Comments on: WebMythWorld Strikes Again!

By: Chris

Chris — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 16:55:16 +0000

There are literally dozens of reasons why Google could want to be a domain name registrar. Furthermore, considering they could simply check when a site first appeared in their index as a reasonable estimate of site age, it doesn’t even mean they didn’t have the ability to do so until they became a registrar.

The problem is taking completely circumstantial “evidence” like that and making a concrete definitive statement based upon it.

The problem is one of arrogance. People arrogantly think they know more than the search engines and they assume that if something makes sense to them, the search engines must be using it. Personal intuition should never be considered hard evidence.

By: GeorgeB

GeorgeB — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 15:46:06 +0000

Also Chris, not siding with Brett because honestly I think you both make good points. But the fact that Google registered as a registrar about a year or so ago (and they don’t sell domains)is a pretty big coincidence.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 15:33:28 +0000

It is not even that though. The point is that older sites have more backlinks. It doesn’t matter if there is a direct bonus for older links or not, older links tend to be worth more naturally.

If you think about it, what types of sites provide older backlinks? Older sites. If a site has been linking to you for 5 years, that site itself is atleast 5 years old, so like any other older site, it probably has more links & more PageRank to pass.

By: Peter Davis

Peter Davis — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:53:48 +0000

Well, I wonder if age of the domain is a factor at all, maybe it’s really age of the backlinks. Dunno how anyone would prove/disprove that though.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:23:13 +0000

Before I became self employeed in 2003, the company I used to work for was convinced of the over optimization penalty. I couldn’t change their minds either…

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 03:30:04 +0000

Well thats just it peter. It is the established backlinks that give value to older sites, not purely their age.

By: Peter Davis

Peter Davis — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 01:36:58 +0000

Well, it’s a matter of perspective I think. For example, if you wanted to setup a spammy scraper type site, having an old domain with backlinks and establised in the search engines might be one of your top five factors.

Sometimes I wonder if the people at WMW don’t show their sites, because there’s nothing to show. Personally, if I ever build a blatant spam site, I wouldn’t want to show it off in public.