The Year One Organic Boost

[Ryuzaki]

Of all the years I've been on forums and reading blogs, I've only ever seen one or two people tops ever mention this:

When you register a domain and hit the ground running, you see your progress beginning but it's never quite what you expect for your level of effort.

And then you hit your first birthday, to the day, and it's like Google lets off of the regulator and lets you hit your full speed. It's as if there's some form of percentage-based multiplier tied to your domain for the first year that gets removed. And as we know, percentages scale, so it's not unlikely to see a huge boost if this is true.

I've seen this a good 5 times now personally on my own projects. It should be more but I've always been spread far too thin to get a good picture more than the few times I have seen it.

Of course we've all read, experienced, and talked about "age" of domains, backlinks, content, etc. But I'm talking about very specific thresholds that get crossed in time. The only one I know of for sure is the one-year mark based on registration date.

Have you guys experienced this? Do you know of any others more subtle or more large? Is there any way to exploit this as you experience it, versus buying aged domains?

I've worked with aged and juiced domains but nothing is ever as drastic as what I see at year one when I start fresh. I suspect this has to do with the domain and content both coming of age together, and probably also a lot of the early backlinks.

 

[built]

I'm looking forward to this. I thought I bought an aged domain but I had no idea the age resets, so will be pretty interesting to see as time goes on.

 

[animalstyle]

I just looked at my 2+ yr old site and I do see a bump. There is a much bigger one at 1 yr 6 months, but could be unique to my site and based on some moves I made... Do you see anything around the 1.5 yr mark on any projects?

edit: I started this project off really slow so the 1.5 yr mark I have could be the same "coming of age" that you see at a year. It certainly looks much more like the increase you show. My 1 yr bump is fairly minor when compared.

 

[c4yrslf12]

One of my sites, it's pretty straightforward. Consistent growth every single week for years. No spikes, no major troughs, other than holidays (my niche does very poorly around Thanksgiving/Christmas). More than 2 years old.

However, I do have some raw evidence of it working quite the opposite on another site.

Almost one year to the day, the site started to tank. I was throwing myself at a niche I didn't know well, but I was publishing tons of content. It seemed I was riding the wave; momentum was gaining and gaining... then slam, on the ground, right at 12 months 1 week. I still make money from this site every day, but not enough to get me back working on it. Haven't touched it in a very long time. Makes you wonder if there is some sort of evaluation (or re-evaluation) right at the annual mark.

 

[Tucky]

How about year 2, 3, 4... are there any annual bumps?

 

[finnegan]

Of all the years I've been on forums and reading blogs, I've only ever seen one or two people tops ever mention this:

When you register a domain and hit the ground running, you see your progress beginning but it's never quite what you expect for your level of effort.

And then you hit your first birthday, to the day, and it's like Google lets off of the regulator and lets you hit your full speed. It's as if there's some form of percentage-based multiplier tied to your domain for the first year that gets removed. And as we know, percentages scale, so it's not unlikely to see a huge boost if this is true.

I've seen this a good 5 times now personally on my own projects. It should be more but I've always been spread far too thin to get a good picture more than the few times I have seen it.

Of course we've all read, experienced, and talked about "age" of domains, backlinks, content, etc. But I'm talking about very specific thresholds that get crossed in time. The only one I know of for sure is the one-year mark based on registration date.

Have you guys experienced this? Do you know of any others more subtle or more large? Is there any way to exploit this as you experience it, versus buying aged domains?

I've worked with aged and juiced domains but nothing is ever as drastic as what I see at year one when I start fresh. I suspect this has to do with the domain and content both coming of age together, and probably also a lot of the early backlinks.

Ryuzaki, the blog I'm building right now was purchased a couple of years ago but I didn't do anything with the domain until about 6 months ago.

And as you read in my journal...Google is not even bothering to index my pages on a regular basis, let alone rank me for any terms.

So when you say Google lets open the floodgates after year 1, I can only assume that this only holds true if you had been building content the entire time after registering the domain. Domain age hasn't seemed to benefit me at all yet, even after a couple of months of publishing weekly content.

 

[contract]

Literally...

99% of people quit early.

They find ANY excuse to give up. They'll stop working on their site, sell it, take a 9-5 beacuse the offer was "too good" to pass up, whatever.

 

[ryandiscord]

I hit my one year mark in three days. I'm excited to see what happens. I rank for several holiday terms, so this increase may not be apparent right away.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Domain age hasn't seemed to benefit me at all yet, even after a couple of months of publishing weekly content.

Yeah, in retrospect this may be the variable I pinned wrong. It's always been the WhoIs date for me because I already have a game plan intact and I do "hit the ground running." I let the site get indexed even as I build it and I already have content so I'm designing around something.

When you register a domain and hit the ground running

We know that some domains will have their age reset depending on if it dropped from the registry or very obviously switched hands too many times and crossed niches, etc.

It may have more to do with indexation date or some time period after you cross a threshold of a certain amount of content or links. Not sure, but it would explain small variations like:

There is a much bigger one at 1 yr 6 months, but could be unique to my site and based on some moves I made... edit: I started this project off really slow so the 1.5 yr mark I have could be the same "coming of age" that you see at a year.

 

[finnegan]

Yeah, in retrospect this may be the variable I pinned wrong. It's always been the WhoIs date for me because I already have a game plan intact and I do "hit the ground running." I let the site get indexed even as I build it and I already have content so I'm designing around something.

We know that some domains will have their age reset depending on if it dropped from the registry or very obviously switched hands too many times and crossed niches, etc.

My domain is completely new so that isn't the case here.

It may have more to do with indexation date or some time period after you cross a threshold of a certain amount of content or links. Not sure, but it would explain small variations like:

I'd bet that index date is what's important here...and to some extent the constant addition of content. Looking back, I wish I would've immediately got the site indexed, even though I didn't know what I wanted to do with it yet.

 

[Nat]

I've been thinking about this thread. For starting a brand new site, seems like it could be a smart idea to buy a ~1 yr old site with ~25+ pages of indexed content that is niche relevant, then 301 it to your new name and start building. Think it would work?

I'm thinking there isn't any reason not to give yourself every advantage possible. Finding a website to meet the requirements seems like it would be the hardest part.

 

[animalstyle]

I've been thinking about this too and my thought is rather than starting new projects all it's best to keep the mega brand mindset and start a site that you could build on for 5+ yrs. integrate niche ideas into a master brand.