How much weight does domain age really carry?

[mattylac]

One of my clients competitors launched a new site in January 2014 (totally new site on a domain that had previously never been used). The competitor has very few backlinks (only double digits), most of which are directory links (dofollow and nofollow). Their authority level is good but not as high as others who rank on top pages with them and their on-page optimization is lacking in a few areas.

For all intents and purposes, the site should not be ranking where it is from what I can see. However, it is literally skyrocketing up the ranks faster than I would have ever imagined.

The only thing I found that this domain has going for it is age (roughly 4 years). Does this carry more weight than I think it does?

When compared to my clients site, we have more backlinks (similar mix), higher DA and PA and better on-page optimization for the same keywords. However, our domain age is only a little over 1 year.

[Kara.Wallace]

You can also use Google Alerts to both monitor your competitors website changes, as well as general mentions of them on them web.

Mike

[HillyCE]

Great question! You can always do a site search on Google or use Screaming Frog (best recommendation). You can use Screaming Frog and and keep an eye out for new pages.

Doing it manually can be time consuming but you can always use their content as a basis for new content ideas within your client's site.

[mattylac]

Thanks Hillary

Any tools you recommend for checking their site size and growth rate or just a manual inspection of their site for fresh content?

[HillyCE]

How quickly are they adding new content to the site and are they using Twitter/FB/Pinterest/G+ as a resource for getting their URLs crawled more frequently? That's worth checking out.

[mattylac]

My thoughts as well. I didn't expect age (especially in this situation) to play a large role. The site in question is climbing fast against everyone in the competitive landscape.  OSE and AHREFS are not showing any new links (or at least none that they have picked up yet).

What else should I be examining? There has to be a reason for the push.

[WilliamKammer]

In my experience, I still consider it to have some weight, but not enough to beat out a better resource that is producing better content and getting more links.

I don't think age is a top-level factor to consider, but it has enough weight to get a leg up on a property that is similar in status.

The difference between a 4-year domain and a 1-year should not be a factor in this case. Something else is in play, and it sounds like it's time to dig even deeper.