Why Google Likes Old Domains

This is probably a grey area and one cannot really say there is much consensus that Google loves old domains. The idea that Google gives higher ranking to old domains came from a phenomenon that begun being observed in 2004 where new domains with highly optimized content were initially ranked highly in the search engine results page and then suddenly dropped after a few weeks. The phenomenon was given the name “sandbox” by SEO practitioners. It has been speculated that this is an algorithm created by Google to discourage SEO practitioners from creating inbound links to a domain and increase its rank even before they have developed the domain into a website with actual useful content. In the process it encourages webmasters to build content rather than networks.

The only way to work around Google’s “sandbox” has been to buy up old domains with at least a page of content and which have gone through Google’s “honeymoon period”. This does not work in all cases and some industries are specifically targeted by Google. Google has been a domain registrar since 2005 and therefore has access to domain records. In some cases, Google’s Bot has been able to pinpoint that a domain has changed hands and therefore had it “sandboxed” like it was new.

One thing to note however is that, Google remains non- committal on whether or not a sandbox exists, neither confirming nor denying the same.