Does Domain Age start from when the domain is purchased, or from when it is hosted?

Question

I know domain age is very important in SEO. Is the domain age "birthed" from the date of purchase/ownership or from the date of it being hosted - in the eyes of search engines? (If it's from time of purchase..taking a couple years to finish a website does have it's advantages..lol...)

Answer 1

It starts from when it's purchased.

Answer 2

Domain age starts when the domain is purchased. The benefits of an "aged site", however, is not counted until there is an actual site up on the host. Aged domains are not advantageous without an aged site. The benefits are so minute of just an old domain that it's almost like registering a brand new one.

Kyle Healey

SEO Expert

Answer 3

The question brings up a good point.

First, yes domain age does play a part in how your site ranks in native searches.  But it really is just one small part of the overall "Trust Ranking."  What is important to the major search engines is can they trust your site.  Is it fly-by-night, a spam site trying to fool them into false rankings or is it a trusted, tried-and-true site following accepted Search Ranking Techniques.  It is great to have a two year old site but you have to be showing the search engines something besides "under construction."  You can't sit on a url for two years, suddenly pull it together and zoom to the top of a natural search.  

Your better off to continue to work on your site while you work on your search ranking.  That way in two years, when you finally get your site looking the way you want it to, you are already in the indexes and can just fine tune your Optimization.

If it is true anywhere that patience is a virtue, Search Engine Optimization proves it.

Yes, who owns it from which date, but what have you done with it from that time counts more.  Don't buy a name to do something with it someday, and expect all that dead time to count toward anything.  Get it hosted and start working on it so that you can establish a track record.