. As i'm mostly doing SEO domaining, in SEO there are two "ages" for domain:

1.1. A year of the first registration, or the first archive.org appearance. This is very important factor, because the longer the previous site had been live, the strongest its backlinks are "imprinted" to the SE "memory" so the stronger the domain is SEO wise.

1.2. Many SEO's are hunting for "uninterrupted registration" and call this the domain age. But for me, being SEO myself, this is just a myth, and to call it more directly - pure bullshit. Who cares whether domain was dropped in some times of its life, or not? Google doesn't care - it's for sure. However since many SEO consider this factor, i also need to consider it for my clients.

2. In DN hunting, the age matters in this sense: it's a good indicator for primary filtering. For example you have 90K domains in the daily drop list. Would you read through all 90K? I think not. So, i assume that all the best domains were grabbed in 1996-2000, ok 2002 max. So i filter the list by the first archive.org appearance, ant they i get only 3K names that it's already possible to work with. Yes some of them are falling out of my sight if there never was a site on them so archive.org doesn't know about them; but this error is quite reasonable for me.

 

[golan]

Once a domain is dropped and no longer maintained it loses all its SEO juice.

Sorry man, no disrespect to you and your experience, but i call this your statement BS. You just repeat some stupid SEO myth and in your turn have no idea what you are talking about

Sure, depending on how long it has been without a website it may still have some good links pointing to it, but the original site is gone and Google knows this.

Once a domain is dropped and no longer has a site associated with it, the rank will drop like a stone.

If the backlinks are there, they are there forever. If you grab this domain and build a decent site on it in the same niche, and use the leverage of these backlinks wisely (i mean no 301 all 404's to the homepage and other cheap SEO bullshit), the site will skyrocket soon. There is no other way. Otherwise PBN wouldn't work and SEO's wouldn't hunt for good drops.

No disrespect once again.

 

[Cdomains]

If the backlinks are there, they are there forever. If you grab this domain and build a decent site on it in the same niche, and use the leverage of these backlinks wisely (i mean no 301 all 404's to the homepage and other cheap SEO bullsh*t), the site will skyrocket soon. There is no other way. Otherwise PBN wouldn't work and SEO's wouldn't hunt for good drops.

No disrespect once again.

No disrespect taken, but we are talking about domain names and not sites. Sure, you can recreate a site, but there is no guarantee you will rank the same way again as the site ranked before.

This was possible in the past, but does not work the same way as it used to. Many will go to the internet archive and try and copy the old site, but Google is not stupid and would catch this pretty fast.

Yes, you could put up similar content and build from there using whatever SEO juice was left.

If the backlinks are there, they are there forever.

In my experience, the longer a domain has been unused the more likely many of those back-links would have been discovered as no longer working and dropped by the linking sites.

Even so, when Google spiders those sites and follows those links, and they lead nowhere, it is noted by Google and along with other factors has a negative effect.

If you grab this domain and build a decent site on it in the same niche, and use the leverage of these backlinks wisely (i mean no 301 all 404's to the homepage and other cheap SEO bullsh*t), the site will skyrocket soon.

Is it impossible to get back to the rank the site had before? Maybe not, it depends on many things.

But there is no guarantee of this just because of the back-links and site age.

Do not forget that links are not the only determining factor for ranking. Content is also a big factor, as well as many other things, and when a site has been down for a while and Google sees it is gone, it loses its position and getting it back is not as easy as it used to be.

 

[Kingslayer]

i like old, aged domains, especially when they are good .com or .net domains.

a 25 year old abc.com is so much better than a 1 year old abc.com, for me anyway.

Agree with this, but let's have a it right if either one of us owned (or once owned) a 1 year old abc.com or a 25 year old abc.com, we'd probably not be typing on here about it now.

We'd be enjoying the rewards ($) what owning this domain would have brought. So it probably doesn't make much difference price wise.

 

[dsant]

At press time...

How really important is for you, the AGE FACTOR when you are buying or pricing a domain name?

1. Yes, super Important
   9 vote(s)
   20.9%
2. Yes, but not so Important anymore
   15 vote(s)
   34.9%
3. I Don't know
   4 vote(s)
   9.3%
4. No, I don't really care about the age
   17 vote(s)
   39.5%

YES: 54.9%
NO: 39.5%

​

 

[barefooted]

Aged com domains that are expired are always backordered and caught by dropcatchers.
It is hard to find good available com domain aged 18+.

I looked at past month dropped domains:

• On February 1st there was only one 18 years old - bchomeresellers.com. It was caught by Pheenix for someone who parked it. That means the buyer did not need exact geo name. There were many "home" and "house" domains that dropped, also bchomereseller.com, bchousereseller/s.com and many Canada provinces similar domains are available.
• On February 3th anancyweb.com, 18y, was registered and btsweb.com, 19y, was caught by DropCatch for someone. There were some similar younger names, like btsdom, gamebts, paybts, btssuga (40K searches), that are available.

Domains aged below 18 are easier to find, only 18 and 19 are rare.

I found an available 18 years old dropped domain on that date.
It is very unusual, maybe because there were too much "home" domains dropping that day, or it is spammy, or there must be some other reason.

That aged domain is among homesappleton.com, houseplansvc.com, homesdavenport.com homeplansvc.com, homeplansca.com, houseplanca.com - from that date and available.

Would you buy any of them because of its age?

Tonight only one 19y aged com is dropping: nlisc.com. It is not good looking but I bet it would be caught immediately.

 

[Acroplex]

Domain age can most definitely be used as a negotiation factor when selling that domain. Out of the box, no undeveloped - i.e., parked - domain has any benefits due to age. SEO benefits arrive only after a complete build-out of a web site and/or brick and mortar business on that aged domain. That being said, plenty of domains that were registered a year ago can become successful traffic magnets. It all depends on what you do with them. Personally, I do have a preference for aged (pre-2000) domains.

 

[AutoDealer]

ok but if you have for sample 2 very similar domain names and one, is a 20 Years Old and the other is only 1 Years Old, do you think should have the same value??

Sounds like an experiment I did which I paid someone to locate URLs in Wikipedia which were unregistered and then bought them and created a site with relevant content and then linked my personal website projectes in those sites.

30% worth the effort.

 

[bytedo]

At press time...

How really important is for you, the AGE FACTOR when you are buying or pricing a domain name?

1. Yes, super Important
   9 vote(s)
   20.9%
2. Yes, but not so Important anymore
   15 vote(s)
   34.9%
3. I Don't know
   4 vote(s)
   9.3%
4. No, I don't really care about the age
   17 vote(s)
   39.5%

YES: 54.9%
NO: 39.5%

​

NO: 17 votes 39%
Yes: 15 votes 54%

??????

 

[usernamex]

@dsant Thank you for starting this thread. Recently I picked up names from 1999 and 1996 just because I thought they were neat, but I paid slightly more than I would have if they weren't that age. I think it is a sign I am sad I didn't get into domaining sooner, my first hand reg was 2000. I paid $8-10 more to get them sooner, rather than waiting for the closeout prices to drop

There is a nifty tool I found http://whoisrequest.com/history/ - I have only used the free option, it shows history of regs and drops since 2002, I was trying to figure out who my registrar was in 2000.

@golan I get overwhelmed by the drop list too, I like your age sort idea #2